[Sca-cooks] _Shakespeare for Dummies_

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 06:19 AM 9/11/02 -0400, you wrote:
>>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!
>
>I always thought the best Shakespearean portrayals went to a fair
>amount of trouble to maintain the rhythm of iambic pentameter, almost
>singing the parts.
>
>Adamantius

Well, yes... and no.

One of the things Branagh (and others under his direction) does, is to take
the iambs and make them fall into normal speech rhythms- not as hard as you
might think, being that the English language tends to fall into iambs
anyway. I think it is the mark of any skilled artisan or performer to make
things seems effortless- as natural as breathing. When you can take
Da-Dum-da-dum-Da-dum-da-dum-Da-Dum, and make it flow like water... you can
still hold the poetry, and yet the untrained listener can hear the
meaning... and _then_ you have succeeded. The iambs are still there, but
you have to remember- the form is the _servant_, not the master. (And yes,
I write poetry in archaic forms, so I know!)

When _Henry V_ came out in the theatres, I dragged my then-husband to see
it. He was convinced he would be bored to tears. Boy, was he wrong! And I
was surprised- I was mostly wanting to see the costumes, and watch the
history etc. And I was rooted to my seat through the whole movie- I was
amazed and a little shocked that Shakespeare could be like that-
understandable and accessible. And it was the first time I actually really
_understood_ what was going on.

And have you even seen the line "Here comes your father-" delivered with
such genuine... well, like a couple of teenagers in the car, and the porch
light comes on?

Yeah, Ken's a schmuck- but a brilliant schmuck.

Now I need to go watch _Henry V_ again...

'Lainie
___________________________________________________________________________
"If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce it tastes much more
like prunes than rhubarb does." Groucho Marx, _Animal Crackers_