Arrears blogging: June 29: Saucy

Irritatingly, I can't find it now, but I was just reading an interview with Michael Emerson from Lost where he was talking about the theater, and how much he likes it when language is more than just a means of communication. And then I had a Shakespeare reading, and it's easy to see exactly what he's talking about. Or, as Lady Macbeth puts it:

To feed were best at home;
From thence, the sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.

Ceremony is our sauce; language is our sauce with which we dress our subsistence need for communication. It's possible that in Shakespeare's time, filled as it was with infant mortality and shit in the street, the thick sauce of ceremony was accordingly more prized and needed, to disguise the world the way it was. In our more pleasant circumstances, we can get away with a more nouvelle cuisine version of our lives. For example, I believe one of the reasons that men in L.A> don't wear suits as much as that they tend to be more buff; old-timey businessmen had bellies and needed the sack suit to disguise it. Either way, the act of display is kind of universal.

And this, of course, may be one of my favorite lines of Shakespeare:

I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

That's every war that ever was right there, in red sauce, no less.

December 26: A Christmas gift for me!

What better family to spend Boxing Day with than the Lears? And when I got to this part of today's reading:

Through tatter’d clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sins with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.

I remembered that it had struck home with me before -- because I've read it already! (Here.) So I'm out, except to note that the message of these four lines is even more appropriate during pardon season, when power ("robes and furr'd gowns") particularly helps break the lance of justice.

November 1: Shakespeare and Nice Buns

All the world's a mall.

There’s a goodly amount of theater stuff in the Harvard Classics, which they choose to call by the more fancifying name of “drama.” But in the Daily Reading Guide – the “tasting menu” of the 50 volumes – you could call the drama selections “Act I, Scene i: An Anthology.”

Not that that’s all bad. In fact it’s been educational. One thing I’ve learned as a TV writer from this year of reading has been to be less afraid of the obviously expository. Your audience needs exposition! And that’s what we get today, pages of it, in the opening of “The Tempest.”

Of course exposition on TV, where people can bail on you instantaneously, is a little different than in the theater, where the audience is eager to get into the story, because they paid for their tickets and so are rooting for their money. (Digression: when I was a well-paid TV writer, a condition that sadly no longer obtains, we used to go to New York where we’d see Broadway shows, and there’s an example of people rooting for their money. I never saw jokes so over-liked.) Also, I suspect, people liked lots of fancy talkin’ in Shakespeare’s time -- talk is cheap, and the Elizabethean budget was not exactly spacious. So you get stuff like this:

...I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness 7 and the bettering of my mind
With that which, but by being so retir’d,
O’er-priz’d all popular rate, 8 in my false brother
Awak’d an evil nature; and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood, in its contrary as great
As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans 9 bound.

I do like Prospero's admission, here, that his usurpation is kind of his fault; but otherwise, about the themes and stuff, I can’t say. Or rather I could try to say, but I’m intimidated because it’s Shakespeare. There is one line, however, that really sticks out, and perhaps has been unappreciated by scholars.

Gon. I’ll warrant him for drowning though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

As leaky as an unstanched wench. Gonzalo is, we are informed, a wise old counselor, so presumably this person was played by the Philip Baker Hall of his day. And he’s saying something dirty! I can’t tell you how tickled I was when I put this together. You see, I (and I am far from only among my comedy writing friends) have an acute appreciation for the trope of old people talking sexy and/or with hiphop slang – like the rappin’ Granny in the trailer for The Wedding Singer or the Granny who says “He’s got nice buns!” in the trailer to, I think, The Runaway Bride. It’s always hilarious! Sexy talk and/or hiphop slang is like the absolute last thing you’d expect an old person to say! It’s like the record-scratch sound effect – age cannot wither, nor custom stale, its awesome effect. Especially in a trailer.

And here I thought the “I speak jive” lady in “Airplane!” was the godmother of this trope. But no, it’s Shakespeare. That dude should have written trailers.

May 26: Those crazy Lears

Lear is crazy, of course -- everyone calls him so right at the start of the play. But isn't Cordelia a little irrational too? Aren't you supposed to humor your dotty elders, not get into an argument over pleasantries ("Why have my sisters husbands, if they say/They love you all?") I almost think that Cordelia is trying to score points against her bigmouthed sisters, rather than paying attention to where Lear is at.

It occurs to me that this is one of the differences between reading and seeing plays; Lear seems too crazy in this scene, as I read it, what with blowing up at Kent and trashing his daughter to the other nobles. (And yet not too crazy to speak in verse; old habits die hard, I guess.) But when you watch a play you don't have time to say "Hey, wait a minute," or the play will barrel right past you.

This is particularly true, I imagine, with great actors in the parts (I've never seen "Lear"), for one thing I like in great acting is the amount of detail that's in it, that's where the surprise in it comes, from an unusual emphasis of a word, or surprise in posture or movement. You'd need that here, I think, to sell Cordelia, who indeed is dragging the whole kingdom down out of some notion of self-righteousness.

(I realize that I sound a little bit like a Wall Street Journal editorial -- why won't Cordelia wear her flag lapel pin? She even marries a Frenchman, making matters even worse. But, considering what does happen, things might have been better for the Lears all around if she had just greased the wheels a little bit.)

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Shakespeare follows faultless sitcom form by beginning with the B-story -- with Edmund the bastard. You can begin scenes with the B-story, but people don't like it if you end with them.

Apr 23: Just a fun evening with King Lear

Nothing chases the taste of Kant from your mouth like King Lear! One thing I notice about Shakespeare, when you haven't been spending much time with him, is that he's not afraid of being so over-the-top that the top looks like a little tiny ant. As a modern comedy writer, of course, I lack this lack of fear. When someone is at, or over, the top, my instinct is to say, "Ah, come off it." So, not having this boldness, I do admire it. Lear goes crazy, and Shakespeare takes the time to tell some political truths about The Way It Is:

Through tatter’d clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sins with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.

Take that, Wall Street Journal editorial page! But, unlike a lesser writer, he gets off it right away (not before having one of his other characters mention how reasonable Lear is, all of a sudden.)

And, of course, Lear kind of has to be that over-the-top, because how otherwise is he worthy of Cordelia? The Lear we see in the play is stupid and shitty, yet, because he goes wrong greatly, we understand that he had, or has, greatness in him; and Cordelia loves him for that. Cordelia is immensely appealing because, underneath our own robes and furr'd gowns, we understand ourselves to be pretty shitty and stupid also; yet, under that, we hope we have some goodness, and a Cordelia to believe in it. No wonder it was hard to take that (SPOILER ALERT!) they both wind up dead.

Mar 25: Throw it down, big man!

Well, what’s to be said of Hamlet?

When I was in college I took a Shakespeare course and my TA said something to the effect of, “When I started graduate school, I believed the line that Shakespeare’s privileged position was just a result of our discourse. But now, having read all the other dramas of his time, I have to say that he really is that much better than everyone else.”

He certainly keeps his characters busy. Here in act III, scenes 1 and 2, Hamlet
• Soliloquizes (“To be or not to be”)
• Acts crazy toward Ophelia, sending her away (“Get thee to a nunnery”)
• Has a plan hatched against him (“Madness in great ones must not unwatched go”)
• Offers a little criticism of actors
• Hatches a plan with Horatio to watch his stepdad during the play
• Now flirts with Ophelia, but all crazy-like
• After the play, goads his mom and stepdad (“they do but in jest, poison in jest”)
• Busts Rosencrantz and Guidenstern (“do you think I am easier to play on than a pipe”) and Polonius (“very like a whale”)

That’s two scenes. It’s replete, I tell you, replete! (You can certainly see how one would be tempted to overplay Hamlet; I haven’t seen enough Hamlets to judge, though.)

Now, thanks to this project, I have now had to read a few other bits and pieces from the Elizabethan drama volumes — and I begin to see that Shakespeare is as over-the-top as his contemporaries, but his over-the-top also goes in different directions. Like a great slam-dunk champion, he not only gets above the rim, he can maneuver once he’s up there. Between that, and his quoteability, he really is the true Human Highlight Film, with apologies to this man:

I ought to use a more random photo, in the manner of Free Darko. But I don't have the Flickr skills.

One other point — the argument in “To be or not to be” is, Sure, we’d all love to kill ourselves, but we’re afraid of what might happen next. (In his own words, It’s the dread of the undiscovered country that keeps us bearing the fardels.) Is this true? Do atheists — who by definition must not have this dread — off themselves even more than, say, cops? (Although I believing in just or a merciful God must be a terrific strain if you’re in the L.A.P.D.) I don’t know; although I suspect atheism of being a luxury good — metaphysical comforts can be disposed with when you have enough of the physical — and if that’s the case maybe you’re less likely to off yourself. I dunno.

Feb 2: One of the greats

All right, Hamlet. Hamlet. Volume 46 – Elizabethan Drama I (a Marlowe play is thrown in to pad the diversity statistics…although I note that the reading for Thursday is from the Marlowe play. Should I even bother re-shelving? Yes, because I am likely to use the book as a coaster otherwise.)

I also note that the four Shakespeare plays are all tragedies. Typical. I’m going to avoid my usual anti-comedy-bias grousing. Except that of course there wouldn’t be any comedies, because comedies aren’t fancy. Owning the Harvard Classics was supposed to be like having an intellectual set of good china. Comedy is too haimish.

On the other hand, I’ve never found Shakespeare to be that funny on the page, (though it can play great, of course). It’s particularly unfunny (Falstaff) when you’re told how hilarious you’re supposed to find it (Falstaff).

What we got today is Act I, from Scene III to the end of the act.

-- Shit, what am I going to say about Hamlet? Except that I like Laertes’s politic advice to Ophelia – i.e. girl, you’re punching above your weight, romantically speaking. Hamlet will have to make a more appropriate match. Then Polonius tells her the same thing. Poor thing. (But I do like that Poor Ophelia was able to volley back at Polonius – don’t be breaking the girls’ hearts off at school.) Earnest Young English Teacher would no doubt try to show his students that, see, “Ophelia’s dad got on her case, too!”

-- Scene IV. Hamlet looking for the ghost. Another thing I’ve forgotten in my years away from the play is Hamlet’s fancy-lad disapproval for some old-fashioned Danish throwing down:

This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduc’d and tax’d of other nations.
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform’d at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.

or, "Geez! That’s not how we do it in Paris!"

It’s also interesting that, in Scene V, Hamlet doesn’t know that the ghost is his father. I can’t think of a practical reason for him not to know it – it’s equally expositional, or non-expositional, either way – and in some ways it’s a bigger moment if Hamlet realizes it. Maybe it’s just that it takes the scene in a different direction, about what Hamlet is doing now and not what he has to do.

-- The Ghost crying “Swear!” under the stage is a nice touch, too.

I think this excerpt is more for the “neither a borrower nor a lender be” speech (which, I picked up somewhere in my travels, we are supposed to feel superior too – Polonius is a fool), but I wonder also if the excerpt is so early in the play as to get us to read more; it’s like the trailer for the play.

I’m sneezing all over my computer screen so I think that’s enough for tonight.