The Complete Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Summary:
On the eve of the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, two Athenian youths passionately in love - Hermia and Lysander - agree to run off because Hermia’s father has forbidden their marriage and promised Hermia to another, Demetrius. Hermia’s best friend, Helena, who has unrequited feelings for Demetrius, tells him of their plan to elope, and they follow the two into the woods as night falls. At the same time, a group of Athenian tradesmen led by Bottom the weaver also head into the woods to rehearse their play. Unbeknownst to all, these woods are home to a court of fairies, including King Oberon and Queen Titania, who are currently in a lovers' quarrel. Hilarity ensues involving a love potion and an asses head over the course of the night, but in the end all our couples are happily reunited and we finish with three weddings and a hilarious if poorly acted play-within-a-play.


What It’s About:
Love, like a dream, is senseless and yet true.

Searching for a theme in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a bit of a challenge given that the play feels as ephemeral as its title suggests. While there is certainly a lot of plot - three separate storylines, each full to the brim with characters - the action itself feels oddly insignificant. It’s also easily resolved, with Oberon swooping in at the end of the 4th act and fixing everything. None of the play’s primary story arcs carry their conflicts into the final act save the tradesmen’s play-within-a-play, which mostly serves as comedic runner. And yet, this makes an odd sort of sense - love, at least within the world of Midsummer, is also an ephemeral thing, changeable and subject to manipulation. Lysander, Demetrius, and Titania all have their affections manipulated throughout the play by the device of the love potion, which makes them fall helplessly for the first thing they see upon waking. Lysander and Demetrius both forget all affection for Hermia - previously the center of their love triangle - and instead dote on the once-scorned Helena. Titania, for her part, is tricked into loving the tradesman Bottom, who is transfigured in a merry prank by Puck to have the head of a donkey. Even before this fantastical device is introduced, Demetrius’s love seems to be changeable - he was previously sworn to Helena, but broke things off when a better offer came along. All the vows made, the oaths sworn, the honest declarations of affection seem to be founded on nothing but artifice and flights of fancy.

And yet, we are reminded at the end of the play that dreams have power - that they show us true things - despite this ephemeral nature. The four lovers awake the next morning after Oberon has set everything right convinced they have simply dreamed the last night’s events - and that those dreams have led them to the happy ending they now enjoy. Moreover, the play produced by the tradesmen and Puck’s final monologue remind us that plays themselves are but dreams, full of artifice and falsehoods built to convey some deeper truth, some meaning that exists beyond mere facts.

The tradesman’s choice of play is also apt - they perform Pyramus & Thisbe, a tale of two tragic lovers separated by their warring families that ends with both killing themselves, believing the other to be dead because of a misunderstanding. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Pyramus & Thisbe served as Shakespeare’s source material for Romeo & Juliet. Midsummer echoes R+J in many ways, but most significantly the tradesmen’s performance of a tragedy that befell star-crossed lovers serves as a reminder of the power of love, and that the various romances of those in the woods could have ended on a much darker note if the players involved were more rash or more uncompromising. The love in Midsummer seems slight - changeable and subject to manipulation. And yet despite all that it still remains love, in all its glory. Therefore, it is true, powerful, and has significant (and potentially disastrous) consequences.


If This Were A Movie:
While not a movie, the dreamlike quality of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is best reflected by a fairy tale. Beyond the obvious - it is a story that involves fairies - it also is dripping with the trappings of the genre; young lovers forbidden from meeting, magical trinkets like love potions, and even the very setting - the forest, a place of mystery and transformation. Characters’ personalities change in an instant, suddenly loving what they once despised, and yet despite all this there’s never really any fear that things won’t be resolved happily. And Oberon himself seems to be the perfect fairy godmother, swooping in at the end to happily resolve everything by pairing off the couples, freeing everyone from their various enchantments, and finally blessing the three pairs of newly weds with happiness and fertility. In other words, a young couple, transgressing against authority runs off to the woods. They fall afoul of mystical mischief, but in the end all is set right by a benevolent and seemingly omnipotent mystical figure. And they lived happily ever after.

The Line From The Play That You Know:

Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be! - 3.2.114-115

Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, serves as the primary mischief-maker of the play - calling him an antagonist would probably be a bridge too far, but he is the main cause of much of the chaos that makes up the 2nd and 3rd acts of the play. This chaos is ripe for physical comedy, and good actors can have no end of fun playing the fools in these revels. Lysander and Demetrius’s dueling courtship of Helena, and her own growing exasperation with both, is especially of note - when done well it reaches Looney Tunes levels of overblown, slapstick-y romance, as does Hermia’s furious reaction to being called short.


The Line You Should Know:

The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact. - 5.1.7-8

Delivered by Theseus as he reflects on the wild story the various lovers have relayed to him following their night in the woods, this line speaks to the seemingly impossible nature of taking something ephemeral - something that does not tangibly exist - and putting it down into words. It seems like madness, and yet that is the goal of both poets and lovers; capturing that which cannot be seen and conveying it to someone else. As mentioned above, the play emphasizes its own dream-like nature and the inherent artifice of a staged production, putting it in the same category here as poetry. It tries to put into words some higher theme, even if that theme by its very nature can’t be defined in words.


Notable Adaptation:

I’m breaking with my established order here, as this is neither a true adaptation, nor is it a movie (though that’s less of an impediment). However, to my mind there is no better illustration of the themes of Midsummer than issue #19 of Neil Gaiman’s landmark fantasy comic series The Sandman. Collected in the series' third volume, Dream Country, the issue sees the main character of the series, Dream of the Endless - the god-like personification of dreaming and with that human creativity - commissioning William Shakespeare to write Midsummer, and stage a performance of it for the very real fairies that it depicts. The Sandman has had a huge influence on me, and this issue, often called the best in the series, is largely responsible for the interpretation of the play outlined above. It emphasizes the power dreams and stories have in shaping our world as well as our culture - “Things need not have happened to be true.” It’s also delightfully funny, with the various supporting fairies offering a running commentary on the various inaccuracies in how they’ve been portrayed. Add that to the delightful number of Shakespearean inside jokes - Gaiman is definitely a Bard-nerd - and you have an incredible story that lights up all the pleasure centers in my brain.


General Notes:
The texture and tone of this play changes dramatically based on how the fairies within it are portrayed, so it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on their character - both how they would have been seen in Shakespeare’s time as well as how they’ve come to be used now. Textually, the fairies are genteel and well-intentioned, if a little mischievous from time to time. Oberon sets much of the conflict in motion by going out of his way to help Helena, trying to aid her in winning the heart of Demetrius. While this seems familiar to a modern audience brought up on Disney films about benevolent fairy godmothers, it should be noted that this was something of a departure at the time. Shakespeare preceded the Brothers Grimm, and his fairy stories were of the same ilk as the ones they drew upon; morality plays meant to scare children back onto the straight and narrow path. These fairies were alien at best and outright cruel at worst. Shakespeare’s portrayal is therefore something of a departure from what was the style at the time, and in fact it’s been credited as a direct progenitor of the good fairies of Disney films like Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, and Cinderella.

Despite that, modern stagings do not always hew to this interpretation. Many choose to play up the inhuman nature of the fairies and their meddling in mortal lives. Puck in particular can either be a merry prankster or a sadistic torturer depending on the actor’s choices. The forest itself is also subject to some interpretation - is it an idyllic glenn reminiscent of Eden, or a haunted copse out of one of your darker fables? And even if a staging doesn’t choose to go full eldritch-horror with the fairies, they still present interesting options for interpretation. It’s become quite popular to have Theseus and Hippolyta’s actors double for Oberon and Titania, giving them more of the air of omnipresent chess masters moving things behind the scenes. And even stylistic choices like casting a trained ballerina in the role of Puck change how these fantastical characters impact the text. As is so often the case with Shakespeare, it’s left to the modern director to find their own meaning in the play.

A Monologue For the Road

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend.
And as I am an honest puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long:
Else the puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. - 5.1.409-424

The Complete Shakespeare: Coriolanus

The Tragedy of Coriolanus

Summary:
Caius Martius is a brilliant Roman soldier and general whose victory in battle over the neighboring warlord Aufidius earns him the name Coriolanus. On the back of these military victories, Coriolanus runs for public office, but his imperious nature and casual disregard for the common people prove to be ill-suited for government; rather than be elected, he is banished from the city by the masses. Coriolanus, now hungry for revenge, allies with Aufidius to renew the war against Rome. Knocking at the city’s gates and set to conquer, he is swayed to mercy by his wife, mother, and child, and for this betrayal is murdered by Aufidius.

What It’s About:
Uncompromising pride sows the seeds of its own destruction.

Even if it isn’t the bard’s best known play, Coriolanus treads familiar territory for those that know their Shakespeare - or even for those that know their classical tragedies. The man himself, Caius Martius Coriolanus, who per ancient historians like Plutarch was an actual Roman general, is an archetypal tragic hero. He is a classically ‘great man’ - a war hero that wades into battle single-handedly and emerges literally bathed in the blood of his enemies. However, he is crippled by a fatal flaw - in this case his pride, which colors his opinions against the plebeians of Rome and makes him unwilling to bow and scrape and curry their favor, even as he presents himself for election to public office. Moreover, after the common folk turn against him - somewhat justified given the insults he hurls their way - they accuse him of treason, and he lashes out so viciously and violently against this slight that the plebeian's initial response is to call for his execution. This pride follows him throughout the play - he is repeatedly urged to be mild, to stand down, to let insults to his person pass without comment. And yet he cannot, and as he is whipped into a furor by insults both perceived and real, it becomes easier and easier to paint him as a danger to Rome, to the Volsces, and to the world at large.

What is so fascinating in all of this is that, unlike some of Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes, Coriolanus remains a blank slate. Whereas protagonists like Macbeth and Caesar have lengthy monologues explaining their inner tumult, Coriolanus is a soldier, and is written as a soldier; he is a man of few words, and shuns the spotlight. He has no moments where he steps aside and lets the audience in on what’s going through his head. Instead we, like the commoners who eventually exile him, are merely left to wonder at his erratic behavior. This has the odd and not entirely unexpected effect of making Coriolanus one of Shakespeare’s least popular protagonists - he comes off as a brute, as a bully, and given his blatant disregard for the common folk and overbearing military stature, as a straight-up fascist. Small wonder then, that the play isn’t in heavy rotation on your high school reading lists.

If This Were A Movie:
Like Macbeth before it - a note to those interested, Coriolanus was one of the last tragedies Shakespeare wrote, dated 1605-1608 - this is a war film. The second act is essentially one long battle scene, and climaxes in Coriolanus charging through the gates of the enemy city alone, and single-handedly slaughtering an army. Modern stagings have a lot of fun with this, and given the text literally calls Coriolanus out as being coated in blood, there’s plenty of eye-catching gore that would not look out of place in your more hard-R inclined summer blockbusters.

However unlike Macbeth, which itself had an undercurrent of Game of Thrones to it - the various wars for succession and royal factions playing against each other in service to find the ‘true king’ - the political situation of Coriolanus feels distinctly modern (and, as we’ll see when discussing adaptations, can very easily be applied to modern circumstances). With its focus on the conflict between the nobility and the commoners, plus the extended debate on a bellicose general’s suitability for public office, this is a play concerned with realpolitik. In that sense, it also shares some DNA with modern political thrillers - films that look at the dark underbelly of governance and what the true qualities of a leader are.

The Line From The Play That You Know:

So our virtues
lie in th’interpretation of the time - Coriolanus 4.7.49-50

Given the play’s fairly obscure status (at least within the cannon of Shakespeare), it’s not surprising that a line from it has not really permeated the public consciousness. The above is certainly not well known, however I think the thought behind it is, and moreover it’s a good thing to emphasize as we discuss this play. Shakespeare cautions against the idea praising men like Coriolanus, and really elevating any ‘hero’ in particular, when the strengths and virtues that make them so praise-worthy are inherently dependent on context. Coriolanus is a great general and a fierce warrior. But what exactly about those qualities suggest he’ll be a strong political leader as well?

The Line You Should Know:

Stain all your edges on me. ‘Boy!’ False Hound!
If you have writ your annals true, ‘tis there
That, like an eagle in a dovecote, I
Fluttered your Volscians in Corioles.
Alone I did it. ‘Boy!’ - Coriolanus 5.6.111-115

Coriolanus’s boast in the face of Aufidius after he has shown mercy to Rome, and before he is murdered in the Volscian forum. He’s goaded into this, his pride baited and his wrath inflamed by taunts lobbied his way by Aufidius. Despite the fragility of the alliance he’s established and the danger this could present, he cannot let these comments pass and responds in classic fashion by unleashing a tirade at his accusers. As is expected with a classic tragic hero, Coriolanus’s biggest flaw is also his greatest strength - as a soldier he was peerless because he was headstrong, proud, and fearless, willing to rush into a situation no matter the danger to himself. He shows that same attitude in his civilian life, and it costs him dearly.

Notable Adaptation:

The 2011 adaptation, directed by and starring Ralph Finnes in the titular role, does the impressive job of turning Shakespeare (albeit briefly) into an action movie. While no one would ever mistake this for an entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the film successfully captures the gory reality of Coriolanus as a character, updated to a modern setting. Finnes’ battle scenes with Gerard Butler in particular have a furious, kinetic intensity that make it instantly apparent why people would be willing to follow this otherwise uncouth man.

The setting in particular deserves some attention, modernizing the work and setting it in “a place calling itself Rome.” The film itself was shot in Serbia, and pretty unambiguously references the conflicts that made up the breakup of Yugoslavia. Moreover, it uses the pageantry of cable news and the specter of populist uprising and revolt in a way that makes the play feel extremely modern - and all the more frightening for its political undertones.

General Notes:
Let’s talk about the fascism. Coriolanus as a character presents some distinctly anti-populist leanings, frequently decrying the plebeians of the city - the commoners whose voices were heard in the government through elected tribunes - as a worthless rabble, susceptible to flattery and with no real conception of how a government should be run. He criticizes them for being prone to flights of fancy, and the text itself supports this - the plebeians who are given voice throughout the play are shockingly changeable and easily prone to manipulation. First they support Coriolanus, then they don’t. First they want him exiled, then they want him back. Scene 4.6 is especially notable in this regard, with several of the citizens who just a few scenes ago were calling for Coriolanus’s execution now claiming his banishment “was against our will” (Coriolanus 4.6.144).

And yet, the plebeians’ criticisms of Coriolanus are all equally valid - he openly insults them at every turn, and refuses to follow the established procedures expected of a candidate for office. Were this man to be made consul, is there any doubt his term would be defined by that same hostility toward the people and flagrant disregard for proper protocol? The charge of treason is leveled against Coriolanus via the claim that he seeks to become a tyrant - a king like those that, historically, Rome had just overthrown at this point. This is disdained by Coriolanus and his supporters, but given his track record it feels like a very valid criticism.

The complaints the plebeians levy against the nobility of the city also feel disconcertingly modern. “The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them” (Coriolanus 1.1.17-19). At the beginning of the play, Rome is in the midst of a famine, and the common folks claim that this suffering is not because of any shortage of food, but rather because the rich hoard too much for themselves. Power, to their eyes, is concentrated in the hands of a select few, who sentence the masses to suffer so they can continue to line their pockets. Moreover, when the plebeians try to exert the control they feel entitled to, they are shouted down by this aristocratic upper class.

Let’s not beat around the bush here; there is a staging of this play that is unambiguously about Donald Trump and the current American political climate. It is shockingly modern in its insight into politics, and it is again a testament to Shakespeare’s skill as a writer that this play was written 400 years ago and yet still persists in finding meaning today. It’s also interesting to note that this is one of the few plays that has been banned or suppressed in the modern, Western world - specifically briefly in France in the late 1930s, and in post-war Germany. Given the very real dangers of fascism at the time this isn’t particularly surprising, but I’d caution against seeing the play purely as an argument for tyrannical power in the hands of a militaristic dictator. Coriolanus is hardly the clear-cut hero - his virtue or villainy lie in the director, the actors, and the way we shape the play to fit our own meanings.

A Monologue For the Road

We’ll end on a lighter note, with Aufidius’s monologue welcoming Coriolanus after he’s been banished from Rome. It should be noted that it’s become essentially canon (and is frankly textual), that there is more than a little homoertoic attraction between Coriolanus and Aufidius, and most modern stagings present this reunion as intimate. But see for yourself.

Here I clip
The anvil of my word, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against they valor. Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sighed truer breath. But that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell thee,
We have a power on foot, and I had purpose
once more to hew the target from thy brawn
Or lose mine arm for’t. Thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters twixt thyself and me -
We have been down together in my sleep
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat -
And waked half dead with nothing. - Coriolanus 4.5.108-125

The Complete Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Summary:
Twins Viola and Sebastian are caught in a shipwreck, separated and nearly drowned. Thinking her brother to be dead, Viola disguises herself as a man and enters the service of the local Duke Orsino, who is attempting to woo Countess Olivia. Olivia instead falls for Viola in disguise, while Viola finds herself falling for the Duke. Things grow even more confused when Sebastian returns and is repeatedly mistaken for Viola, but in the end all is revealed, with Viola marrying the Duke and Sebastian the Countess. Meanwhile, the servants of Olivia’s household play a nasty trick on Malvolio, her prudish steward.

What It’s About:
True love is selfless

Twelfth Night, like all of Shakespeare’s comedies, concerns itself with love. The principal conflict of the play, complicated by Viola’s cross-dressing and the confusion it causes, is remarkably simple: Orsino wants to win the heart of Olivia, and Olivia has sworn off all suitors following the death of her brother. Viola stumbles into the midst of this, disguising herself as a man to enter the employ of the duke since Olivia is not currently accepting applications, and finds herself Orsino’s preferred messenger to the Countess, delivering his ornate speeches and professions of affection. She’s a great fit for the role because, in her disguise as a man, Olivia falls for her instantly, and in contrast to all the Duke’s previous messengers continually invites ‘Cesario’ (Viola’s assumed name while she’s in disguise) to come back and visit her again. Meanwhile, Viola has fallen hard for Orsino, and so is in the terrible position of needing to win her own heart’s desire the heart of another. It’s a classic love triangle, and one that should be immediately familiar to modern viewers; as with last week’s Much Ado About Nothing, this is the kind of plot that’s a staple in modern sitcoms.

The play gets a lot of mileage out of contrasting these various loves, and in doing so approaches what I think to be its central thesis, comparing the self-centered and self-aggrandizing love of Orsino, and to a lesser degree Olivia’s steward Malvolio, with the self-sacrificing love of Viola. Orsino is a wonderful character to see performed because in general his speeches lay it on thick; he clearly sees himself as the tragic romantic hero, so consumed by love and longing that he can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do anything but think about his beloved. And yet throughout all his speeches he rarely makes mention of Olivia herself. Rather, his focus is on his own passion, his own furor, and the strength of his own feelings. Malvolio too longs for Olivia, but his fantasies all focus on the power and prestige he’d gain as the husband to a countess, elevated beyond his lowly station. Their love is selfish, and their thoughts only focused on how it affects them. In contrast, Viola’s love is all about self-sacrifice. She pines for the Duke, but loves him to such a degree that she’s willing to plead his case and court Olivia on his behalf, at the cost of her own happiness with Orsino. Repeatedly, she puts her own wishes aside in the hopes of making the Duke happy, and even when it’s clear she has Olivia’s favor and eye - something literally every other character in the play chases - she rejects it in favor of serving the Duke. This selfless love is also personified in Antonio, the pirate that rescues Viola’s brother Sebastian and serves as the only real paragon of virtue within the play beyond Viola herself. Antonio loves Sebastian deeply (and depending on the director, often romantically - this is by far Shakespere’s most LGBTQ-friendly play), and is willing to risk arrest, injury and even death in order to protect him. Antonio’s love is ultimately unrequited and his story is not truly resolved in a satisfactory way, but in a play where so many characters make very poor decisions, he stands out as one who is kind, devoted, and unfailingly in the right.

If This Were A Movie:
As with most Shakespearan comedies this naturally hews to the line of a modern rom com, but more than that this play feels like a farce. It has an oddly zany undercurrent, and is primarily about mistaken identity and irony. Viola’s disguise and the ultimate confusion between herself and her twin brother Sebastian are central to this. Viola constantly drops hints, asides, and lines with double meanings referring to her true sex gender.

Beyond that, the play’s supporting cast adds to the farcical feel, with Feste the clown, Sir Toby & Maria, all members of Olivia’s household, getting up to what can only be described as hijinx in the background of all this courtly love. They prank Malvolio, milk the visiting knight Sir Andrew for cash, and generally sow chaos throughout the scenes, especially in the later acts of the play when the pace begins to pick up. Feste in particular should be noted - he has a number of speeches throughout the play littered with puns, wordplay, and delightfully circular logic. However, he’s also the only character that’s revealed to know Olivia’s true identity, contributing to the sense that, though perhaps not the architect of all this madness, he’s certainly its conductor - keeping a steady time and moving all the other players about in a mad little dance.

The Lines From The Play That You Know:

If music be the food of love, play on - Twelfth Night, 1.1.1

The opening line of the play, spoken by Duke Orsino in full-on pining for love mode. It’s entered into the popular lexicon as a kind of romantic sentiment, speaking to the ability of music to move the heart. That said, as mentioned above Orsino’s love is of the courtly, selfish variety - more in love with being in love than truly in love with Countess Olivia - and this speech is one of the prime examples of that. Despite professing boundless affection for Olivia, she doesn’t come up in his first lines; rather the Duke’s subject is his own rapture and passion - what a romantic figure he is, lying there listening to the music and dreaming of his lady love.

Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em. - Twelfth Night, 2.5.126-128

The other truly notable quote from the play comes from the Malvolio subplot, and like the above loses something in context. While the quote is often used as an aspirational message, the kind of thing for motivational posters and inspiring speeches, within the play it’s part of a rouse to trick the prudish Malvolio into putting on airs and acting above his station - behavior that ultimately gets him locked up for insanity. It’s a solid quote to throw out every once in a while, but just make sure you’re actually reaching for greatness, and not being tricked into overstepping your bounds.

The Lines You Should Know:

Orsino: Still so cruel?
Olivia: Still so constant, lord. - Twelfth Night, 5.1.103-104

Two lines that summarize the entirety of Orsino and Olivia’s storyline throughout the play. Despite their ‘courtship’ being the central action of the play, the two don’t meet until the fifth act. Orsino asks if she is still cruelly rejecting his advances, and Olivia’s response? I don’t owe you anything. Though this is obviously a very modern reading of the play and one not supported by the original text, there is a lot to be mined in portraying Orsino’s anguished love as the modern ‘nice guy,’ who pines after a girl and feels that, because he’s so invested in her, she owes him reciprocation. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Olivia’s reply makes that clear here - she has been constant in her response to Orisno’s advances. She’s not interested, and he needs to move along.

Notable Adaptation:

So far in this series, we’ve been working with pretty faithful adaptations, and specifically ones that remain true to the original text. This week we’re talking about She’s The Man, so that’s out the window. The 2006 film, which is quite loosely based on Twelfth Night, updates the setting to a modern high school, ups the comedy by a lot, and most notably was one of Channing Tatum’s first big starring roles. Is it the best way to learn the text of the play? No, of course not. But as I said above this play feels like a farce, and nothing captures the essence of that like an early 2000s teen comedy.

It’s also an excellent example of just how flexible these plays can be when it comes to adaptation, in terms of setting, style, character, and even textual fidelity. To steal a football metaphor, Shakespeare bends but it doesn’t break; you can twist the words, rewrite the characters, add or remove whole subplots, but the themes and stories are so classic, so universal, that despite these transformations the work shines through. And because of that, they are a great anchor to set your story to - a grounding mechanism for whatever point you are trying to make, even if that point is ‘Channing Tatum should do more comedies.’

General Notes:
Let’s talk briefly about how, despite the fact that this is clearly a comedy (it ends with three weddings), the ending can be distinctly melancholy depending on the adaptation. First and foremost, with the exception of Viola, no one ends up with the person that they loved. Olivia ends up marrying Sebastian, Viola’s twin; yes, they look the same, but he is distinctly not the person she fell in love with over the course of the lay. Moreover, they rush to the altar the first time Sebastian and Olivia meet due to the case of mistaken identity - he has literally no idea who she is, but suddenly finds himself betrothed to this strange woman who’s fawning all over him. And Orsino clearly does not win the hand of Olivia, the woman he spends five acts pining over; instead he quickly agrees to marry one of his pages that he believed to be a man for the length of the play. Now, there’s a lot that can be done with this in terms of showing the chemistry of Orsino and Viola when she’s in disguise - and many plays chose to amp this up and have a great deal of fun with this increasingly physical attraction. Nonetheless, it’s possible - and many adaptations choose - to play this ending as more than a little unsatisfying.

This whole problem is amplified by the Malvolio subplot. Malvolio is Olivia’s puritanical steward, and as mentioned above the various members of her household, including Feste the clown, play a series of pranks on him, tricking him into believing that Olivia is in love with him (something he fantasizes about), and in general spurring him on to a variety of lunatic behaviors. They trick him into dressing oddly, belittling the staff around him, and generally making inappropriate advances towards Olivia, all of which land him in solitary confinement in prison, where Feste and the others proceed to TORTURE HIM. It escalates quickly.

Eventually the deception is revealed, but Malvolio is less than forgiving, promising that he’ll “be revenged on the whole pack of you” (Twelfth Night 5.1.364). As a character he’s much abused, and there’s been some thought as to whether he should be portrayed more sympathetically. Textually, though I think he’s supposed to be an object of scorn: the puritans, in Shakespeare’s time, were strong opponents of the theater, thinking that it was ungodly and encouraged idleness. As such, I’m of the opinion that this is Shakespeare having a bit of a go at some of his critics. This is supported by the fact that Feste the clown (the entertainer within the play, not unlike an actor or a playwright), is revealed to have taken part in Malvolio’s torture because Malvolio shunned him at the beginning of the play, deriding fooling as a profession and claiming it was useless, ungodly and idle. Sound familiar?

A Monologue For the Road:

This fellow is wise enough to play the fools
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.
He must observe the mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice
As full of labor as a wise man’s art.
For folly that he wisely shows is fit,
But wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit. - Twelfth Night 3.1.53-61

The Complete Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing

Summary:
Freshly home from war, Don Pedro and two of his men, Claudio and Benedict, stay with a local lord Leonato, along with his daughter Hero and niece Beatrice. Claudio and Hero fall quickly in love, while Benedict and Beatrice engage in a merry war of words, seemingly at each other’s throats. Benedict and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, while Claudio is tricked into leaving Hero at the altar, believing her to be unfaithful. These lies are brought to light and all ends happily, with both couples whisking off to be married.


What It’s About:
Love triumphs over deceit

The play's primary theme is the interplay of love and deceit, and how both are facilitated through the titular 'noting' - in Shakespeare's parlance the words noting and nothing were near-homophones, and as such the title becomes a many-layered pun that's more or less lost on modern audiences. The play is much ado about noting - characters taking note of conversations happening around them, eavesdropping and being misled. It’s also much ado about nothing - that is, things that are insignificant. These conversations are often false, or tricks being played on the listener meant to deceive; they amount to nothing. Add to that the fact that nothing was Elizabethean slang for vagina, and that much of the conflict in the play centers around accusations made against Hero’s chastity and faithfulness - accusations that ultimately prove to be unfounded and thus, much ado about nothing.

All that is to say that characters eavesdropping, spying, and gossiping about others, often misunderstanding or being misled, makes up the primary action of the play. Benedict and Beatrice's romance, spurred by Don Pedro tricking both into noting conversations about the other, and Claudio's abandonment of Hero at the altar thanks to Don John (Don Pedro’s villainous brother) tricking him into noting one of Hero’s maids indulging in a dalliance at Hero's window the night before her wedding are the most egregious examples. However, minor instances liter the play. Hero is initially wooed by Don Pedro in a mask, who acts on behalf of Claudio. Benedict also talks with Beatrice at that party, hiding behind a mask to gather her opinion on him. And at the resolution, Hero is presented to Claudio behind a veil, as he believes her to be dead and that he is instead marrying her cousin. Trickery runs concurrent with love throughout the play - sometimes it aids, often it hinders, but the two seem to be indelibly linked. However, it's only once the masks are removed and all stands revealed that we can have our two weddings and dancing that lightens hearts and heels.


If This Were A Movie:
This is about as modern a play as Shakespeare ever wrote, and frankly reads like the script of an early 2000s Rom Com once you know how to parse the language. Benedict and Beatrice will be very familiar to modern readers - two quick-witted, sarcastic characters who constantly mock both each other as well as the very concept of love. They’re especially fond of heaping scorn on each other, and the pair do not share a scene where there isn’t some form of sharp-tongued verbal banter. Unsurprisingly, there’s also a fair amount of textual evidence that despite this banter the two are deeply attracted to each other, and may have even been involved before - how much this is played up varies depending on the adaptation. But it will come as no shock to the modern reader that they ultimately end up together - that acerbic couple always winds up admitting their love at the end of the rom com.

It’s also interesting to note that, to modern sensibilities Benedict and Beatrice read like one of the few couples in Shakespeare that seem like they could exist in the 21st century. Courtly love and arranged have fallen out of style, but the concept of two sharp-tongued people who refuse to admit their true feelings and hide behind sarcastic quips? That’s something we’re all quite familiar with.


The Line From The Play That You Know:
Oh God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace. - Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.302-303

For such a witty and dialogue-driven play, there aren’t a whole lot of lines that have entered into the popular lexicon. The above is probably closest, from Beatrice’s ‘Kill Claudio’ scene, wherein both she and Benedict confess their love for each other, and wherein she implores Benedict to hold Claudio to account for the slanders he’s lobbied at her cousin Hero. Such a massive ordeal being made about Hero’s ‘purity’ - that is, her virginity - is definitely an artifact of the time, and can easily make Claudio into the least sympathetic character in the play, to the point where his eventual reunion with Hero at the play’s end feels a bit unearned. Various adaptations have tried to dance around this, and some even rewrite the ending, but as it stands it turns Beatrice’s speech into one of the strongest and most sympathetic bits within the play for an actress to sink her teeth into.


The Line You Should Know:
Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. - Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.142-144

No one delivers an insult quite like Shakespeare. This is Benedict’s line speaking of Hero, whom Claudio has fallen rapturously in love with, and speaks to both his generally pithy disposition as well as the fact that his eyes are clearly elsewhere. Benedict here is trying to talk his best friend and general running buddy from the war to calm down and not immediately leap head over heels for this girl. In his estimation, Hero is beautiful but hardly worth immediately going to the church over. Of course, this falls on deaf ears, otherwise there wouldn’t be a play.


Notable Adaptation:

Joss Whedon’s 2013 Much Ado About Nothing (available on Prime video) perfectly encapsulates how modern the text feels, as it is hands down the funniest adaptation of Shakespeare I’ve ever seen. The film was essentially shot over the course of 12 days during a contractually mandated break from editing Avengers, and given that context it's easy to see why it is such a light, breezy, and frankly slightly tipsy film. Whedon essentially got all of his friends and frequent collaborators, brought them to his house for two weeks, got them a bit liquored up (per the director’s commentary those glasses aren’t filled with water), and shot a movie. You can tell everyone involved is simply having fun, and that sense of fun pervades the entire project as a result.

This is also one of my favorite adaptations for showing just how much context actors can bring to Shakespearean dialogue. Despite being a self-professed nerd for these plays, I’ll be the first to admit that the text is hard to understand from the perspective of a modern English speaker. Here, the cast does so much work with their physicality and non-verbal expression in conveying the meaning that the lines land, even if you don’t have a perfect understanding of what phrases like “hang my bugle in an invisible baldric” mean.

General Notes:
Let’s talk a bit about Benedict and Beatrice, as they are really the breakout stars of the play and, at least in modern adaptations, have come to overwhelm everything else. Despite this, they are not the leads, or at least they're not central to the primary conflict of the play: Claudio being tricked into believing Hero has been unfaithful and abandoning her at the altar. They certainly circle around this action, with Beatrice remaining by Hero’s side and Benedict coming to her defense and ultimately challenging Claudio to a duel over the fact that he has slandered Hero. However, neither is in any way critical to that plot, and the majority of their story is resolved entirely separately. In fact, past stagings of various Shakespeare plays (notably Measure for Measure) have lifted Beatrice and Benedict whole cloth, and dropped them into entirely different works with no ill effects on the storyline.

How much does this matter? It's possible (and most modern adaptations go this way) to treat Claudio and Hero as, at best, a B-plot; background events over which Benedict and Beatrice engage in their merry little duel of wits. While this may not be the most faithful adaptation of the work, it’s certainly the most entertaining. Both characters are clearly written as the stars of the piece, getting all the best lines, and usually get top billing when it comes to casting. It also is the most attractive way of adapting the source material for a modern audience. As mentioned above, the Claudio/Hero plot rings a bit oddly to modern ears in its approach to gender politics, while the Beatrice/Benedict romance feels distinctly modern - the kid of witty, will they/won’t they banter that moderns sitcoms can grind three seasons’ worth of material out of. For good or bad, this is how the text has evolved over the years. However, I can’t help but believe that Shakespeare knew what he was doing - that in some ways this was all intentional. He was (spoilers) a pretty good writer, and there’s no way any writer worth their salt could write two characters like Beatrice and Benedict and not realize that they were the ones the audience was going to fall in love with.

A Monologue For the Road:
I didn’t even get to mention Dogberry, so I’ll leave you with this.

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? Oh, that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass. Thought it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass...I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina - Much Ado About Nothing 4.2.66-73

The Complete Shakespeare: Macbeth

As a bit of a personal project, I've resolved to read every Shakespeare play (ideally one a week) over the next few months. I'll be sharing some reflections on these plays here, along with a few recurring bits to break down the plays for those who might not be as familiar with the works. Up first:

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Summary:
Macbeth, a Scottish Thane (essentially a Duke), comes across three witches who deliver a prophecy foretelling that he will one day be King. With the encouragement of his wife, he takes matters into his own hands and murders his way to the top. His ambitions make him new enemies however, and ultimately lead to his own death and fall from power.

What It’s About:
Ambition sows the seeds of its own destruction 

The play is famously the story of a man corrupted by ambition - at the start of the play Macbeth receives a prophecy that accurately predicts his spoils from a recent war - he’ll be named Thane of Cawdor, and that calls for a greater crown to come to his head as well. Spurred by this prediction and by his wife, the famously bloodthirsty and all-around incredible character of Lady Macbeth, he takes matters into his own hands and murders his way to the top. Of course, once you start killing those who oppose you it gets harder and harder to stop, and so in the process of removing witnesses and claimants to his throne Macbeth ends up drenched in blood, and with enemies on all sides.

There’s also a fair amount within the text about guilt, and the weight of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s bloody actions on their respective consciences. They come to realize that their actions don’t exist in a vacuum, but rather follow one another in a downward spiral of death and violence - “blood will have blood” (3.4.151). The weight of this drives both to the brink of insanity, with Macbeth rarely sleeping throughout his reign as King, and Lady Macbeth so haunted by her actions she delivers the play's most famous line and ultimately kills herself.

If This Were A Movie:
I’m a big proponent of the idea that Shakespeare’s plays were the big-budget films of their time - in the 17th century the theater was a populist medium enjoyed by people across classes, not the highbrow stuff we’ve come to know it as in our day. Shakespeare himself was wildly successful as a playwright, and honestly should be compared in modern terms to someone like Stephen Spielberg - critically acclaimed yes, but also very strong at the box office.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s more bloody works, with not only multiple murders but also several full-on battle scenes. As such, the closest modern comparison is probably a war drama - think something like Dunkirk or (appropriately Scottish) Braveheart. It’s not a big budget action film, but the play’s quiet drama scenes are nonetheless driven by the bloody conflicts happening around them.


The Line From The Play That You Know:
Given its position in the canon, there’s a few. Arguably the most famous...

Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble - Macbeth 4.1.10-11

The witches’ famous chant, which has become synonymous with three crones hovering around a bubbling pot casting spells. In general, the witch imagery of this play informs so much of the modern ‘Halloween-esque’ conception of witchcraft, and is some of the most enduring in terms of its saturation into pop culture. The witches also get the best lines - see also: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Some Shakespeare scholars even argue one of their scenes (3.5, with Hecate) was added by a later author because they were just that popular with 17th century audiences - in our modern day, they probably would have gotten a spinoff.

Out, damned spot! Out, I say! - Macbeth 5.1.37

Lady Macbeth’s line from the end of the play as she sleepwalks through the royal castle, frantically miming washing her hands. Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s juiciest female roles for actors, and has a number of speeches that, in good hands, are showstoppers. She’s also a terrifyingly ruthless character, resolved to bloody violence well before Macbeth and instrumental in leading him down the road to murder the King. Here, the guilt and agony from all those deaths she’s orchestrated has become too much to bear, and in her sleep she frantically tries to wash the blood from her hands. Four scenes later she’ll have thrown herself from the castle battlements because of this same guilty conscience.

The Line You Should Know:

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. - Macbeth 3.4.168-170

Easily my favorite line in the play, in no small part because it’s a perfect trailer one-liner for a modern adaptation of the work. Delivered after Macbeth has killed the King and had Banquo murdered, he comes to the realization that there is no peace in his newly won crown and prestige - that despite all the blood he’s shed to win his place, there is still much more to come. He acknowledges that this is the point of no return, and accepts his role as villain and tyrant. To this point, Macbeth has shown remorse and regret for his actions - for killing a king and friend that trusted him. From here on out he is resolved to hold the crown no matter the cost.

Notable Adaptation:
These are plays, and as such you can only get so much from reading them - they are meant to be seen and heard, meant to be performed.

For Macbeth, I’d recommend the 2015 film starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard - it is a period war drama set in 11th century highland Scotland, and captures so much of the essence of the play. There are other more inventive adaptations, others that put a unique spin on the material - this is simply Macbeth Classic. It’s also as good an example as any that this play is like catnip for actors - there is so much good material to work with, and most anyone who’s playing either of the lead roles will hand in a truly stunning performance. Fassbender and Cotillard are no exception. The film is available on Prime video here.

General Notes:
This section is going to be far more relevant as we get to the more obscure stuff. As it stands; it’s Macbeth. It’s part of the Big Four tragedies (along with Hamlet, Othello, King Lear), and it’s there for a reason: it’s GOOD. The story is relatable yet specific, speaking to universal truths about the human experience that transcend the setting, as evidenced by the diverse adaptations of the work. “Ambition sows the seeds of its own destruction” - it’s about as simple a thesis as you can get, and yet because of that simplicity it has transcended its time, its place, and in some ways its authorship.

I’m not going to sit here and try to give you a unique take on this play, because it’s been written about to the ends of the earth. I will say I’m a fan of the theory that Macbeth’s ultimate downfall is motivated by Duncan’s transgression in naming his son as heir, as expanded upon in the essay prefacing the Complete Pelican Shakespeare publishing of the play. Essentially, the Scottish kingship at this time in history was more adoptive then hereditary, and the idea of enshrining power in dynastic succession would have been, in many ways, a massive slap in the face to the nobles that formed the basis of the then-King’s court. However, this is a historical reading that doesn’t quite gel with the rest of the frankly ahistorical text. Moreover, I think it’s a modern reading, ascribing modern sensibilities to Shakespeare - an easy and common mistake to fall into with an author that so often seems ahead of his team despite the fact that we know so little about who he was as a person.

However, the power of the play (as with so much of Shakespeare’s work) is that it’s open enough to support multiple interpretations. Even if this wasn’t necessarily the intent of the author, it’s a reading of the text that holds up, and can be made manifest by staging and decisions from the actors in the roles. In many ways, this is the true power of Shakespeare, and why his work has stood the test of time. Regardless of authorial intent, the subjects covered are so universal and themes so well developed that they can persist through modifications to motivation, character, setting. It’s no accident these plays have endured for nearly 400 years, and despite how you might have felt about them in high school English, they remain well worth reading.

A Monologue For the Road:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. - Macbeth 5.5.22-31

DUCK TALES

Congratulations, you're going to be humming this to yourself for the next week.

I'm probably not going to watch, both because it's a bit outside of my age bracket and because I don't get Disney XD, but that voice cast looks fantastic enough to at least track down the first episode.  Honestly, I'd do it for David Tennant's Scottish accent alone - Broadchurch excepted, it's something of a rare sighting, and I look forward to Scrooge McDuck being near-incomprehensible.  My only complaint is that this video calls this the "Original" theme - implying there might be some kind of new version, which is simply unacceptable.  You can change a lot of things, Disney, but wouldn't dare replace a piece of music this catchy.

Stay Positive Sunday: Holding Hands and Going Steady

We're gonna start the year off with a positive jam.

I mean, not exactly.  I just couldn't resist that line.  The truth is there's a lot of positivity out there about 2017 - or rather there's relentless negativity about the year that 2016 was, and a desperate belief that 2017 can't get any worse.  Mind you, anyone who's seen a sitcom can tell you the phrase "this can't get any worse" is a sure sign everything's about to.