[Sca-cooks] _Shakespeare for Dummies_

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 11:51 PM 9/10/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Stefan a simple word of advice!!! Stop reading it as written and try it
>grammatically written. Think Kenneth Brannaugh (asshole that he is) as
>oppposed to Poetic ie... a challenge...
>He does at least speak Shakespeare.  Not recite it!
>That makes it easier.
>Try "Much Ado About Nothing"
>"Hamlet"
>"Othello"
>"Henry V"
>
>and his other screenplays
>Branaugh talks in the Shakespearean style as oppposed to speaking
>Shakespeare.
>
>Nichola

Stefan, Nichola is very right- and not just because I adore Branagh. (Ok-
clarification- I think his work is awesome in the old sense of the word.
Amazing talent. As a person? He's a cad. I'd never date him, cute as he is.)

Since the Greeks, plays were basically poetry, acted out. The Elizabethans
were no different. If you read the plays of Shakespeare, you will see that
there are sections of un-rhymed lines- for basic back and forth talk "Go
call the Ambassador" etc. And those of low estate- the Gravediggers in
_Hamlet_, for example- don't get poetry. But the nobility gets couplets,
and most especially any *important* speech must follow specific poetic
conventions. And there is where we get most of the impressions that leave
us hating Shakespeare- badly handled, the lines are heavy, pedantic,
soporific. And nothing is worse for understanding and learning to love the
Bard that a room full of teen-aged pris- er, students, forced to read
around the room.

Most of what we have seen of bad Shakespeare is actually bad acting- by
people who forget that reciting poetry as wooden rote pieces butchers it-
and does no good service to the author. But if you read it for content,
ignoring the feet and stresses and such... it really takes on new light.

And _this_ is why I think Branagh is so brilliant (and why I'm aching for
_Macbeth_ to be finished and released!). A couple of examples of what I
mean- in _Henry V_, there is a solliloquy "Upon the King" which ends with
Henry begging God to not visit vengeance for Richard on his men. Many
portrayals (including Olivier) play this rather distant- a man discussing
with himself coldly a concept that clearly does not touch or interest him.
For the prayer, Olivier gets down on one knee, gingerly, (keeping his
clothes clean?) and approaches God as a near equal. Branagh? When he lists
the balm, the orb, the intertissued robe, you actually think he understands
that the king is just a man- a man with burdens that keep him from sleep.
And when he prays- he throws himself to the ground with hands clasped,
praying like a man who means it- "Not _today_, oh God, Not today!"

I highly recommend the 4 titles listed above. Also, the most recent
_Twelfth Night_, with Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes and Imogen Stubbs
is very good. And if you can get ahold of it, there is a tape out of a
production of _King Lear_ from about 1982-84ish, a tape of a stage
production IIRC. Olivier in the lead, shortly before he died. It is the one
role of his that I thought capped the rest of his career. It was brilliant.
(And Diana Rigg plays Regan!)

Some of my former colleagues would wince at approaching Shakespeare through
film first, but hey- you do what works. Reading it in a stuffy classroom
under flourescent lights is not picnic. No wonder Edmund Blackadder kicked
the bejeesus out of Will!

'Lainie
-kinda fun to talk about something I know... and haven't though of much for
awhile...
___________________________________________________________________________
"If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce it tastes much more
like prunes than rhubarb does." Groucho Marx, _Animal Crackers_