November 25: Comedy

Some comedy, however, is timeless.

Really, any day of the year would be OK to start a stunt like this. New Year's Day is a little obvious, even, but I was on strike and not picketing. (Digression: It really is remarkable how much show business shuts down over the holidays. You could totally Basil E. Frankweiler inside CAA from like the 23rd till after New Year's, but it would be no fun. They have crappy office coffee just like everyone else. )

But if you chose today, I pity you, because you're going to snap your book or laptop shut and go back to working your way through the Kama Sutra once you encouter today's reading, an Elizabethan comedy called The Shoemaker's Holiday. Like most comedies that are more than a generation old, it's not funny. Here's the great comic character of the piece, Simon Eyre:

Where be these boys, these girls, these drabs, these scoundrels? They wallow in the fat brewiss of my bounty, and lick up the crumbs of my table, yet will not rise to see my walks cleansed. Come out, you powder-beef queans! What, Nan! what, Madge Mumble-crust. Come out, you fat midriff-swag-belly-whores, and sweep me these kennels that the noisome stench offend not the noses of my neighbours.

In my professional opinion, none of that works. ("Powder-beef queans" is borderline, but disallowed because it's only spelled funny.) And the only way to make it work is for the poor actor to overplay it so much that you, the audience member, just hope he can't see you averting your eyes.

To be fair (although why I feel compelled to be fair to a long-dead Elizabethan playwright is a mystery), my aversion might have something more to do with the fact that this is not Day 1 of the project. This has been a year heavy with people who are Earls and Lord Mayors; they start to pall after awhile, even here, when they only exist to be contrasted with hearty folk of the people. Although I notice that back in early February I talked about how Falstaff's not funny, either. On the other hand I saw a production of "Twelfth Night" this summer in Barnsdall Park and found Sir Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek kind of funny; they walked around with little bubbles of drunkenness popping all around their heads. This isn't exactly a golden age of lush comedy, so I found it refreshing.

The idea of actual drinking also seems kind of refreshing right now. Maybe I'll try that.

June 7: Poor Ophelia

Act IV, Scene V of Hamlet today -- wherein we discover that Ophelia has gone mad, because of 1) the death of her father, but also probably 2) the shitty deal she's getting in general.

I am, as always, intimidated by Hamlet and the long tradition of Hamlet commentary. When I'm reading these Classics that I've never heard of I feel freer, because I am also unaware of any scholarly superstructure around, say, the essays of Robert Louis Stevenson. (And yet I know it must exist because graduate students have to study something. ) But Hamlet, Jesus. So I will confine myself to a few bullet points.

• I had forgotten that the murder of Polonius, Ophelia and Laertes's blowhard dad, is really the motor of the second half of the play. These days you would probably want to move it up a little and start your story sooner. "Doesn't Hamlet deciding not to kill Claudius at prayer seem like an up-and-back?" -- that kind of thing. Shakespeare, however, is extravagant.

• Excellent carpentry by Shakespeare, also, where we first hear about Ophelia's madness from Gertrude -- who also must be going a little nuts by now.

• Here's one of Ophelia's bawdy songs:

“By Gis, and by Saint Charity,
Alack! and, fie for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to ’t;
By Cock, they are to blame.

"Cock" is footnoted by the Harvard Classics editor, who tells us it means, "A corruption of 'God.'" Of course it does.

• Finally, I think this may be the last "Hamlet" excerpt of the year, so I'm going to put an excerpt from one of my favorite poems, Zbigniew Herbert's "Elegy of Fortinbras":

Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project

and a decree on prostitutes and beggars

I must also elaborate a better system of prisons

since as you justly said Denmark is a prison

I go to my affairs This night is born

a star named Hamlet We shall never meet

what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy

It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos

and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince

UPDATE: I forgot my favorite part, which is the description of today's reading from the alas-no-longer-online Daily Reading Guide itself. It is a small masterpiece of early 20th century advertising prose:

"There's Rosemary -- that 's for Remembrance!"
Do you know the rest of Ophelia's famous line? "Hamlet" is the most popular play in the entire world. It has been quoted so often that reading it is like meeting an old friend.

It has it all -- the heartiness of asserting that a play about two families and an entire nation become utterly undone is "like meeting an old friend"; the peer pressure of the fact that "Hamlet" is the most popular play, not just in the world, but in the entire world; and the enticement in the form of a question in the first sentence. "Why, I don't know the rest of Ophelia's famous line," the mark reader is supposed to say. "I best purchase this series of books!"

Mar 18: Grousy

It's been a while since I snarked on the DRG's habit of forcing readings based on anniversaries. Well, today, as you know, is the anniversary not of the birth, nor of the death, but of the burial of Philip Massinger. No, I've never heard of him either. Does it help if I say he is the author of "A New Way To Pay Old Debts" -- the kind of 17th-century drama where the guy who owns the tavern is named Tapwell and the baker is named Furnace? It doesn't? Does it get you psyched if Wikipedia says that "It seems doubtful whether Massinger was ever a popular playwright"? Me neither.

But enough grousing -- wait, not yet. What is the deal with the old-timey playwrights and their affection for the Sir Giles Overreach (who is the most famous character from this play, apparently) style of naming? Did they think it was hilarious -- their version of putting Will Farrell in a funny wig? Or is it just to make it easier to keep track of everyone -- "oh, right, Furnace is the baker"? I dunno.

My other grouse is the excerpter's habit of just taking the first scene or two of a play. I find this lazy. It would give the reader the impression that "Hamlet" is about a couple of security guards who see a ghost. (Actually, I think that might have been a good plot for Method and Red.) So what we got is more Explorations In Early Modern Exposition. It's a new one, though: Wellborn a (no shit) well born wastrel, is out of credit with Tapwell. Tapwell tells Wellborn all about himself in order to humiliate him:

What you are, is apparent. Now, for a farewell,
Since you talk of father, in my hope it will torment you,
I’ll briefly tell your story.

(This is one of those times where I'm pasting formatted text so it's going to look weird.) It reminds you of a Bond villain, but instead of killing Wellborn, he's just going to cut off his tab. It ends the same way, though, because Wellborn beats the shit out of him:

Thou viper, thankless viper! impudent bawd!—
But since you are grown forgetful, I will help
Your memory, and tread you into mortar,
Nor leave one bone unbroken. [Beats him again.]

See, nowadays, the P.C. squad would be all out in full force if a rich kid beat up a bartender. It's not like the old days, no sir. I also wonder how you would stage it.

Well, the excerpt kind of went downhill after that point. Owing the aforegroused excerpting policy we never meet Sir Giles Overreach, although judging by his last name I think by the end he might go by Overreach-Comeuppance. We do get an example of why Massinger is commended to us in the volume as a wonderfully moral playwright, and also a hint of why he wasn't popular:

...but for such
As repair thither as a place in which
They do presume they may with license practise
Their lusts and riots, they shall never merit
The noble name of soldiers.

How Margaret Dumont!

Mar 10: In which the Classics pall somewhat.

But enough of high officials of state and hookers, let's have some old-fashioned Jacobean exposition, Beaumont and Fletcher style:

DION. Yes; whose father, we all know, [my absolute favorite expositional device -- ed] was by our late King of Calabria unrighteously deposed from his fruitful Sicily. Myself drew some blood in those wars, which I would give my hand to be washed from.
CLE. Sir, my ignorance in state-policy will not let me know why, Philaster being heir to one of these kingdoms, the King should suffer him to walk abroad with such free liberty.
DION. Sir, it seems your nature is more constant than to inquire after state-news. But...

I think if I were doing a doctorate I would do it on exposition in early modern drama. This isn't a comedy, or CLE (Cleremont) could be the dumb character. Then we could get all the pipe out.

What I would like to ask someone with a doctorate is why the hell the people are named what they are. Our hero is named Philaster, which might be the name of a nineteenth century Senator or modern point guard. The villain is a Spaniard (of course), so naturally he's named Pharamond, which is more point guard-y than Senatorial, to my ear. Other people in the cast are:

Arethusa
Thrasaline
Galatea
Megna

I guess maybe we're more provincial than the Jacobeans -- or maybe this is just the Jacobean version of science fiction (compare this list of Doctor Who henchmen).

Anyway, what we got is that the King is going to give his daughter away to the Spaniard, Pharamond. I believe we're supposed to hiss automatically. Philaster, who has a claim to the throne that I'm not going to untangle -- one thing about this one-night-stand way of reading, you don't do the work on the relationship that you ought to -- is steaming. He talks hot, and then, the princess (who we haven't seen) calls him for an assignation. It's a setup! his friends cry, but he goes anyway. And...scene!

The past couple days I've been pissing on Swift and Cervantes, and I'd rather not be a hater, but there you are. Even the Daily Reading Guide's reassurance that Beaumont and Fletcher were "men from good families" is no balm. Maybe if I put some Thrasaline on it I'll feel better.

Emerson tomorrow! There's a cure for the blues!

Feb 6: Marlowe and the Royal Mustache

Why am I doing this again? That’s right, I don’t know. I think it’s just for the fun of a stunt. And it’s easier on my shins than running a marathon, although, after I’m done reading this except from Marlowe's “Edward II" (Vol. 47, more double-dipping), I won’t have burned off enough calories to eat 15 pancakes. Which is not to say that it won’t happen.

So we’re in act V, and it seems cheating, somehow, to look up who Edward II is, although I have a vague idea (I believe he was medieval, and a ponce). Enter Queen Isabella and Young Mortimer, who is woofing:

The proud corrupters of the light-brain’d king
Have done their homage to the lofty gallows,
And he himself lies in captivity.
Be rul’d by me, and we will rule the realm.

“Young” Mortimer? More like “Smooth” Mortimer. Isabella, by the way, is cold towards her husband; suddenly the rut of my everyday existence, which the Harvard Classics is designed to take me out of, doesn’t seem so bad. My wife’s not planning on throwing me in prison. That I know of. Then a messenger comes in with news of him and she’s all like, “Alas, poor soul, would I could ease his grief!” Arranged marriages – not all they’re cracked up to be in the popular press.

Even more so:

Q. Isab. But, Mortimer, as long as he survives,
What safety rests for us, or for my son?
Y. Mor. Speak, shall he presently be despatch’d and die?
Q. Isab. I would he were, so ’twere not by my means.

Plausible deniability! The Royal Mustache must be brought in, so she can twirl it. Marlowe is delivering the goods. He knows how to put the hay down where the goats can get at it.

In scene III we meet Edward:

Must I be vexed like the nightly bird,
Whose sight is loathsome to all winged fowls?
When will the fury of his mind assuage?
When will his heart be satisfied with blood?
If mine will serve, unbowel straight this breast,
And give my heart to Isabel and him;
It is the chiefest mark they level at.

It’s funny – it sounds like Shakespeare, because of rhythm and syntax I guess, but it’s v. plain – Shakespeare would be aiming at something that controls the whole speech (here are some ways that the king dies). But maybe that’s what makes it juicy – it’s just a straight-up messed-up Royal Family, there’s no additional Meaning-assembly (probably a word in German) required.

But then, in scene IV, Mortimer comes in with this brilliant plan:

And therefore will I do it cunningly.
This letter, written by a friend of ours,
Contains his death, yet bids them save his life. [Reads.]
“Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est
Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die.”
But read it thus, and that’s another sense:
“Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est
Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.”

Check it -- the Latin is ambiguous! Marlowe loses all the juicyness there, but I guess these college boys can’t help themselves. Nevertheless Mortimer charges his hired goon (“I learned in Naples how to poison flowers” – Naples, even then!), and basically gives a long “nothing can go wrong” speech.

And to conclude, I am Protector now.
Now is all sure: the queen and Mortimer
Shall rule the realm, the king; and none rule us.

Contemporary melodrama theory states that there must be a comeuppance. But will there be? Once again, ignorance is strength!

Now, in scene V, two different henchmen are trying to torture Edward, but good melodrama hero that he is (I suspect him of being a shithead earlier and being redeemed by suffering), he resists:

Mat. He hath a body able to endure
More than we can inflict: and therefore now
Let us assail his mind another while.

“Let us assail his mind another while” – that’s some timeless villain talk, there. And then King Edward is murdered – in a stage direction. How? I dunno! That must have been one hell of a production meeting.

then, in scene VI, upon hearing the news, Young Mortimer calls for the Royal Mustache again:

As for myself, I stand as Jove’s huge tree,
And others are but shrubs compar’d to me.
All tremble at my name, and I fear none;
Let’s see who dare impeach me for his death!

I think I heard this on a hip-hop album once. But, true to the melodrama, someone comes -- Edward III comes with a letter proving all, and then, in a rush, Mortimer is sent off to be killed, Mom (Q. Isabella) is sent to the tower, and Mortimer’s head is brought back to be lectured too. This takes about a page and a half. It’s like Marlowe had to write the last scene on deadline.

Or maybe the comeuppance of the wicked isn’t as interesting to him as when they’re living large. He wouldn't be the first writer to think so.

Feb 3: Jacobean wisenheimers

It’s post-Super Bowl, and I’m feeling lazy, even though I didn’t watch it, except for the end as I was fixing dinner. Even though sports is far bigger than it was in the days of the HC, whoever made the selections must have been feeling lazy too, for we go all the way from Volume 46 to 47, from Shakespeare to…Jonson.

One of the advantages of using the physical book instead of the online version is that all the other stuff swims into your vision. Did you know Ben Jonson worked as a bricklayer? I don’t know why it would matter, but it is interesting.

Also around, but not included in the reading (which is act I scenes I-II of “The Alchemist”), is the “Argument” and the “Prologue”. This thing has more pregame than the Super Bowl (trying to keep topical here).

Oh, the argument is one of those acrostic poems where the first letters of the lines all spell “The Alchemist.” There is no end to the ingenuity of mankind deprived of TV.

I’ll also excerpt these four lines from the prologue because – if I am reading them right – they form a comedy writer’s creed:

..But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And in their working gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseas’d,
But will with such fair correctives be pleas’d.

As poetry I don’t think so much of it (the last line seems to clump a little), I just like the idea that the writer is pleased when his satire not only corrects people but makes some money.

-- OK, here’s the dramatis personae. The Alchemist is called Subtle. That’s probably the only thing that will be -- what kind of person will “Pertinax Surly” be, do we think? How about Tribulation Wholesome (which could have been the name of an XFL player)? Could you even get away with this nowadays? Sure you could, I realize – wasn’t there just a hit show called “Will & Grace”?

-- By the way, we’re promised “boisterous and ludicrous happenings,” so expect the unexpected! We join Subtle, Face (the housekeeper) and Dol Common mid-argument, so points for that. I think my sitcom background helps me here at the beginning, because the first thing I want to know is what they’re doing, not so much what they’re saying. They’re arguing, I can tell, and I’m not worried what the words are, because there aren’t enough of them to be expositional. So when Subtle says, “I’ll gum your silks/With good strong water, an you come,” I think “yada yada yada” – I’m waiting for the pipe to be laid.

-- Face then asks Subtle, out of anger, “Who am I, my mongrel, who am I?” A great way to get the pipe out! I have a feelling that this year’s readings, with their emphasis on the beginnings of plays, will actually be a master class for me in exposition.

-- “Suburb-captain” is an insult. The suburbs have never gotten respect.

-- Jonson also gives them a device whereby Face wants the volume of the conversation turned down and Subtle wants it louder, which could be funny to play, although I am easily amused.

-- Although he drops it as the two men fight, calling each other a “dog-leech” and “the vomit of all prisons”. It’s like you're practically at the Renaissance Faire right now!

-- I get it now (because the lady is cursing them out) – the three of them have a con going. They set up young Dapper, a lawyer (get it? He's a lawyer, and his name is Dapper.) and, again,, it’s something that would play much better than it reads (although it’s full of alchemical references, so who would want to see it, but this end, where Subtle is setting up the mark, reminds me of various New Age stuff one hears about:

Sir, against one o’clock prepare yourself;
Till when you must be fasting; only take
Three drops of vinegar in at your nose,
Two at your mouth, and one at either ear;
Then bathe your fingers’ ends and wash your eyes,
To sharpen your five senses, and cry hum
Thrice, and then buz as often.

The out, too, seems almost like Billy Wilder:

Well then, away. It is but your bestowing
Some twenty nobles ’mong her grace’s servants,
And put on a clean shirt. You do not know
What grace her grace may do you in clean linen.