September 2: The Fall Of The Inimitable Livers

Dryden says Cleopatra killed herself with aspic. I don't like the stuff either, but geez.

Sure, Antony and Cleopatra's legend was stoked by their high life of their glorious Scott-and-Zelda days; but today, via Dryden (via Shakespeare via Plutarch, really -- in our day this artistic practice is seen in successive covers of "Louie Louie"), we learn that what becomes a legend most is dual suicide.

Antony comes in about a third of the way through the act, and after that he gets two love scenes. The first is with his lieutenant Ventidius; it is about manly Roman death (emphasis added for a tiny bit of extra gayness) :

Vent. ... if death be your design,—
As I must wish it now,—these are sufficient
To make a heap about us of dead foes,
An honest pile for burial.

Ant. They are enough.
We’ll not divide our stars; but, side by side,
Fight emulous, and with malicious eyes
Survey each other’s acts: So every death
Thou giv’st, I’ll take on me, as a just debt,
And pay thee back a soul.

Vent. Now you shall see I love you. Not a word
Of chiding more. By my few hours of life,
I am so pleased with this brave Roman fate,
That I would not be Cæsar, to outlive your.
When we put off this flesh, and mount together,
I shall be shown to all the ethereal crowd,—
Lo, this is he who died with Antony!

Then Antony learns of Cleopatra's death -- falsely, as it turns out -- and, after much back-and-forth about whether and how they should kill themselves, finally we get this:

Vent. Give me your hand.
We soon shall meet again. Now, farewell, emperor!— [Embrace.
Methinks that word’s too cold to be my last:
Since death sweeps all distinctions, farewell, friend!
That’s all— I will not make a business of a trifle;
And yet I cannot look on you, and kill you;
Pray turn your face.

Ant. I do: strike home, be sure.

Vent. Home as my sword will reach. [Kills himself.

Ventidius, you bitch! And, after killing himself, he still has more lines which shows you how tough the Romans were.

Then there's the other love scene, with Cleopatra, which has the unfortunate defect of the two of them having to figure out the plot which all of us in the audience just saw, and which would also have the very probable defect of an actor having a lot of lines after just having stabbed himself. Five will get you ten that said actor hams it up. How could you not? This actually might be fun to stage campily, what with the Ventidius stuff and all.

There remains only the aspics to kill Cleo and the women, and you'd have to have read the whole play, as I obviously have not, to get the sense of whether this is really sad or not. I guess it would add to the general campiness if you actually used aspics under the guise of being true to the text. Student directors, take note!

July 8: Nothing is too hot for the Harvard Classics

Relevantizing Young English Teacher says that The Cenci is just as lurid as Twin Peaks, before realizing he'd have to explain what Twin Peaks was also.

Okay, even though I read that article in the New Yorker, I still have trouble keeping Shelley and Keats straight. (It would have helped if they had arranged for one of them not to die young, perhaps via a coin flip, but that's the Romantics for you -- always thinking of themselves, ultimately.) Or should I say, "had trouble," because now I know that Keats wasn't the one who wrote the play about incest, and Shelley was.

Yeah, that's right -- Shelley knows how to put the hay down where the goats can get at it. By no means is it pro-incest (it's not Byron, after all), but it is pro-over-the-top evil patriarchs, like Old Man Cenci here:

Cenci Tis an awful thing
To touch such mischief as I now conceive:
So men sit shivering on the dewy bank,
And try the chill stream with their feet; once in…
How the delighted spirit pants for joy!

Villainy most metrical, am I right? And, if you read it with enough sympathy for the Romantical diction, it is. Here he is celebrating the fact that his sons have died:

Cenci (filling a bowl of wine, and lifting it up). Oh, thou bright wine whose purple splendour leaps
And bubbles gaily in this golden bowl
Under the lamp-light, as my spirits do,
To hear the death of my accursèd sons!
Could I believe thou wert their mingled blood,
Then would I taste thee like a sacrament...

This is another case of "don't let the 'werts' fool you" -- this guy is a badass. And, Shelley says it's based on a true story, which is how I think such strong stuff got allowed in by the Puritans who (or so I imagine) stocked the Harvard Classics -- it's not only true, but it's about Italians as well, so it doesn't count. As Shelley explains:

But religion in Italy is not, as in Protestant countries, a cloak to be worn on particular days... or a gloomy passion for penetrating the impenetrable mysteries of our being, which terrifies its possessor at the darkness of the abyss to the brink of which it has conducted him. Religion coexists, as it were, in the mind of an Italian Catholic, with a faith in that of which all men have the most certain knowledge. It is interwoven with the whole fabric of life. It is adoration, faith, submission, penitence, blind admiration; not a rule for moral conduct.

Would Mario Puzo agree? He might well.

And other than that, how did I like the play? The HC says its "unperformable," but I think that's due to its strong subject matter; it might be unperformable today because its action/talking about action ratio is much less favorable than Shakespeare. It's still strong stuff, though.

July 7: My head hurts

From time to time I suspect that the Daily Reading Guide was not meant to actually be followed, and today just gives me evidence, for, two months after assigning Act IV, Scene III of the School for Scandal, they now follow up with the opening.

And it is no help. I can't remember which one is Lady Teazle and which one is Lady Sneerwell, and do the brother have to have the same last name? Even Sheridan's super-duper-obvious expositioning, while meant to be helpful of course, only seems to make matters murkier:

Snake. Here are two young men, to whom Sir Peter has acted as a kind of guardian since their father’s death; the eldest possessing the most amiable character, and universally well spoken of—the youngest, the most dissipated and extravagant young fellow in the kingdom, without friends or character; the former an avowed admirer of your ladyship, and apparently your favourite; the latter attached to Maria, Sir Peter’s ward, and confessedly beloved by her.

I don't even think it would help if they spelled "favorite" right. Of course, when you have actors doing this material, it makes it easier -- they've spent all that rehearsal time figuring out who is who, what each of them were like as a child, etc.

The spoonful of sugar, I guess, to all this pipe is the funny names -- the gossip is named "Mrs. Candour," and she gets gems to say like this:

To-day, Mrs. Clackitt assured me, Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. She likewise hinted that a certain widow, in the next street, had got rid of her dropsy and recovered her shape in a most surprising manner. And at the same time Miss Tattle, who was by, affirmed that Lord Buffalo had discovered his lady at a house of no extraordinary fame; and that Sir Harry Bouquet and Tom Saunter were to measure swords on a similar provocation.

Aarrgh. I take back what I said the other day about my love of old-timey obvious jokes. Well, I take back 70% of it, anyway.

June 16: You and your boons can just stay in the closet

Speaking of works of art by megalomaniacs...

Wikipedia says (and right off the bat I must apologize for the "Wikipedia says" lede) that Byron's Manfred is what they call a closet drama, that is, a poem written like a play, but not meant to be performed, in Manfred's case because it would be the worst play of all times.

First of all, it's the kind of play where boons are granted -- actually, they're not granted, but Manfred, our Byronic hero, is too good for them:

From my youth upwards
My spirit walk’d not with the souls of men,
Nor look’d upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh,
Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded me...

Yeah, we love you too, buddy. Maybe we don't want your spirit walking with our souls -- did you ever think of that?

The introductory note to this play in the HC psyches us up with this paragraph: "For dramatic writing Byron was not favorably endowed. His egotism was too persistent to enable him to enter vitally and sympathetically into a variety of characters, and the hero of his plays...is usually himself more of less disguised." That explains why Manfred seems to have slept with his sister:

She was like me in lineaments—her eyes,
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But soften’d all, and temper’d into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
...Pity, and smiles, and tears—which I had not;
And tenderness—but that I had for her;
Humility—and that I never had.

Oy, and I go on to add, vey. How could someone who wrote this:

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication:
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk
The hopes of all men, and of every nation;
Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk
Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion:
But to return,—Get very drunk; and when
You wake with headache, you shall see what then.

Write this:

Man. Think’st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,
Innumerable atoms; and one desert,
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks, and the salt—surf weeds of bitterness.

I guess it explains why he drinks.

May 8: The High Scene

I just saw this in the New York Times yesterday: "Deep in the third act of the Pearl Theater Company’s entertaining production of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” I realized how much the sitcom “Frasier” owes to Oscar Wilde."

First of all, I thought, "Breaking news!" But, more than that, there are plenty of influences on sitcoms -- "Fraiser" owes just as much to Noel Coward (it's funny that Ken Levine was complaining (a little bit) about how "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" had the same plot device as a Frasier he'd written when the plot device is also in "Private Lives"). And when they were doing "You Can't Take It With You" at the Geffen a couple of years ago the radio ads were touting it as the ancestor to the sitcom. And the first number of "The Spectator" also reminded me of a pilot, in the way we were assembling the wacky team.

All of which goes to show that there's nothing new under the sun (or, as Issac Bashevis Singer once said about this building, "Tolstoy never made an effort to be original"), and today we have a scene from The School For Scandal that, on some sitcoms, they would call the high scene -- the scene of maximum craziness. (It's almost shorter to read it than to summarize it, but it is summarized, in three paragraphs, here.) And, with one character hiding behind a screen and one character hiding in a closet, it seems timelessly wacky -- and, as they're all noblemen, there's even a whiff of the "boss is coming over for dinner" there, too. (What I'd really like to find is an 18th century masterpiece of the stage where two characters settle a dispute by painting a line down the middle of their flat. )

It reminds me so much of working on sitcoms that I am not surprised to find out that Sheridan kept rewriting the play -- of course you would, it's like tweaking the performance of your car or computer or any other machine. It's not actually funny to read, but you can see, in the right hands, where it might still get laughs, although I estimate that there is a 60% chance that the actors would overplay it, with disastrous results. There's something about costume drama that throws the timing off (cf. the gelatinous pacing of "John Adams."

My only note in this scene is, when the screen falls, revealing Lady Teazle (this is about line 191 in the Bartleby version), she doesn't have anything to say for a long time. That doesn't seem right -- even an "Odd's bodkins!" would be appropriate.

Apr 4: The misadventures of Lord Funnyname

More Annals of Exposition today, as it's the first act of She Stoops To Conquer, from Modern (!) English Drama, volume 18.

Unlike some of the dramas I've had to read, this one actually seems modern, if for no other reason than the characters are given real names -- Mrs. Hardcastle, for example, isn't called Mrs. Idiot. Goldsmith can't bring himself to fully abandon the device -- the dancing master is named Cripplegate -- but at least we never see these characters.
It occurs to me that it's a good thing this obvious-naming tradition has died out in the theater since there's so many agitprop plays -- the last thing they need is for characters to be named things like General Warren Monger. Of course, the funny-name tradition is universal, as I saw on the Daily Show last night (WARNING: Extremely juvenile):


Anyway, Goldsmith's craft is to be admired here also. It's a little pipey here in the beginning, but the mama-who-spoils-her-son motif is right there on page two:

Mrs. Hard. Humour, my dear; nothing but humour. Come, Mr. Hardcastle, you must allow the boy a little humour.
Hard. I’d sooner allow him a horse-pond. If burning the footmen’s shoes, frightening the maids, and worrying the kittens be humour, he has it. It was but yesterday he fastened my wig to the back of my chair, and when I went to make a bow, I popt my bald head in Mrs. Frizzle’s face.
Mrs. Hard. And am I to blame? The poor boy was always too sickly to do any good. A school would be his death. When he comes to be a little stronger, who knows what a year or two’s Latin may do for him?

It's not actually funny, but if you brought it into a room it could be made funny. And, in fact, after the characters come out and, in conversation, "happen" to tell us about how rich they are and what peculiar plot-inciting eccentricities they might have, the act ends on a very sitcomy note: the scamp Tony (he of nailing the wig to the back of the chair), tells the Londoners that the great house they're going to meet their future wives is in fact an inn. An Inn! What comic consequences born out of misperception might then result!

Plus there's a drinking song:

	When methodist preachers come down, A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
	I’ll wager the rascals a crown,
	They always preach best with a skinful.
	But when you come down with your pence,
	For a slice of their scurvy religion,
	I’ll leave it to all men of sense,
	But you, my good friend, are the Pigeon.
	Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

Note the small "m" on methodist -- the denomination hadn't been invented yet (being a Religious Studies major is lots of fun). Also, "toroddle toroddle" is also a little out of style -- kids these days with their "toroddle toroddle" music, am I right?

I think I may steal this plot (which you don't the full sense of in the excerpt -- but I looked it up) the next time I need an episode idea. And then I can claim I bought the set of Harvard Classics and write it off.

Feb 15: The regrettable consequences of Valentine's Day

Today is Dryden's version of Antony and Cleopatra (no, I didn't know there was one either) -- "All For Love," act III; from Volume 18 "Modern English Drama". Modern English Drama? Let's let it pass. For we have a tale of love and dynastic politics -- Dryden's version of "The Tudors," if you will, but written at a time where people might still remember the Tudors. (Or "Rome," I realize, but I haven't seen "Rome".)

When Antony says this to Cleopatra, in the opening:

There’s no satiety of love in thee:
Enjoyed, thou still art new; perpetual spring
Is in thy arms; the ripened fruit but falls,
And blossoms rise to fill its empty place;
And I grow rich by giving.

I thought, shouldn't we have been reading this yesterday? But complications ensue. First Antony's old buddy Dolabella comes from Caesar's camp. Old buddy...or something:

Ant. ’Tis he himself! himself, by holy friendship! [Runs to embrace him.
Art thou returned at last, my better half?
Come, give me all myself!
Let me not live,
If the young bridegroom, longing for his night,
Was ever half so fond.

Whoa. Those Italians, so demonstrative. Did the Harvard people know this was in here? Anyway, Dolabella gives Antony, who is up against it, a way out -- get back together with your wife (Caesar's sister Octavia) And he produces her! (Music sting.)

Then, there's something I really like, which is that Antony and Octavia get into a "Mr. and Mrs." (a phrase I got from a Parisian friend of mine), which is summed up by one of the bystanders: "Was ever such a strife of sullen honor!/Both scorn to be obliged." I've had that fight. Here's theirs:

Ant. Then I must be obliged	365
To one who loves me not; who, to herself,
May call me thankless and ungrateful man:—
I’ll not endure it; no.
Vent. I am glad it pinches there. [Aside.
Octav. Would you triumph o’er poor Octavia’s virtue?
That pride was all I had to bear me up;
That you might think you owed me for your life,
And owed it to my duty, not my love.
I have been injured, and my haughty soul
Could brook but ill the man who slights my bed.

I'm sure marriage counselors hear stuff like this all the time. Then Dryden brings Antony's kids in to turn him around -- using kids so shamelessly being the mark of the master. And then, to end the act, Octavia and Cleopatra meet, and it's a surprise not to see a stage direction like [She slaps her.

It's super-pulpy, if you can get past the language:

Cleo. Oh, you do well to search; for had you known
But half these charms, you had not lost his heart.
Octav. Far be their knowledge from a Roman lady,	510
Far from a modest wife! Shame of our sex,
Dost thou not blush to own those black endearments,
That make sin pleasing?
Cleo. You may blush, who want them.

Kitty has claws! One thing I've definitely learned from this project is that subtlety in the dramatic art is overrated; the masters prove it so.