Richard III

Trailer from Youtube

I saw  the Almeida theater production of Shakespeare's Richard III last week at Finnkino (part of the Event Cinema shows this year). The play was directed by Rupert Goold, with Ralph Fiennes as the man himself and Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Margaret.

There's been some speculation on whether the historical Richard really was the villain he's painted, but Fiennes gave us a truly despicable Richard to loathe. His Richard III didn't plot and manipulate as much as threatened and took what he wanted. Fiennes emphasised the character's brutality, especially towards women, and his cold stare makes you shiver. There isn't any redeeming characteristic in this Richard, nothing to sympathise with.

The production began with the exhumation of Richard's bones at the archaeological dig site in 2012, and then shifted back in time. The costuming was mostly modern day, with some armor thrown in. I felt they used the modern setting well, and there were some funny moments, especially with the cell phones.

The cast gave fantastic and moving performances. In addition to Fiennes, I really enjoyed Redgrave's Queen Margaret and Susan Engel as Richard's mother.

My favorite Richard III is still the nineties Ian McKellen movie version, but this one was well worth seeing. I have the Hollow Crown version waiting, but I haven't gotten around to watching it yet. It will be fun to compare performances when I do.

The Phoenix and the Turtle

Here's a poem to start your day right. You can't go wrong with Shakespeare.

The Phoenix and the Turtle

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BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Let the bird of loudest lay 

On the sole Arabian tree 

Herald sad and trumpet be, 

To whose sound chaste wings obey. 

But thou shrieking harbinger, 

Foul precurrer of the fiend, 

Augur of the fever's end, 

To this troop come thou not near. 

From this session interdict 

Every fowl of tyrant wing, 

Save the eagle, feather'd king; 

Keep the obsequy so strict. 

Let the priest in surplice white, 

That defunctive music can, 

Be the death-divining swan, 

Lest the requiem lack his right. 

And thou treble-dated crow, 

That thy sable gender mak'st 

With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st, 

'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. 

Here the anthem doth commence: 

Love and constancy is dead; 

Phoenix and the Turtle fled 

In a mutual flame from hence. 

So they lov'd, as love in twain 

Had the essence but in one; 

Two distincts, division none: 

Number there in love was slain. 

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; 

Distance and no space was seen 

'Twixt this Turtle and his queen: 

But in them it were a wonder. 

So between them love did shine 

That the Turtle saw his right 

Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: 

Either was the other's mine. 

Property was thus appalled 

That the self was not the same; 

Single nature's double name 

Neither two nor one was called. 

Reason, in itself confounded, 

Saw division grow together, 

To themselves yet either neither, 

Simple were so well compounded; 

That it cried, "How true a twain 

Seemeth this concordant one! 

Love has reason, reason none, 

If what parts can so remain." 

Whereupon it made this threne 

To the Phoenix and the Dove, 

Co-supremes and stars of love, 

As chorus to their tragic scene: 

                 threnos

Beauty, truth, and rarity, 

Grace in all simplicity, 

Here enclos'd, in cinders lie. 

Death is now the Phoenix' nest, 

And the Turtle's loyal breast 

To eternity doth rest, 

Leaving no posterity: 

'Twas not their infirmity, 

It was married chastity. 

Truth may seem but cannot be; 

Beauty brag but 'tis not she; 

Truth and beauty buried be. 

To this urn let those repair 

That are either true or fair; 

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

Source: http://www.poetryfoundation.org

If you're scratching your head and wondering what you just read, here's an analysis from the Guardian.  

Shakespeare's Greatest Insults

Shakespeare's insults are legendary. Here are a few of my favourites:

More of your conversation would infect my brain.

Coriolanus (2.1.91)

They have a plentiful lack of wit.

Hamlet (2.2.198)

'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's tongue, you bull's pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck! 

1 Henry IV (2.4.227-9)

Thy food is such

As hath been belch'd on by infected lungs.

Pericles (4.6.156)

Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.

Troilus and Cressida (2.1.41)

Here's one for writers:

Thou hast the most unsavoury similes.

1 Henry IV (1.2.75)

Ooh. Burn!

Want more?

 This Shakespearean Insult Generator will toss some random Elizabethan insults your way.

Source:
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quotes/shakespeareinsults.html

Etymology Expeditions: The Shakespeare Edition, Part 2

Did you know that Shakespeare actually invented a lot of  new words as he wrote his plays?

Words like gloomy, bandit, bedroom, bloodstained, hobnob, gossip, madcap, majestic, lacklustre, and zany appear on the list, according to Shakespeare-online.com.

If you look up the words, there is usually some word he used as a basis, maybe coming up with an adjective from an existing noun or verb, turning nouns into verbs, and playing with prefixes and suffixes. Some words are fully original.

Gloomy, for example, is based on gloom, "to look sullen or displeased."

Lacklustre, on the other hand, came about when Shakespeare combined lack + lustre into a whole new word in "As You Like It."

Shakespeare-online.com has a comprehensive list, so just click here to see more. All of the words are handily linked  to the play they appear in. Useful, huh?

But those are not Shakespeare's only legacy. Some of his most famous characters live on in the English language as well as his plays.

Consider words like Romeo "a lover, passionate seducer of women," or Falstaffian "fat, humorous, jovial," for example.

Not bad for a playwright from the 1600s.

Sources: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordscoined.html
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html
http://www.etymonline.com

Hamlet and Coriolanus

I saw National Theatre's Hamlet and Coriolanus recently, and greatly enjoyed both. National Theatre Live is a great idea. I'd have never been able to see these without it, and I'm deeply grateful. I only hope they'll release these great performances on blueray or dvd one of these days. The Metropolitan Live opera performances have been released, but not the theatre ones. It seems to be a matter of rights, or something like that, but it feels like a waste if these fantastic performances disappear, burning brightly for an instant, then gone forever. 

Coriolanus is basically an Elizabethan action movie set in ancient Rome. Hiddleston was fantastic in the role, and the production was very well done. I loved how they used the colour red throughout the play. (This is how you do symbolism, take note, Crimson Peak.)  I've always been fascinated with ancient Roman graffities, and I liked how they used graffiti in the production. One of my favourite National Theatre productions of all time. 

There have been some great modern Hamlets in the past few years. I liked Benedict Cumberbatch's performance, and this newest production was beautiful, but I prefer Rory Kinnear's Hamlet from 2010. David Tennant was also memorable in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2009 production. (That one you can get on dvd, click here to go to Amazon.)

It's interesting to compare the productions and how the actors made the role their own.  Tennant brought a nervous energy and humour cut with cold capriciousness to the performance, while Kinnear's Hamlet was tragic, almost an everyman rather than a prince, his madness close to depression. Then emotional range and subtlety in his performance was astounding; that's the Hamlet that made me cry. The production was also very good, and I liked the Big-Brother-is -watching-you symbolism of the surveillance cameras as a parallel to the paranoia of living in the Elizabethan society of Shakespeare's time. Cumberbatch was almost rational in his madness (I am aware that I might be projecting this on his performance because of Sherlock), and his soliloquies were beautifully done, but I didn't get the same feel of really being in the character's head as with the others.

Writerly digression: Shakespeare gets away with a lot of  exposition with his grand soliloquies. Like this, for example:    

    HAMLET 

129   O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, 

130   Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! 

131   Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd 

132   His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! 

133   How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, 

134   Seem to me all the uses of this world! 

135   Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, 

136   That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature 

137   Possess it merely. That it should come to this! 

138   But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: 

139   So excellent a king; that was, to this, 

140   Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother 

141   That he might not beteem the winds of heaven 

142   Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! 

143   Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, 

144   As if increase of appetite had grown 

145   By what it fed on: and yet, within a month— 

146   Let me not think on't—Frailty, thy name is woman!— 

147   A little month, or ere those shoes were old 

148   With which she follow'd my poor father's body, 

149   Like Niobe, all tears: why she, even she— 

150   O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 

151   Would have mourn'd longer—married with my uncle, 

152   My father's brother, but no more like my father 

153   Than I to Hercules: within a month: 

154   Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears 

155   Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, 

156   She married. O, most wicked speed, to post 

157   With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! 

158   It is not nor it cannot come to good: 

159   But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue. 

(Quote from Hamlet by William Shakespeare.) 

I've probably mentioned this before, but a really useful website for understanding Shakespeare's plays is http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com. They have notes on the more obscure allusions in the plays and also vocabulary stuff. The notes are placed conveniently beside the text so you don't have to go back and forth to see them. The site doesn't have all of Shakespeare's plays, but it's worth a look if you're interested in the subject. 

I know Shakespeare's plays are regarded as somewhat highbrow nowadays, but they really weren't at the time he wrote them.  Shakespeare aims to entertain; there's fight scenes and comedy and vulgar jokes aplenty (check out Shakespeare Navigator for the ones you missed.) in addition to the deeper themes and drama. And the wonderful thing is that even after hundreds of years, Shakespeare's plays can still touch you, make you laugh or make you cry. 

That's pretty amazing in my book.

Adventures in England Part 1: Oxford

I just got back from a trip to England, so I thought I'd share some of the highlights with you.

Our first stop was Oxford, one of my favourite places in the entire world. 

I love these lanterns. They had battle-axes on the pole under the lights. 

I thought this was a lovely, picturesque alleyway, and snapped a photo. Then my husband looked it up in our travel guide, and turns out this was where all the ladies of the evening plied their trade in the 1300s. Back then it was called Gropecunt Lane.

Yup.

Seriously.

I sure can pick 'em, right?

Here's the main reason I fell in love with Oxford: the Bodleian, one of the oldest libraries in Europe. We took the tour again, and it's worth it just to get into the old library. The smell of old books is intoxicating. Yes, I'd like to live there. Maybe pull a Phantom of the Opera, and move into the passages below the libraries:) Okay, okay, maybe I'll just write a story, or something. I'm so jealous of the university students, who actually get to use the library and study in the Radliffe Camera.   

We also took a picnic cruise on the river Thames, which went down a length of the Isis, too. Did you know that the name Thames means 'dark water'? The name 'Isis' has nothing to do with the Egyptian goddess, the Oxonians just didn't want the word 'dark' in the name, so they dropped the 'Tham' part. (Originally it was Tamesis, Celtic for dark one according to the online etymology dictionary.)

We also saw Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" performed by the Globe Theatre on tour in the Bodleian Library courtyard. This was kind of funny, because the guide on the tour said that Sir Thomas Bodley, the man who built the library, despised Shakespeare and thought his plays were vulgar and low-brow. (The walls didn't quake or fall down, if you're wondering.)

I found out another fun tidbit about the play. In addition to the pun about 'nothing' and 'noting' (as in gossip), apparently the word "nothing" also referred to a lady's private parts in the 1500s. Oh, Shakespeare, there you go again.

Maybe Sir Bodley had a point?  

Anyway, a wonderful performance, especially the actor playing Benedick was great. I saw the production with David Tennant and thought that no one could do a better job, but this guy came close.

Etymology Expeditions: Strange Phrases

I stumbled upon a website called  http://www.wiseoldsayings.com, and picked a few of the weirder ones to share with you, and to puzzle out their origins.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.      -- Mid 14th century French Proverb

This is apparently associated with legends of women disfiguring themselves to protect their chastity. According to wikipedia, one of the most famous stories is that of Saint Ebba of the monastery of Coldingham. She heard that the vikings were coming and cut off her nose and upper lip to make herself unappealing, then urged the other nuns to do the same. Apparently the vikings were so disgusted that they burned the monastery with the nuns inside, so no happy ending there. 

The spite part is apparently from the Middle Ages, when cutting off someone's nose was a common act of revenge or punishment. 

Beware the ides of March.

This is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The ides of March just means March 15th, because the Roman calendar was arranged around three named days: the Kalends (1st day of the month), the nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the other months), and the ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months). The idea that the ides were dangerous was apparently Shakespeare's invention.

Jack of all trades, master of none.

'Jack' was a common name in English, and is used here to mean the common man. Interestingly, the saying wasn't negative to begin with, and the 'master of none' part was added later. 'Jack' referred to someone at the lower end of the social tree, someone not educated, a cad, or a knave in the Middle Ages. In the 16th century people used a disparaging Latin term Johannes factotum (Johnny do-it-all) instead. (Yay, another Latin insult to add to my arsenal!)

According to Phrases.org, the name of Jack was also added to lots of different objects which in some way took the place of a man. Here is a list from the site:

Smoke-jack (a roasting spit)
Jack-plane (a basic carpenter's plane)
Jack-screw (a lifting winch)
Jack-frame (a carpenter's sawing horse)
Boot-jack (for pulling off boots)
Jack-engine (a miner's winch)
Jack-file (a coarse file)

  Want to know more? Check out the links below. 



Sources:
http://www.wiseoldsayings.com
https://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.phrases.org.uk/

Etymology Expeditions: The Shakespeare Edition Part 1

My husband I have this project, where we're trying to watch all of Shakespeare's plays. We have the 80s BBC box set with all the plays. It was quite a bargain even when we bought it, and now it looks to be only 129 dollars on Amazon, if you like this kind of thing. Some of them have aged better than others, but aside from some hammy acting and questionable wardrobe choices, they're pretty good. 

There are better productions of the more popular plays, Laurence Olivier's Hamlet and Henry V, the production of Hamlet with David Tennant, and the Hollow Crown series are some personal favourites. I also love the National Theater plays that they broadcast at movie theatres. I just wish they'd release them on dvd or blue ray already. 

Digital theatre is also very nice. You can watch great theatre for a very reasonable price on your iPad or computer. (And it has subtitles, woot!) The link goes to Much Ado About Nothing with Tennant. It was fantastic.
http://www.digitaltheatre.com/production/details/much-ado-about-nothing-tennant-tate/play

I like to watch the plays rather than read them, because that's the way they're meant to be seen, and a good production can really help one get past the whole Elizabethan English language barrier. 

If I'm watching a play at home, I like to try and figure out the parts I don't understand. At first I just used google, but then I found this great website called Shakespeare Navigators. Now I keep it open on my iPad and pause a scene to check the notations. 

One reason I do these posts is to expand my vocabulary in a fun way, and to learn about etymology, too. Especially in science fiction and fantasy you need to make up new words or languages, and I think that knowing about etymology can make that easier and the result more believable. 

So, getting to the point, here are some of the expressions I learned from watching Romeo and Juliet. All of these examples are from the Shakespeare navigators website. 

To carry coals means to put up with insults

ladybird means sweetheart, but also prostitute.

bear a brain: to have a great memory

man of wax: handsome as a wax figure

crow-keeper: scarecrow

lusty: robust, healthy

visor: mask (This is one of those words that feels modern but isn't.)

palmers: pilgrims. Called palmers because they brought back palm fronds from their pilgrimages.

stay the circumstance: wait for the details

chopp'd logic: illogical argument.

beshrew: curse

doleful dumps: sad dejection

pestilent: extremely annoying

These aren't even the best ones, because for those you need the context of the play. This is fun to do, you can miss lots of gaudy jokes if you don't read the notations:

Bonus: do you know how to give someone the finger in the Elizabethan way? Bite your thumb at them. 


Source:
http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T11.html