3.1
We begin with the duke dressed as Fr. McFake-y Priest visiting Cluadio who tells him
The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope:
I've hope to live, and am prepared to die.
Within the ugliness of this play there is so much hope and so much fighting for life. and that makes me truly love it, challenging and strange as it is. The duke doesn't seem to be such a big fan of hope:
Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
ok, that's actually a pretty fair thing to tell Claudio. Life is just a breath and I would add to his conjecture that only fools and VILLAINS go out of their way to keep it unnaturally. I'm kind of on board with this... except he KEEPS GOING until 37 lines later we all just want him to stop talking, and things have gotten disturbing and graphic, and luckily Isabella comes in to create something new in the scene. It's worth noting that she enters with a gorgeous greeting I'd like to take up/ maybe put above the entryway of the door to my home:
Peace here; grace and good company!
Beautiful. The duke acts like he's going to leave the two alone, but really he goes to the provost and says:
Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.
So he eaves drop on the entire rest of the conversation. I'm interested in the various ways to stage this and if we see him creeping on Isabella and Claudio somewhere or if we only know from his line to the provost that he's listening in but don't actually see his reactions until he comes back on stage and how that changes the feel of the scene... Isabella begins to tell Claudio the situation but only in vague, veiled ways, and we have this little exchange:
CLAUDIO
The prenzie Angelo!
ISABELLA
O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover
In prenzie guards! Dost thou think, Claudio?
If I would yield him my virginity,
Thou mightst be freed.
The term "prenzie" seems to continually cause a deal of textual confusion but whatever it means, it sure is fun to say. And of course, once Isabella comes out and tells Claudio what she is being asked to do we get this:
CLAUDIO
Thou shalt not do't.
ISABELLA
O, were it but my life,
I'ld throw it down for your deliverance
As frankly as a pin.
CLAUDIO
Thanks, dear Isabel.
(that's another moment where the colloquial sound and the short, straightforwardness of the line just tickles me. Once the situation really sinks in for claudio, though, he begins to back pedal a bit....
Yes. Has he affections in him,
That thus can make him bite the law by the nose,
When he would force it? Sure, it is no sin,
Or of the deadly seven, it is the least.
So... now Claudio wants Isabella to maybe consider angelo's offer. I love the idea of ranking lust on the seven deadly sins. It makes me wonder how I view them/rank them. maybe i should think on that as it would probably tell me a lot about my own weaknesses....
anyway, Claudio then has a GORGEOUS monologue full of poignant images and incredible sounds,
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod...
... 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
That speech makes me wish someone would write a scene where Claudio and
Hamlet hash out these life/death thoughts and fears. (OK, I get it, if
i'm going to keep requesting scenes be written I better get to it and
write them myself... I'll start making a list and work on it, ok?) Anyway, Isabella does not enjoy Claudio's speech as much as I did, and as quickly as he turned his answer about her compromising with Angelo, she turns on him:
Take my defiance!
Die, perish! Might but my bending down
Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed:
I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
No word to save thee.
Things continue to be a bit heated between the siblings until the Duke comes back in and separates them. He tells Claudio:
Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her... I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to death: do not satisfy your resolution with hope
that are fallible: tomorrow you must die
So... he lies to Claudio. about confession. irony. then when claudio wants to smooth things over, the duke just sends him away and moves on...
CLAUDIO
Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love
with life that I will sue to be rid of it.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Hold you there: farewell.
Then he uses his priest disguise to get the provost to leave him alone with Isabella.
Leave me awhile with the maid: my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.
Anyone else's logic think...hmmmm... his habit is a lie of what he is... i wonder how this is going to go... luckily, the duke just speaks with Isabella. and it is here that he says one of my favorite little lines:
Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick the great soldier who miscarried at sea?
It's SO GOOD! Like OH! Major plot point we weren't going to introduce till now! and it just reminds me of the Julio Romano line in Winter's tale. I just... I love it. The duke then brings up that Angelo was betrothed to this woman and left her (something no one mentioned while they all praised him high and low or you know when the duke decided to leave him in charge...) And then he goes on to explain his plan of using a bed trick. I love that shakespeare seems to KNOW how SKETCHTASTIC bed tricks are and so any time someone has an idea to use them they have to elaborately explain them as well as list half a dozen reasons why it's right to go ahead and go threw with the trick....
refer yourself to this advantage, first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience. This being granted in course,--and now follows all,--we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your place; if the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense: and here, by this, is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled.
See audience? If it was just one of those reasons I could see why you would be uncomfortable but look how many reasons we have to get this guy to think he's sleeping with someone else! And WHAT COULD GO WRONG with our sketchy plan? (Hmmmm... I would be thinking of several horrible things that could make this plan unravel fast) Isabelle does not seem to have any qualms about what the priest/duke has just suggested- maybe just b/c she's used to trusting priests? who knows...
The image of it gives me content already; and I
trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.
3.2
Back to the lower classes....Elbow is bringing pompey to jail for his trade. and i'm running out of time so we'll go quikcly:
you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts
The duke seems to suddenly be behind a model of restorative justice instead of retributive justice:
Take him to prison, officer:
Correction and instruction must both work
Ere this rude beast will profit.
Lucio, not knowing the priest he's talking to is actually the Duke, tells us all how he REALLY feels about the Duke being gone:
LUCIO
It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born
to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to 't.
DUKE VINCENTIO
He does well in 't.
LUCIO
A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in
him: something too crabbed that way, friar.
This poor town has the goldilocks problem with rulers. too lenient or none at all. Which is too bad because clearly the choice for JUST RIGHT would be Escalus...
Moving on, we have Lucio's wonderful line:
Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man!
the rhetoric in this play is seriously amazing. and in case you were missing alliteration, here's the line for you:
The duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered;
Lucio continues to dig his hole deeper and deeper until he leaves and Mistress Overdone enters on HER way to prison with even more dirt against Lucio:
My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.
Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the
duke's time; he promised her marriage: his child
is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob:
I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!
Keep that information in mind for later.... and Escalus, still upset about Claudio says:
Claudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished with divines, and have all charitable preparation. if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him.
Provost
So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advised him for the entertainment of death.
So... thanks to the Duke's disguise, this condemned man will not get any actual last rights. super.
The end of this scene is particularly strange (and also, I believe, where most people put intermission) because the Duke is the only one left on stage and he changes his meter and begins to rhyme. as if he's using fairy talk or doing some kind of incantation.
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
I love that with his holy vestments he is embodying what he warns against in that line. That's Act 3. only the 2 scenes. No post tomorrow as I will be celebrating my BIRTHDAY (and taking time out from early modern plays to go see Our Town- my favorite play of all time.) but expect act 4 soon.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
M4M Act 2- justice, mercy, and rape culture- oh my!
The Second act begins with Angelo and Escalus arguing over Angelo's sentence regarding Claudio. They express two different opinions. Angelo doesn't want the law to become a mockery through leniency and Escalus warns that going from 0 to 60 on the punishment may not lead to any good:
ANGELO
Ay, but yet
Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall, and bruise to death.
There's a lot of talk about the fact that everyone sins in this play and that everyone is guilty. For all the creepy church things and condemning portrayals of sketchy things within the church, there's a lot of gorgeous theology throughout that almost makes me weep. But Angelo's response to everyone being a sinner is JUSTICE not MERCY:
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice, That justice seizes: what know the laws That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
there's that word again... pregnant pregnant pregnant...
Escalus is not convinced though he let's Angleo take the reigns and his sentence stand, saying:
Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
The conversation is interrupted by the clown chracters. We have Elbow enter who is a very Dogberry like character only I think he has many more malaprops and is quite possibly more ridiculous:
ELBOW
I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors. ANGELO
this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.
"naughty" is just FUNNY. right? how can you say that word without smiling or laughing. Go on. say it out loud. it may not work if you just read it.... i'll wait...
ok, moving on, Escalus warns Pompey that his trade as a pimp will do him no good and that they are going to crack down on all the letchery in town. Pompey's response:
POMPEY
If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads
This accusation is depressing and makes me wonder WHY so many men need the whores and just how broken sexuality is in this place (for that matter, here in this place and time as well....)
Escalus ends the scene bringing it back to Claudio and his own struggle with if Angelo's decision is right or not. You know, I REALLY love how many struggles to make a decision and feel good about it and how many quick turns between choices there are in this play.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe: But yet,--poor Claudio! There is no remedy.
2.2
We begin the scene confirming that Claudio is sentenced to die soon and then move on to Juliet:
Provost
Dispose of her
To some more fitter place, and that with speed.
Well, at least Angelo won't make her give birth in a cell like Leontes (We'll get there... DEAR GOD I LOVE THE WINTER'S TALE!!!) Then Isabelle enters the scene. I think it's important to remember when reading all the lines in this scene that Angelo and Isabella have 2 other people onstage with them as an audience to their actions, so just keep that in mind.
There is a vice that most I do abhor,
And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war 'twixt will and will not.
Right off the bat we see Isabella's rehtorical prowess as well as her discomfort with being open about sexuality considering she can't even say the name of the vice she abhors so much. From there, she moves to the classic Christian apologetic of hate the sin not the sinner:
I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother.
Now we get into some of the really wonderful stuff about grace and mercy. Personally, I think Isabella puts Portia's speeches on the subject to shame, but i'm getting ahead of myself again...
ISABELLA
Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
There is something histerical about Angelo completely losing this rhetorical battle and also incredibly frustrating that his only response thus far is I don't want to so I can't. LaLaLaLaLa...
And so Isabella comes back with even more beautiful words about mercy:
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
wow. There's another poster for you. Perhaps I will hone my crafting skills and together with my fellow artists we can create a Shakespearean etsy shop that will have more than the dozen or so incredibly predictable quotes I see everywhere because that one is an amazing one...
ANGELO
Alas, alas!
Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.
But Angelo doesn't like the beautiful promise of mercy. He is much more into justice:
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:
Those many had not dared to do that evil,
If the first that did the edict infringe
Had answer'd for his deed:
...
ISABELLA
I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
But Isabella is not satisfied. and now she gets angry:
O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Keep going!
but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep
This play is stirring up a lot of frustration with the US political scene right now about justice and mercy and how STUPID people seem to become the moment they are given a little power and only want to yell at each other and look good for themselves instead of doing ANYTHING useful. Yeah, I'm looking at you BOTH SIDES OF CONGRESS. But back to the play- Isabella seriously hits a nerve with this next line that get's Angelo to break into an aside:
Go to your bosom;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.
ANGELO
ISABELLA
Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
now THAT is a perfect moment for Angelo to have the same huge reversals in his face/intentions that Isabella just did. from WHAT IS THIS LADY GOING TO BRIBE ME WITH?! I know what she can bribe me with! to--- oh, seriously?! with prayers?! dear lord this is just making things worse and worse.... and as everyone else leaves the room we get Angelo's well known monologue:
What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ah yes. Let's get into this topic- because people still use this logic right? She was asking for it. She provoked it by dressing this way. it's the "tempter's" fault not the "tempted" but Shakespeare doesn't let you shut down the problem he's posing in this play because the woman, in this case, is a freakin nun. and even angelo admits it:
Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I
I had originally commented on almost every line in this speech but you should really just check it out for yourself. It's worth the study and the time.
2.3
OK, so time to move from Angelo back to the Duke, who remember is dressed up as a priest. But is dressing like one enough for him? no... things are about to get a lot more Blasphemous....
DUKE VINCENTIO
Bound by my charity and my blest order,
I come to visit the afflicted spirits
Here in the prison. Do me the common right
To let me see them and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.
So.... dude wants in on the sacred right of confession. This is the point where most of the rooting for or sympathy I might have done/had for the duke goes out the window. Luckily, Claudio's baby mama can step with this fake priest.
DUKE VINCENTIO
I do; and bear the shame most patiently.c
DUKE VINCENTIO
Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.
So the woman condemned and slut shamed understands the basic principle of marriage and the standard of christian love. loving someone as you love yourself. This is not some stupid helpless woman. It's a beautifully complicated situation because again, the couple that seem to be closest to a healthy sexual relationship get tossed about and abused in this messed up little society... Then there's this:
JULIET
I do repent me, as it is an evil, And take the shame with joy.
So when the Duke accuses Juliet of being more sorry she got caught than sorry, Juliet reiterates that she is sorry she had sex before the official marriage, but takes the "shame" or her pregnancy with joy. Which is the what the church and its ministers should respond with to any child. Joy. She just out theologied mr. fake-o priest. And since the Duke knows he's been beat, all he can do is be a jerk, deliver bad news to Juliet, and run away:
There rest.
Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you, Benedicite!
2.4
Now back to Angelo and Isabella:
ISABELLA
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stain'd?
"such sweet uncleanness"- there's a line that somehow manages to sound sexy and creeptastic to the point of wanting to get away as soon as possible all at once... Isabella responds as if this were a theoretical question and answers religiously:
Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul.
Isabella tries to play the theological/catechism like card again either out of discomfort or totally not getting that these were not theoreticals and then angelo calls her on it:
ISABELLA
That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,
If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,
And nothing of your answer.
ANGELO
Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
Or seem so craftily; and that's not good.
the That's not good is comic gold because it can mean both not good in that she is lying about not understanding as well as not good b/c she is smart enough to play dumb, and a smart woman is always dangerous, right?
So Angelo puts it even more bluntly so Isabella can't shrug the question off:
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;
What would you do?
ISABELLA
As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed T
hat longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.
ANGELO
Isabella continues to reject Angelo's advances and then we get some talk about how women are:
Women! Help Heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints.
... Angelo resopnds with:
Be that you are,
That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
If you be one, as you are well express'd
By all external warrants, show it now,
By putting on the destined livery.
So... a woman's place is to have sex with men and make babies, that's a defining characteristic according to angelo, but we're going to just shame and punish them for it... super... well, isabella is pretty much done with this conversation:
ISABELLA
Ha! little honour to be much believed,
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud
What man thou art.
And Angelo answer's with the chilling and simple comeback:
ANGELO
Who will believe thee, Isabel?
Oh man. that just kills me. See: Steubenville rape case and almost every other case of rape, harassment, and misconduct you can think of where we have created a culture of not believing the victims.
Angelo repeats his ultimatum and leaves and now isabella is the one with a soliloquy where she assures herself she has made the right choice and that her brother will understand:
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour.
That, had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up,
...Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.
In graduate school, Prof. Cohen talked about how Isabella is clearly sexually disturbed in some way if she can't see that sleeping with someone to save someone else's life should not be that hard a choice/ implied that she is making a mistake by choosing what she does. And I wish I'd been as passionate and confident then to speak up about how much I don't think that's true. and i'd love to have that conversation at more length with any of you, though preferably in a more one on mode form of communication than just blogging.
whew, that's act 2. this play has SO MUCH GOING ON.
ANGELO
We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror.ESCALUS
Ay, but yet
Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall, and bruise to death.
There's a lot of talk about the fact that everyone sins in this play and that everyone is guilty. For all the creepy church things and condemning portrayals of sketchy things within the church, there's a lot of gorgeous theology throughout that almost makes me weep. But Angelo's response to everyone being a sinner is JUSTICE not MERCY:
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice, That justice seizes: what know the laws That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
there's that word again... pregnant pregnant pregnant...
Escalus is not convinced though he let's Angleo take the reigns and his sentence stand, saying:
Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
The conversation is interrupted by the clown chracters. We have Elbow enter who is a very Dogberry like character only I think he has many more malaprops and is quite possibly more ridiculous:
ELBOW
I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors. ANGELO
Benefactors? Well; what benefactors are they? are they not malefactors?ELBOW
Is it? please your honour, I know not well what they are: but precise villains they are,Elbow not only has the malaprops working for his humor, but he provides this strange comic side story where his wife is likely whoring it up in Mistress Overdone's house and he is the one bringing his own cuckoldry to light without even realizing it. Plus, Elbow just has some damn funny words:
this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life, for it is a naughty house.
"naughty" is just FUNNY. right? how can you say that word without smiling or laughing. Go on. say it out loud. it may not work if you just read it.... i'll wait...
ok, moving on, Escalus warns Pompey that his trade as a pimp will do him no good and that they are going to crack down on all the letchery in town. Pompey's response:
POMPEY
If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more heads
This accusation is depressing and makes me wonder WHY so many men need the whores and just how broken sexuality is in this place (for that matter, here in this place and time as well....)
Escalus ends the scene bringing it back to Claudio and his own struggle with if Angelo's decision is right or not. You know, I REALLY love how many struggles to make a decision and feel good about it and how many quick turns between choices there are in this play.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe: But yet,--poor Claudio! There is no remedy.
2.2
We begin the scene confirming that Claudio is sentenced to die soon and then move on to Juliet:
Provost
I crave your honour's pardon. What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet? She's very near her hour.ANGELO
Dispose of her
To some more fitter place, and that with speed.
Well, at least Angelo won't make her give birth in a cell like Leontes (We'll get there... DEAR GOD I LOVE THE WINTER'S TALE!!!) Then Isabelle enters the scene. I think it's important to remember when reading all the lines in this scene that Angelo and Isabella have 2 other people onstage with them as an audience to their actions, so just keep that in mind.
There is a vice that most I do abhor,
And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war 'twixt will and will not.
Right off the bat we see Isabella's rehtorical prowess as well as her discomfort with being open about sexuality considering she can't even say the name of the vice she abhors so much. From there, she moves to the classic Christian apologetic of hate the sin not the sinner:
I have a brother is condemn'd to die: I do beseech you, let it be his fault, And not my brother.
Now we get into some of the really wonderful stuff about grace and mercy. Personally, I think Isabella puts Portia's speeches on the subject to shame, but i'm getting ahead of myself again...
ISABELLA
Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.ANGELO
I will not do't.ISABELLA
But can you, if you would?ANGELO
Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
There is something histerical about Angelo completely losing this rhetorical battle and also incredibly frustrating that his only response thus far is I don't want to so I can't. LaLaLaLaLa...
And so Isabella comes back with even more beautiful words about mercy:
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
wow. There's another poster for you. Perhaps I will hone my crafting skills and together with my fellow artists we can create a Shakespearean etsy shop that will have more than the dozen or so incredibly predictable quotes I see everywhere because that one is an amazing one...
ANGELO
Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words.ISABELLA
Alas, alas!
Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.
But Angelo doesn't like the beautiful promise of mercy. He is much more into justice:
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:
Those many had not dared to do that evil,
If the first that did the edict infringe
Had answer'd for his deed:
...
ISABELLA
Yet show some pity.ANGELO
I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall;
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
But Isabella is not satisfied. and now she gets angry:
O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Keep going!
but man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep
This play is stirring up a lot of frustration with the US political scene right now about justice and mercy and how STUPID people seem to become the moment they are given a little power and only want to yell at each other and look good for themselves instead of doing ANYTHING useful. Yeah, I'm looking at you BOTH SIDES OF CONGRESS. But back to the play- Isabella seriously hits a nerve with this next line that get's Angelo to break into an aside:
Go to your bosom;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.
ANGELO
[Aside] She speaks, and 'tis Such sense, that my sense breeds with it. Fare you well.ISABELLA
Gentle my lord, turn back.ANGELO
I will bethink me: come again tomorrow.So Isabella thinks his aside is him no longer listening, then finds that he is considering what she says. Perfect moment for an actor to do a quick term based on looking at and listening to their scene partner. After that Isabella almost slips up everything due to simple miscommunication:
ISABELLA
Hark how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.ANGELO
How! bribe me?ISABELLA
Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
now THAT is a perfect moment for Angelo to have the same huge reversals in his face/intentions that Isabella just did. from WHAT IS THIS LADY GOING TO BRIBE ME WITH?! I know what she can bribe me with! to--- oh, seriously?! with prayers?! dear lord this is just making things worse and worse.... and as everyone else leaves the room we get Angelo's well known monologue:
What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ah yes. Let's get into this topic- because people still use this logic right? She was asking for it. She provoked it by dressing this way. it's the "tempter's" fault not the "tempted" but Shakespeare doesn't let you shut down the problem he's posing in this play because the woman, in this case, is a freakin nun. and even angelo admits it:
Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I
I had originally commented on almost every line in this speech but you should really just check it out for yourself. It's worth the study and the time.
2.3
OK, so time to move from Angelo back to the Duke, who remember is dressed up as a priest. But is dressing like one enough for him? no... things are about to get a lot more Blasphemous....
DUKE VINCENTIO
Bound by my charity and my blest order,
I come to visit the afflicted spirits
Here in the prison. Do me the common right
To let me see them and to make me know
The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
To them accordingly.
So.... dude wants in on the sacred right of confession. This is the point where most of the rooting for or sympathy I might have done/had for the duke goes out the window. Luckily, Claudio's baby mama can step with this fake priest.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?JULIET
I do; and bear the shame most patiently.c
DUKE VINCENTIO
Love you the man that wrong'd you?JULIET
Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.
So the woman condemned and slut shamed understands the basic principle of marriage and the standard of christian love. loving someone as you love yourself. This is not some stupid helpless woman. It's a beautifully complicated situation because again, the couple that seem to be closest to a healthy sexual relationship get tossed about and abused in this messed up little society... Then there's this:
JULIET
I do confess it, and repent it, father.DUKE VINCENTIO
'Tis meet so, daughter: but lest you do repent,
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
Which sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,
Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear,--JULIET
I do repent me, as it is an evil, And take the shame with joy.
So when the Duke accuses Juliet of being more sorry she got caught than sorry, Juliet reiterates that she is sorry she had sex before the official marriage, but takes the "shame" or her pregnancy with joy. Which is the what the church and its ministers should respond with to any child. Joy. She just out theologied mr. fake-o priest. And since the Duke knows he's been beat, all he can do is be a jerk, deliver bad news to Juliet, and run away:
There rest.
Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
And I am going with instruction to him.
Grace go with you, Benedicite!
2.4
Now back to Angelo and Isabella:
ISABELLA
I am come to know your pleasure.ANGELO
That you might know it, would much better please me
Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.ISABELLA
Even so. Heaven keep your honour!ANGELO
Yet may he live awhileIt's so strange to me that after she gained so much ground at their last meeting that Isabella wants to leave so promptly this time. Perhaps she intuitively knows something weird is going on. and creepy times start up right away as Angelo poses this scenario:
Which had you rather, that the most just law
Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
As she that he hath stain'd?
"such sweet uncleanness"- there's a line that somehow manages to sound sexy and creeptastic to the point of wanting to get away as soon as possible all at once... Isabella responds as if this were a theoretical question and answers religiously:
Sir, believe this, I had rather give my body than my soul.
Isabella tries to play the theological/catechism like card again either out of discomfort or totally not getting that these were not theoreticals and then angelo calls her on it:
ISABELLA
That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
Heaven let me bear it! you granting of my suit,
If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
To have it added to the faults of mine,
And nothing of your answer.
ANGELO
Nay, but hear me.
Your sense pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,
Or seem so craftily; and that's not good.
the That's not good is comic gold because it can mean both not good in that she is lying about not understanding as well as not good b/c she is smart enough to play dumb, and a smart woman is always dangerous, right?
So Angelo puts it even more bluntly so Isabella can't shrug the question off:
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
To this supposed, or else to let him suffer;
What would you do?
ISABELLA
As much for my poor brother as myself:
That is, were I under the terms of death,
The impression of keen whips I'ld wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death, as to a bed T
hat longing have been sick for, ere I'ld yield
My body up to shame.
ANGELO
Then must your brother die.First of all, that description from isabella is intense. and some like to joke that clearly she's not quite ready to be a nun with all that talks of whips and stripping and beds.... but I think the language is very common with some of the writers of medieval mysticism
Isabella continues to reject Angelo's advances and then we get some talk about how women are:
Women! Help Heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail; For we are soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints.
... Angelo resopnds with:
Be that you are,
That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
If you be one, as you are well express'd
By all external warrants, show it now,
By putting on the destined livery.
So... a woman's place is to have sex with men and make babies, that's a defining characteristic according to angelo, but we're going to just shame and punish them for it... super... well, isabella is pretty much done with this conversation:
ISABELLA
Ha! little honour to be much believed,
And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't:
Sign me a present pardon for my brother,
Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud
What man thou art.
And Angelo answer's with the chilling and simple comeback:
ANGELO
Who will believe thee, Isabel?
Oh man. that just kills me. See: Steubenville rape case and almost every other case of rape, harassment, and misconduct you can think of where we have created a culture of not believing the victims.
Angelo repeats his ultimatum and leaves and now isabella is the one with a soliloquy where she assures herself she has made the right choice and that her brother will understand:
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour.
That, had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up,
...Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
More than our brother is our chastity.
I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.
In graduate school, Prof. Cohen talked about how Isabella is clearly sexually disturbed in some way if she can't see that sleeping with someone to save someone else's life should not be that hard a choice/ implied that she is making a mistake by choosing what she does. And I wish I'd been as passionate and confident then to speak up about how much I don't think that's true. and i'd love to have that conversation at more length with any of you, though preferably in a more one on mode form of communication than just blogging.
whew, that's act 2. this play has SO MUCH GOING ON.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Measure For Measure Act 1
Sorry for the delay. I have been making some huge transitions and working on the script for the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that Dan and I are directing this summer so the blogging fell behind. But here's your intro and act 1
Measure for Measure- for a play so rarely performed it has had a major part in my Shakespeare experience. was a play I did in my senior year high school Shakespeare class. I distinctly remember Mr. Austin asking who of us in the class had siblings and Meaghan Sloane assuring the class that no one was as close with their sibling as she was with her twin. This, of course, was the perfect moment for Mr. Austin to make his point- as we work on this play, I want you to think about if you'd give up your virginity to a creepy dude blackmailing you in exchange for your brother's life.
This was a VERY surprising thing to hear/think about at my private Catholic school. In fact, sometimes i wonder if Sr. Joan would have had a conniption if she knew that we were studying this particular selection in class. The play has a lot of catholic twitches and issues in the play were certainly easier to understand with my background in that faith, but there's a lot of healthy, and even cynical speculation and hardly veiled criticism of the church structure as well. So that was the beginning of my experience with this play.
I then made this play one of the three early modern pieces to which I devoted my thesis. My project was on staging pregnancy and for the purpose of clarity/defining my boundaries, I needed characters whose pregnancy was most definitely staged (as opposed to the well this character COULD be pregnant/could be showing/etc. etc) and that had enough of a performance history that I could research choices. So the Juliet in this play became a central piece of my research and consequently I have read this play enough times to make my head spin, but I still find new things!
However, you should not be surprised if I still focus on/highlight the pregnancy parts. I promise it is just out of habitual behavior and not due to anything you should be reading into in my newlywed life.
so now that you have the intro... let's begin!
1.1
Remember when I said I'd be naturally inclined to find all the pregnancy stuff? Here's one right off the bat. The duke tells Escalus:
For common justice, you're as pregnant in
As art and practise hath enriched any
That we remember.
Why is the Duke commenting on this? well... basic set up of the play, the duke is going to leave town for a while, for exact reasons he will not tell the audience or the people he is leaving in charge. He trusts Escalus,the person we first meet in this scene, and Angelo who we constantly hear is a very hardcore morality man, etc. etc. The duke has not even announced his departure to the people, and why?
I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Through it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
hmmmm... so you love the people you just don't want to see them or deal with them... right... It's also worth noting that right away we get to the Catholic imagery in this play. the Aves ring out with the applause. So the duke says he'll sneak out and escalus and angelo leave together to begin their new charge of overseeing the duke's justice.
1.2
We move to the "common people" in the streets including ruffians and whores. But we keep the religious language up. This scene also introduces us to the character I find most intriguing/would most like to play in this piece- Lucio (come on cross gender casting!!):
Second Gentleman
Ay, that he razed.
The thing about Lucio is while he is obviously a scoundrel and frequents the dodgy establishments in town, he is also fantastically witty and has a tendency to speak the truth in astoundingly beautiful or disturbing ways:
Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.
See what I mean? His rhetoric is stunning. Clearly such a SMART character. Of course after this begins the syphilis jokes. STDS! hahahaha... there will be plenty of those throughout the play. The main bawd of the city then enters the scene and updates Lucio on some major plot points- explaining that his good friend Claudio has been taken away to prison:
MISTRESS OVERDONE Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head to be chopped off.
LUCIO But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this?
MISTRESS OVERDONE I am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam Julietta with child.
Pompey, Mistress Overdone's companion aka the pimp comes on the scene and they have this little exchange together which seems to take place almost entirely for the joke since Mistress overdone JUST TOLD US what Claudio did and now she sets up the joke asking what he's done:
POMPEY Yonder man is carried to prison.
MISTRESS OVERDONE Well; what has he done?
POMPEY A woman.
MISTRESS OVERDONE But what's his offence?
POMPEY Groping for trout in a peculiar river.
OK, the joke is worth the obvious set up for one of the most strange and delightful sexual innuendos ever. Let's add this to the list of phrases we should bring back to daily life. groping for trout in a peculiar river... you don't even have to add if you know what i mean if you say it correctly. Perfection.
Claudio & Juliet come onstage, en route to prison, and Claudio has this disturbing imagery about sex and lust:
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.
Yes. He just compared sex to rat poison. All the sexual talk and descriptions in this play are totally distorted and messed up. There's not one healthy sexual relationship. And ironically, Claudio & Juliet's is the one that comes closest to what would be seen by the early modern period as appropriate- committed, practically married, bringing forth new life- is the one that leads to death and rat poison imagery.
Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
I got possession of Julietta's bed:
You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order: this we came not to,
Only for propagation of a dower
Remaining in the coffer of her friends,
From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
Till time had made them for us. But it chances
The stealth of our most mutual entertainment
With character too gross is writ on Juliet.
Here we have a couple issues: 1. you should know that during the early modern times there was a slippage between engagement and marriage and the rules about when you could have sex were a bit more hazy. around the time this play was written this was becoming a concerning thing as they moved more towards public and official marriage ceremonies instead of just 2 people privately pledging to marry and a witness making it more or less legal if not religiously set. I have LOTS of resources for this kind of subject if anyone is interested in learning more, including a few of my colleague's theses.
2. we have the age old great the woman is pregnant so our shame is written on her body and because of her body we are caught situation at work. I wish I had to explain this concept the way I did the marriage/engagement situation, but it is all too alive and well nowadays.
Luckily, Claudio has a plan:
This day my sister should the cloister enter
And there receive her approbation:
Acquaint her with the danger of my state:
Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:
I have great hope in that; for in her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect,
Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.
OK, so Lucio is off to the nunnery. But instead of going to the nunnery the next scene we get...
1.3
a priest at the beginning of this next scene- a short and incredibly STRANGE scene. The duke is with the priest and tells him:
Why I desire thee
To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose
OK, so we find out the Duke did not actually leave the country but wants the priest to harbor him in secret. a little strange but maybe the dude needs some retreat times to recenter his ruling abilities. especially considering the duke reveals he has not been a very good disciplinarian and now he doesn't' want to seem like a hypocrite so he's leaving Angelo and Escalus to clean up his mess and enforce the laws he let slip before he comes to power again. A little cowardly perhaps, but i feel for the guy. I'm willing to give him a break... until he says:
I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,
Supply me with the habit and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear me
Like a true friar.
Wait... WHAT?! so now you don't just want to hide with the priests, you want to be given the robe and allowed to act like one who has taken holy orders? WHAT? that is WAY MORE SKETCHY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?! I think this line is a MONEY moment for whoever is playing the priest in this scene to react in just this way but know that he is screwed if he denies the duke. The duke finishes the scene by explaining its all for a reason:
hence shall we see,If power change purpose,
right.... this is obviously going to go very well...
1.4
Now we get to the nunnery. Isabel is looking for a life as strict and religious as possible and is being shown the customs of the convent when Lucio knocks and Isabel must answer since she has not officially taken her vows which disallows the other nun to speak with a gentleman. Here we get a taste of Shakespeare's excellent comedic use of poetic language vs. directness in the following first line vs. the second.
Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:
Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
Lucio goes on to describe that even though claudio is willing to marry Juliet, a fix which we assume would have been more than enough under the duke's reign, Angelo is very different on his interpretation of the law:
a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
Can you get a better description that his blood being snow-broth? AH! such a wonderful line. Then we get my favorite line in the whole play once Lucio tells' Isabella to do what she can:
LUCIO
Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
THAT should be a sign hanging up in every theatre classroom. Our doubts are traitors is my mantra for the week.
Lucio puts a lot of stock in womanly wiles and tells Isabella she has the chance to have a greater impact than she believes:
LUCIO
when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.
ISABELLA
And that's act I.
Measure for Measure- for a play so rarely performed it has had a major part in my Shakespeare experience. was a play I did in my senior year high school Shakespeare class. I distinctly remember Mr. Austin asking who of us in the class had siblings and Meaghan Sloane assuring the class that no one was as close with their sibling as she was with her twin. This, of course, was the perfect moment for Mr. Austin to make his point- as we work on this play, I want you to think about if you'd give up your virginity to a creepy dude blackmailing you in exchange for your brother's life.
This was a VERY surprising thing to hear/think about at my private Catholic school. In fact, sometimes i wonder if Sr. Joan would have had a conniption if she knew that we were studying this particular selection in class. The play has a lot of catholic twitches and issues in the play were certainly easier to understand with my background in that faith, but there's a lot of healthy, and even cynical speculation and hardly veiled criticism of the church structure as well. So that was the beginning of my experience with this play.
I then made this play one of the three early modern pieces to which I devoted my thesis. My project was on staging pregnancy and for the purpose of clarity/defining my boundaries, I needed characters whose pregnancy was most definitely staged (as opposed to the well this character COULD be pregnant/could be showing/etc. etc) and that had enough of a performance history that I could research choices. So the Juliet in this play became a central piece of my research and consequently I have read this play enough times to make my head spin, but I still find new things!
However, you should not be surprised if I still focus on/highlight the pregnancy parts. I promise it is just out of habitual behavior and not due to anything you should be reading into in my newlywed life.
so now that you have the intro... let's begin!
1.1
Remember when I said I'd be naturally inclined to find all the pregnancy stuff? Here's one right off the bat. The duke tells Escalus:
For common justice, you're as pregnant in
As art and practise hath enriched any
That we remember.
Why is the Duke commenting on this? well... basic set up of the play, the duke is going to leave town for a while, for exact reasons he will not tell the audience or the people he is leaving in charge. He trusts Escalus,the person we first meet in this scene, and Angelo who we constantly hear is a very hardcore morality man, etc. etc. The duke has not even announced his departure to the people, and why?
I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Through it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
hmmmm... so you love the people you just don't want to see them or deal with them... right... It's also worth noting that right away we get to the Catholic imagery in this play. the Aves ring out with the applause. So the duke says he'll sneak out and escalus and angelo leave together to begin their new charge of overseeing the duke's justice.
1.2
We move to the "common people" in the streets including ruffians and whores. But we keep the religious language up. This scene also introduces us to the character I find most intriguing/would most like to play in this piece- Lucio (come on cross gender casting!!):
Second Gentleman
Amen.LUCIO
Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table.Second Gentleman
'Thou shalt not steal'?LUCIO
Ay, that he razed.
The thing about Lucio is while he is obviously a scoundrel and frequents the dodgy establishments in town, he is also fantastically witty and has a tendency to speak the truth in astoundingly beautiful or disturbing ways:
Grace is grace, despite of all controversy: as, for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.
See what I mean? His rhetoric is stunning. Clearly such a SMART character. Of course after this begins the syphilis jokes. STDS! hahahaha... there will be plenty of those throughout the play. The main bawd of the city then enters the scene and updates Lucio on some major plot points- explaining that his good friend Claudio has been taken away to prison:
MISTRESS OVERDONE Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested, saw him carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his head to be chopped off.
LUCIO But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this?
MISTRESS OVERDONE I am too sure of it: and it is for getting Madam Julietta with child.
Pompey, Mistress Overdone's companion aka the pimp comes on the scene and they have this little exchange together which seems to take place almost entirely for the joke since Mistress overdone JUST TOLD US what Claudio did and now she sets up the joke asking what he's done:
POMPEY Yonder man is carried to prison.
MISTRESS OVERDONE Well; what has he done?
POMPEY A woman.
MISTRESS OVERDONE But what's his offence?
POMPEY Groping for trout in a peculiar river.
OK, the joke is worth the obvious set up for one of the most strange and delightful sexual innuendos ever. Let's add this to the list of phrases we should bring back to daily life. groping for trout in a peculiar river... you don't even have to add if you know what i mean if you say it correctly. Perfection.
Claudio & Juliet come onstage, en route to prison, and Claudio has this disturbing imagery about sex and lust:
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.
Yes. He just compared sex to rat poison. All the sexual talk and descriptions in this play are totally distorted and messed up. There's not one healthy sexual relationship. And ironically, Claudio & Juliet's is the one that comes closest to what would be seen by the early modern period as appropriate- committed, practically married, bringing forth new life- is the one that leads to death and rat poison imagery.
Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
I got possession of Julietta's bed:
You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
Save that we do the denunciation lack
Of outward order: this we came not to,
Only for propagation of a dower
Remaining in the coffer of her friends,
From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
Till time had made them for us. But it chances
The stealth of our most mutual entertainment
With character too gross is writ on Juliet.
Here we have a couple issues: 1. you should know that during the early modern times there was a slippage between engagement and marriage and the rules about when you could have sex were a bit more hazy. around the time this play was written this was becoming a concerning thing as they moved more towards public and official marriage ceremonies instead of just 2 people privately pledging to marry and a witness making it more or less legal if not religiously set. I have LOTS of resources for this kind of subject if anyone is interested in learning more, including a few of my colleague's theses.
2. we have the age old great the woman is pregnant so our shame is written on her body and because of her body we are caught situation at work. I wish I had to explain this concept the way I did the marriage/engagement situation, but it is all too alive and well nowadays.
Luckily, Claudio has a plan:
This day my sister should the cloister enter
And there receive her approbation:
Acquaint her with the danger of my state:
Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him:
I have great hope in that; for in her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect,
Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
When she will play with reason and discourse,
And well she can persuade.
OK, so Lucio is off to the nunnery. But instead of going to the nunnery the next scene we get...
1.3
a priest at the beginning of this next scene- a short and incredibly STRANGE scene. The duke is with the priest and tells him:
Why I desire thee
To give me secret harbour, hath a purpose
OK, so we find out the Duke did not actually leave the country but wants the priest to harbor him in secret. a little strange but maybe the dude needs some retreat times to recenter his ruling abilities. especially considering the duke reveals he has not been a very good disciplinarian and now he doesn't' want to seem like a hypocrite so he's leaving Angelo and Escalus to clean up his mess and enforce the laws he let slip before he comes to power again. A little cowardly perhaps, but i feel for the guy. I'm willing to give him a break... until he says:
I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,
Supply me with the habit and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear me
Like a true friar.
Wait... WHAT?! so now you don't just want to hide with the priests, you want to be given the robe and allowed to act like one who has taken holy orders? WHAT? that is WAY MORE SKETCHY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?! I think this line is a MONEY moment for whoever is playing the priest in this scene to react in just this way but know that he is screwed if he denies the duke. The duke finishes the scene by explaining its all for a reason:
hence shall we see,If power change purpose,
right.... this is obviously going to go very well...
1.4
Now we get to the nunnery. Isabel is looking for a life as strict and religious as possible and is being shown the customs of the convent when Lucio knocks and Isabel must answer since she has not officially taken her vows which disallows the other nun to speak with a gentleman. Here we get a taste of Shakespeare's excellent comedic use of poetic language vs. directness in the following first line vs. the second.
Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you:
Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
Lucio goes on to describe that even though claudio is willing to marry Juliet, a fix which we assume would have been more than enough under the duke's reign, Angelo is very different on his interpretation of the law:
a man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
With profits of the mind, study and fast.
Can you get a better description that his blood being snow-broth? AH! such a wonderful line. Then we get my favorite line in the whole play once Lucio tells' Isabella to do what she can:
LUCIO
Assay the power you have.ISABELLA
My power? Alas, I doubt--LUCIO
Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
THAT should be a sign hanging up in every theatre classroom. Our doubts are traitors is my mantra for the week.
Lucio puts a lot of stock in womanly wiles and tells Isabella she has the chance to have a greater impact than she believes:
LUCIO
when maidens sue,
Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
All their petitions are as freely theirs
As they themselves would owe them.
ISABELLA
I'll see what I can do.That little response is another example of the directness that is just so wry after such a poetic image that it never fails to just tickle my funny bone!
And that's act I.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
AYLI Act 5
5.1
A very short scene. We're back to touchstone and Audrey. we find out that Audrey may or may not have been involved with Wililam. William shows up and agrees that he loves audrey/intends to marry her, yet, by first look at the script, it seems that as soon as Touchstone says he's going to marry Audrey instead he's like whatever... cool. i'll go. no bother. I guess there's a lot of interesting things you can do with the staging/touchstone's threats/etc.
5.2
Oliver and Orlando are having bromance times and discussing how fast Oliver fell in love with Celia and how they would like to marry... TOMORROW.
Then Rosalind enters and has one of her most famous lines that may be overused but I couldn't care less it is still lovely.
no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage
Dan claims this kind of love for me, that he knew as soon as he saw me. It took me a little longer to fall quite that hard, but longevity and intensity make up for a late start, right?
they are in the very wrath of love and they will together; clubs cannot part them.
This always makes me laugh. because who is going to come into the FOREST OF ARDEN with clubs against lovers? silly Rosalind, those are courtly worries. Orlando's response to the impending nuptials?
O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness
I can get behind Orlando's mixed feelings of joy and sorrow. It has to be rough to be at your brother's wedding while you are still pining for someone else. When "Rosalind" (who, as we know, is ACTUALLY Rosalind bu he doesn't of course) tries to comfort Orlando and tries to have him keep up the game of pretending, Orlando has possibly my FAVORITE line in the play:
I can live no longer by thinking.
I think that is going on my life mantras list. How has that not made its way to about a thousand Pinterest boards?! And then we have this gem of a scene/ some really lovely observations on love. I've skipped some of the and I for... parallelism so we could get to the meat of Silvius' lines, but the structure is certainly fun for actors to play with/ funny for the audience to hear repeated. (Those of you who know Zac Hoogendyk should pester him about the really wonderful scene he wrote based on this structure. Highly recommended and I'm sad i did not get to see it performed.)
PHEBE
Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.SILVIUS
It is to be all made of sighs and tears;PHEBE
And so am I for Phebe.
And I for Ganymede.ORLANDO
And I for Rosalind.ROSALIND
And I for no woman.
...
SILVIUS
It is to be all made of faith and service;
It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance;
All made of passion and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance;
Can anyone argue with that? and then Rosalind sets up ALL the chess pieces for the final scene (I think its funny that this online editions specifies who it is to in the stage directions. i know some don't and it seems intuitive...)
To SILVIUS
I will help you, if I can:
To PHEBE
I would love you, if I could. To-morrow meet me all together.
To PHEBE
I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I'll be married to-morrow:
To ORLANDO
I will satisfy you, if ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow:
To SILVIUS
I will content you, if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married to-morrow.
5.3
EVERYONE IS GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW! including touchtstone and audrey.
The rest of the scene is mostly taken up by ANOTHER SONG. but this is perhaps my favorite as you like it song:
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
If you are doing shakespeare by seasons AYLI definitely goes in the spring (let's see, then we have midsummer, winter's tale... any suggestions for Fall?! my gut says Richard II but I'm wondering if there's a more obvious choice?)
Then Touchstone gets in a couple more fool jabs to end the scene:
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.First Page
You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time.TOUCHSTONE
By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song.
5.4
The FINALE! Everyone is going to get married. It's the most comedic comedy ever if we are going by wedding counts. There's this classic moment of the audience saying DUH to the characters that will be perfected in Winter's Tale:
DUKE SENIOR
I do remember in this shepherd boy
Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.ORLANDO
My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
Methought he was a brother to your daughter:
OF COURSE YOU DID BECAUSE IT IS DUKE SENIOR'S DAUGHTER. oh man... and yet I smile every time...Jaques is with me on the absurd number of marriages going on in the Forest of Arden (I believe there's an Importance of Being Ernest line that would also work here... but let's stick with jaques)
There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to the ark.
I'm going to skip over this last bit of fooling/ very long joke set up/etc. and although I am ignoring the touchstone seventh cause monologue I hope you all don't think I don't like it, just my reactions to it are not really any different from before I was married and I don't have particularly passionate feelings to share about that moment... because how can we dwell on that when the overly complicated resolution is coming?! SO.... there's really NO REASON why Rosalind couldn't just show up with Celia, both of them dressed in their regular clothes for the big reveal/marriages/happy endings. But does she do that? NO, SOMEHOW, she hooks everybody up with THE GOD OF MARRIAGE CEREMONIES:
Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIAHYMEN
Still Music
Then is there mirth in heaven,
When earthly things made even
Atone together.
Good duke, receive thy daughter
Hymen from heaven brought her,
Yea, brought her hither,
That thou mightst join her hand with his
Whose heart within his bosom is.
HOW DO YOU STAGE THIS MOMENT?! how do you costume/makeup/ position this character? etc. Please let me know some of your favorites for how this was done. I found this gem from a university in Michigan/ a quick google search- that looks like some RAD puppetry.
From here, surprise surprise, Hymen sings another:
SONG.
Wedding is great Juno's crown:
O blessed bond of board and bed!
'Tis Hymen peoples every town;
High wedlock then be honoured:
Honour, high honour and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!
Wedding is great Juno's crown:
O blessed bond of board and bed!
'Tis Hymen peoples every town;
High wedlock then be honoured:
Honour, high honour and renown,
To Hymen, god of every town!
After this song in comes a messenger, another Jaques- why he has the same name no one knows... and this is what he has to say about the other Duke:
meeting with an old religious man,
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise and from the world,
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
And all their lands restored to them again
That were with him exiled. This to be true,
I do engage my life.
After some question with him, was converted
Both from his enterprise and from the world,
His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
And all their lands restored to them again
That were with him exiled. This to be true,
I do engage my life.
And how does everyone onstage react to this serious/ dramatic/slightly insane news? Well, they take their cue from the Duke:
Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity
And fall into our rustic revelry.
Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.
And fall into our rustic revelry.
Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall.
WHAT?! SERIOUSLY?! that is your reaction? Thank god at least Jaques wants to stop the music and have a moment (though I'd like to stage it where that is the general feeling but it's the duke saying forget it so what can they do...)
Jaques explains:
I am for other than for dancing measures.
Jaques then says he will follow the other duke/ continue with his melancholy, etc. I think he's too depressed to be at a wedding. Especially a wedding with this many people getting married all at once. He probably has the heart heaviness that Orlando thought he'd have. Duke Senior tries to stop him then when he sees its a lost cause says:
Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites,
As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.A dance
And with all that music we end the official play leaving us with:
THE EPILOGUE:
What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play!
This line always makes me wonder what makes a play good or bad and if this is simply an applause tactic/false modest, or if Shakespeare really did not think it was a good play but perhaps a really wonderful play anyway?
If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
There's much to be said on the gender games of this- especially now that most Rosalinds are played by women. But you could claim that no one could please her except her Orlando and then she does not have to worry about the audience kissing offers... but still, something is lost when we don't have a young boy playing this role... Speaking of, I'm looking forward to reading Jessica Scheirmeister's thesis on youth in petticoats next week so I will probably have edits/more thoughts after reading that.
That's As You lIke it! Next up: MEASURE FOR MEASURE!! nothing like a problem play- nuns, blackmail, and REFUSALS TO DIE!!!
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
AYLI Act 4: what makes a marriage "fake", awkward jokes, and more songs...
OK, this entry is going to be a whirlwind as I have Midsummer callbacks to prepare for but don't want to delay this post another day.
4.1
the scene starts with Rosalind and Jaques discussing his melancholy and their comparative life experience:
ROSALIND
A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then, to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.JAQUES
Yes, I have gained my experience.ROSALIND
And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too!
Oh Jaques, I understand!! I feel like that about some of my adventures/travels for sure, or when I think of student debt... BUT lucky for me.... SO MANY of my experiences have also made me happy beyond words. All I can do is hope that after the play ends, Jaques finds his own happy experiences that balance his melancholy (but not take it away entirely, because that's part of what we love about him, right?) Then in comes Orlando to woo and be cured of his lovesickness...
ORLANDO
Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!JAQUES
Nay, then, God be wi' you, an you talk in blank verse.
More referencing poetic terms. love. it.
ROSALIND
Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I had as lief be wooed of a snail.ORLANDO
Of a snail?ROSALIND
Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman
I LOVE moments in plays where characters use phrases/make jokes and then are made to explain them. it makes for so many happy/awkward/delicious stage moments!
Rosalind then goes on to talk of all the exageration used in love and how no one dies of love, as much as they may say it.
But these are all lies: men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
truth. love that line.
ROSALIND
Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.ORLANDO
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?
Pray thee, marry us.CELIA
I cannot say the words.
Wondering WHY Celia feels she cannot say the words? It would have been very confusing whether the actors would then be married as the words of the wedding vows held THAT MUCH WEIGHT. for more consideration of this, I once again refer you to a post on Tony's blog
ORLANDO
O, but she is wise.ROSALIND
Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
Rosalind's last line there was displayed in my English teacher's classroom senior year at our all girl's school. I LOVE the line itself but didn't realize some of the negative connotations with it or the disturbing/horrible thigns rosalind says thereafter. which is why I love it when Celia says after:
CELIA
You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest.
How does it change a scene when the sexism is challenged? and when it is both said and challenged by the same gender? going to be musing on that one and curious to see the next time it is staged what impact that has/how they stage those moments/how Celia reacts in that moment vs. when Orlando leaves.
Of course, rosalind blames cupid (with a lovely description of that whole idea) and Celia is still having none of it. Her response absolutely tickles me.
ROSALIND
No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and sigh till he come.CELIA
And I'll sleep.
4.2
Jaques and the forester have killed a deer and Jaques wants to sing about it. I'm telling you, AYLI is practically a musical... anyone have favorite musical arrangements of these songs? because its harder than you'd think to find clips of them and in their absence, I give you one of the Shakespeare at Winedales interlude songs from when they did AYLI. (EDIT: when I wrote this I found that clip on youtube no problem, but now whe I search within the blogger website it won't let me find it. so instead I give you to cuckoo song!! which I promise is just as marvelous if not more so...)
4.3
Orlando is late again and Rosalind is not happy. Silvius enters with Phoebe's letter and continues to charm the heck out of me:
It bears an angry tenor: pardon me:
I am but as a guiltless messenger.
I am but as a guiltless messenger.
Rosalind plays some sort of mind game with Silvius and even though the letter praises Ganymede she makes it sound like it is full of insults.
ROSALIND
Patience herself would startle at this letter
And play the swaggerer; bear this, bear all:
She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phoenix. '
later the letter is described thus, and I like the effect of saying this absolute about women that has already been proved untrue...
women's gentle brain
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention
Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention
Finally she uses some ANTHIMERIA at its finest. (my FAVORITE rhetorical device.)
She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
After Silvius leaves, we get Oliver's entrance and the description of Orlando saving him/ explaining Orlando's absence:
But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,
Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling
From miserable slumber I awaked.
And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,
Who quickly fell before him: in which hurtling
From miserable slumber I awaked.
We find out that Orlando was hurt and when his brother was tending to his wound all of Orlando's thoughts were on Rosalind. It's really incredible (in a good or bad way depends on your theatrical inclination I suppose) that Oliver's transformation
OLIVER
Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a man's heart.ROSALIND
I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
OK, that's act 4. sorry for the rush dear readers. Looking forward to luxuriating in more blogging time soon.
Monday, April 15, 2013
AYLI act 3: RUN ORLANDO RUN! and lots of love for scene partners & John Harrell...
Act 3 we have several scenes again but this time most of them are full length scenes and we get to meet more characters/get to the crux of the play. SO MUCH to talk about. hard to pick which parts to feature in the blog...
3.1
This scene holds a special place in my heart because I worked on it during my Acting on the Blackfriars Stage class. John Harrell assigned it to Melissa and myself and since I was in the middle of learning lines for Tailgate Shakespeare I begged her to take the role of the Duke and let me have the 2 lines of Oliver. Mercifully she said yes. and we had a GREAT time working on the physicality in the scene. Basically the duke is angry that he can't find Orlando and therefore Celia & Rosalind. So then this happens:
OLIVER
O that your highness knew my heart in this!DUKE FREDERICK
I never loved my brother in my life.
More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;
First- I love that we get a built in surprise with this scene- I can't imagine Oliver sees this coming- and second, I wonder about Duke Frederick in this moment. Is this where his conversion begins? Seeing one brother so cruel to another reminds him of his own cruelty? Or does he not see his hypocrisy? This little scene is just endlessly fascinating and had I not worked on it I don't think i would have paid any attention to it!
3.2
This must just be the ode to John Harrell blog post because this scene also reminds me of him due to one of my favorite performances of his in Wild Oats (hmmm.. maybe once i work my way through the cannon I"m going to need to keep blogging other favorite plays/performances?!). The scene begins with a ridiculous and yet adorably charming Orlando:
Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:
...
O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character;
...
Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.
...
O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books
And in their barks my thoughts I'll character;
...
Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.
How can you hear those lines explode out of an actor and not be filled with inexplicable giddyness?!
Anyway, after this start to the scene we get the clown/straight man bit talking about court vs. the country:
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.CORIN
For not being at court? Your reason.TOUCHSTONE
Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.CORIN
Not a whit, Touchstone: those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.
Touchstone does not believe Corin's assertions (side note, damned like an ill-roasted egg is a genius phrase. I really need to make a list of all the phrases I want to incorporate into daily conversation.)
CORIN
Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.TOUCHSTONE
That is another simple sin in you, to bring the ewes and the rams together and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle;
How much FUN can an actor have with the phrase "Copulation of cattle". comedic gold. Also, thi scene just make me ADORE corin. the lovely simplicity and sweetness he expresses makes ME want to run into the country and I am DEFINITELY a city/suburban girl. Then Rosalind enters with one of Orlando's MANY poems. Of course, Orlando is not the greatest poet (very few of Shakespeare's men seem to be when it comes to actual love poems) and he even changes rhyme schemes/is bad enough that everyone comments on his shitty writing:
ROSALIND
From the east to western Ind,
No jewel is like Rosalind.
Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.
All the pictures fairest lined
Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no fair be kept in mind
But the fair of Rosalind.
Again, just like with R&J, I think it is IMPORTANT to teach people that SOMETIMES Shakespeare has BAD WRITING intentionally for his characters and that that is FUNNY. and should be played. Touchstone certainly finds it amusing:
TOUCHSTONE
If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind.
If the cat will after kind,
So be sure will Rosalind.
Winter garments must be lined,
So must slender Rosalind.
Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
Such a nut is Rosalind.
He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love's prick and Rosalind.
This is the very false gallop of verses: why do you
infect yourself with them?
I love lines that reference their own poetry/dramatic state/etc. so that last bit particularly tickles me.
ROSALIND
O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.
Next up celia comes in with another poem times and then we get into the girl time gossip. Throughout this scene it is worth noting all the Os Celia uses. It's such a tease- like the Orsino/Olivia moment we'll talk about when we get to 12th night. but with orlando
CELIA
O wonderful,
wonderful,
and most wonderful
wonderful!
and yet again wonderful,
and after that, out of all hooping!
The line breaks above are mine to emphasize the rhetorical use of the wonderful repetition and how much fun Celia can have with this line/how many different ways she can play with/tease rosalind with the word wonderful. GREAT acting game time...
ROSALIND
Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-sea of discovery; I prithee, tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow- mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at all. I prithee, take the cork out of thy mouth that may drink thy tidings.CELIA
So you may put a man in your belly.
Yes. Celia goes to the pregnancy joke. A trope much more common in men. again... I just love Celia. Anyway, after all the teasing Celia comes out and tells Rosalind who she's been referencing, but that doesn't seem to really sink in for Rosalind:
CELIA
It is young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler's heels and your heart both in an instant.ROSALIND
Nay, but the devil take mocking: speak, sad brow and true maid.CELIA
I' faith, coz, 'tis he.ROSALIND
Orlando?CELIA
Orlando.
Dear God Rosalind yo uare SO SMART in everything else. PULL IT TOGETHER!!!! Rosalind then continually interrupts until Celia has to say:
CELIA
I would sing my song without a burden: thou bringest me out of tune.ROSALIND
Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.CELIA
You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?
And in comes lover boy himself along with Jaques who is quite mad at the young man for ruining trees with his horrible poetry. the two have some beautiful insult language:
JAQUES
God be wi' you: let's meet as little as we can.ORLANDO
I do desire we may be better strangers.
Put those sentences in your pocket and save them for passive aggressive Wednesday... next we have one of Orlando's charming moments talking about Rosalind
JAQUES
What stature is she of?ORLANDO
Just as high as my heart.
one of my personal favorites seeing as I have always been rather short and liked to think that at least coming to the level of someone's heart was feasible. Upon seeing him and because she is still dressed like a man, Rosalind comes up with this brilliant plan:
ROSALIND
[Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him, like a saucy lackey and under that habit play the knave with him.
If I were playing Celia I can't tell you what a WTF?!?!? look I would have on my face. WHAT KIND OF PLAN IS THIS?! It's not quite as dumb as some other plans we've covered in previous plays, but SERIOUSLY!? You are being ridiculous rosalind.
OK, i'm getting frustrated enough with Rosalind I'm going to need to go back and re-read Lem's thesis of how awesome she is. and i KNOW SHE IS. I think she's great in all things save her reactions to her romantic desires. Thats probably true of most people so let's push onward... There's this brilliant speech:
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal.
I'm not going to go into it and break it down like i would in the classroom, but if you haven't read this speech or its been a while, take a look. worth it.
and then Rosalind plays her disguise so she can test Orlando's faithfulness.
ROSALIND
But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?ORLANDO
Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.ROSALIND
Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.
That last line used to be one of my first lines of defense against any romantic relationship. that and Beatrice's line about a dog barking at a crow were constantly on my lips the end of high school and throughout much of undergrad. Again, funny how much things have changed... So rosalind's plan begins and we move to major Clown town times.
3.3
I love when the substory of the clown figures mirrors the bigger picture story in such an obvious and absurd way. Remember how many times we said Orlando in the last scene? Here's a new name for you. (line breaks mine for emphasis)
TOUCHSTONE
Come apace, good Audrey:
I will fetch up your
goats, Audrey.
And how, Audrey?
am I the man yet?
doth my simple feature content you?
Then there's this gem:
AUDREY
Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.TOUCHSTONE
Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slutAUDREY
were to put good meat into an unclean dish.
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
Just... go ahead, read that exchange again. Am I the only one who laughs harder the more I read those lines?
JAQUES
And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green timber, warp, warp.TOUHSTONE
[Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.
There's something I really love about Jaques and his keen interest in who is getting married and how and what he has to say about it. OK, who wants to cast me as Jaques? I'm adding it to THE LIST. and a fine way to end the scene...
3.4
We open with another girl talk scene. a very short scene. but Rosalind is upset Orlando did not show up when he said he would and Celia is trying to do what almost any good friend would- figure out how Rosaline wants her to react in this moment. first she tries encouraging her, and joking.
ROSALIND
Never talk to me; I will weep.CELIA
Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man.
Then, since Rosalind does not seem to want to cheer up, Celia gives up and says yeah sure do what you want. In my head its the Forest of Arden equivalent to busting out a pack of cookie dough and watching a comforting movie when a friend is going through a breakup...
ROSALIND
But have I not cause to weep?CELIA
As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
In come Corin and funnily enough the country shepheard changes the language from prose to verse:
CORIN
If you will see a pageant truly play'd,
Between the pale complexion of true love
And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
Go hence a little and I shall conduct you,
If you will mark it.
YES!!!!!! it's time to get to my FAVORITE PART of this play!
Rosalind
O, come, let us remove:
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
I'll prove a busy actor in their play.
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
I'll prove a busy actor in their play.
Interesting that we are back to the play/actor/all the world's a stage trope...
3.5
Silvius & Phoebe- we've already met silvius but until now we have only heard of Phoebe. When I worked on AYLI in high school, this was the scene I did with my dear friend April. For some ABSURD reason I remember she wore this kind of crazy lookin conical asian style hat and that plus her character voice gave me one of the hardest acting challenges i've ever had not to completely break character at every moment. I am skipping over PHoebe's EYES monologue though I never really tire of it and its in my back pocket for audition even now and we'll skip to when Rosalind enters dressed as a man still and of course Phoebe falls in love with him/her right away. There's another classically great Shakespearean insult when Rosalind sees Phoebe and how she's scorned Silvius:
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can: you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:
Sell when you can: you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:
And there's an incredibly perceptive and yet sad observation shortly thereafter:
He's fallen in love with your foulness and she'll
fall in love with my anger.
fall in love with my anger.
Once Rosalind leaves we are back to the Silvius/Phoebe dynamic (this is actually the part april and I did for the showcase I believe. It still makes me giggle)
SILVIUS
Sweet Phebe,--PHEBE
Ha, what say'st thou, Silvius?SILVIUS
Sweet Phebe, pity me.PHEBE
Why, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
Now when I read this passage all I can think of after that last line is Olivia's response in 12th night of "That's a degree to love!" But instead Silvius says something much more beautiful:
So holy and so perfect is my love,
And I in such a poverty of grace,
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then
A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.
And I in such a poverty of grace,
That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
To glean the broken ears after the man
That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then
A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.
We don't usually here that kind of "settling" from male characters. it reminds me of Helena's i am your spaniel bit. And Phoebe then goes on with another great monologue about the man (woman) she's just met:
Think not I love him, though I ask for him:
'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
But what care I for words? yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
...
I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?
'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
But what care I for words? yet words do well
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
...
I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?
Ah yes... another genius plan, right?
Yet Silvius gets to be adorable and help Phoebe in whatever way he can and that's Act 2.
Picture for the day- This is artwork done by the April I referenced in this post. The center picture is a representation of when she played Puck in a production of Midsummer Night's Dream together. So imagine her dressed up as Silvius now! (also, if you think this artwork is stunning you should contact me about contacting her. because she is ridiculously talented.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)