BLOG POST #32 SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE AMERICA

No, this is not a new theory, that Shakespeare was actually born in America. 
I'm a firm believer in the evidence that William Shakespeare, that great writer, was born in Stratford-on-Avon, England. 

Shakespeare's Birthplace America is an entity formed so that Americans who love Shakespeare can make donations to support preservation of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in the U.K., and get a very American tax deduction.  In addition to preserving the old buildings that make up the Shakespeare complex,  there are new plans afoot to create a footprint tour of Shakespeare's great house, the house where he died. 

New Place House was one of the biggest, if not the biggest house, in Stratford.   Shakespeare bought it in 1597, the year after his only son died.  Perhaps he wanted to cheer up his family, a large number of people crowded into the house on Henley Street that Shakespeare had been born in.   Or perhaps he realized that life was short, and he was getting moderately rich.  Why not do this for his family, make his visits home more pleasant, and even look ahead with a view to his retirement?  The orchard, the garden, offered potential for many peaceful hours.

New Place House has an incredible history involving more than one murder.  Not in Shakespeare's family, but in two families that preceded his purchase of the house.  In fact, his title was not fully cleared until several years after his purchase, his investment in restoration, and his moving his family into the house!  This was due to a murder, the hanging of the murderer, and the rather strange inheritance laws of the time.   Of all the biographies of Shakespeare I've read, the one by Park Honan, "Shakespeare: A Life," seems to give the fullest account of the bloody/poisonous history of the building. 

But, under new management, New Place House became a shrine.  This is where Shakespeare lived after his great successes.  This is where he died.  In fact, in the 18th Century, the owner of New Place House, driven frantic and, I would say, mad, by the stream of visitors who would ring his bell and demand to be shown through the home of the Great Shakespeare, had it torn down!  He didn't sell it, as he probably could have.  Instead, he had it pulled down and probably jumped up and down on it, like a frustrated Rumplestilskin.

Today, we have an outline of the house, drawings of what the exterior of the house looked like in Shakespeare's time, and a plan to revive the site.  The British Government is not paying for any of this.  Private contributions are funding this project.  If any of you reading this would be interested in more information, please go to: development@shakespeare.org.uk or www.shakespearesbirthplaceamerica.org.

I don't work for this organization, but I think it's great, what they're doing.

BLOG POST #31 FOCUS

When Mark Graham first began to help me shape my plays, he emphasized that I needed to
 find or decide upon my primary focus.  Everything relies upon the strength of focus, which is,
 I suppose, similar to core training in a physical fitness program. 

The first two plays of my Shakespeare trilogy are very strong on focus, I think.  They hold together.  Strangely enough, focus allows for the introduction of surprises, in a way that an intellectually lazier approach does not. As I may have said before, I believe that a playwright should be sure to surprise his/her audience from time to time.  If you have a predictable series of events, you are not going to have as interesting a play as if you have a potential element of surprise, to keep the audience engaged.

I began writing my third play with a pretty solid concept for its plot and even characterization.  But I'm not satisfied with what I've written so far: four and 1/2 scenes that do not ring my bell.  And I think I've figured out why.  It's the focus.  I have moved the focus away from Shakespeare, making him only a minor player in this drama.  And that has to change.  I think I know how I can still tell my story, holding him and his actions as the focal point.  I just need to rework the plot so that what he says and does is both interesting and plausible.  Also, as far as possible, I'd like to be solidly on Will's side.  He took enough criticism from the viewpoint of his disinherited daughter in "Judith Shakespeare Has Her Say."  He's still my man, and I owe him so much.

BLOG POST # 31 DUELING SONNETS

When my husband and I were first married and combining the contents of our two apartments into one unit called "ours," we weren't surprised to find we had to deal with a LOT of books.  But what did surprise us was (a)  there were no duplicates and (b) He had nothing before 1900, and I had nothing after 1900.   How odd, especially as on our first date we realized that we both had the same favorite short story, James Joyce's "The Dead."

My husband, aka as Philip Schaefer, is a retired lawyer and he's been writing an amazing blog for almost nine years now, commenting on such a variety of things he's interested in that it has become an fascinatingly detailed portrait of his inner life.  In a way, this is the book that is absolutely perfect for him to write and to have written.  It is large. It contains multitudes, as they say.  (philipschaefer.com)

Right now he's interested in The Sonnet Project. (You'd have to go to his blog to see its exact title, but that's how I think of it.)  Each sonnet by Shakespeare is filmed in a  location in New York City that seems to fit the "story" of that sonnet,  and the sonnet is read/acted out by actors, as if they're are doing a short play. I think the general concept is brilliant.  Some of the actors are more successful than others, of course.  And the underlying concepts are pulled off to a greater or lesser degree from sonnet to sonnet.  But all of them become fresh and contemporary, in our current New York City, with the voices of young people, both men and women, bringing the sonnets into live performance.

Now, here's the irony.  Phil seems to be convinced that this is the way to look at the sonnets, almost like the dramatic monologues of Robert Browning.  They are little plays.  They have nothing to do with the poet's life.  He's trying out situations and working all the variations. In a way, though Phil might not say this, Shakespeare is. a musician trying out riffs. Meanwhile, back at home--no longer our darling little apartment in New York, but our home in the suburbs--I'm working on my third play about Shakespeare.  And I'm handling the sonnets in the most traditional way possible. Shakespeare, writing about the darling, well-born young man, the Dark Lady, the whole nine yards. 

The whole issue of highly romanticized love between men which was part of the Elizabethan culture (and never has to be defined, explained, or sensationalized) works for this play I'm writing.  It is part of its emotional charge.  And it's the part of the sonnet tradition that fits this play.  My husband understands, I hope.

BLOG POST # 30 PLAYWRIGHTS AND SUBTEXT

I had an interesting discussion last night with Jack Rushton, a fellow playwright at The
Theatre Artists Workshop of Westport (Ct.).  We had both presented short plays to the group,
 as offerings for possible inclusion in our May show.  We talked about many things, but the issue that stands out in my mind is: How much can and should a playwright try to control how his play is delivered?  After all, the theater is a collaborative art, and how much should a playwright interfere with the work of the director and the actors?  Edward Albee popped up in the conversation, as he indicates in his script how he wants certain lines delivered.  And I've heard, but don't know if this is true, that whenever someone tries to get the rights to do "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" Albee insists on seeing photos of who will be playing the four roles.

Jack told me that he deliberately writes as few stage directions as possible, to leave room for the interpretations of directors and actors.  He is intrigued by the idea of their explorations, and how they might find things in his text that work beautifully and that had not been part of his original intention.

I had an acting teacher/director tell me once that the only reason stage directions are printed into scripts is in case a school gets the rights to do a play, and the only one directing is the gym teacher, who, presumably, is grateful for any scrap of directorial hint on offer.  She always made us cross out all the stage directions and start fresh with hers.  (This was Lois Fern Hamilton whom some of you may remember, a beautiful, brilliant, and wildly erratic woman. Certainly not a comfortable person to work with, but clearly dedicated to the theater.)

When I was working my script of "Shakespeare Rising" in Utah  with the incredibly talented Henry Woronicz  he pointed out to me that I was slipping subtext into the script.  He said that was because I'm an actor, and I was looking at the roles and the scenes from the point of view of how I would act if I were in the play.  He had a point.   On the other hand, I see no harm in indicating how I want the lines to be read.  If anyone has a pencil he/she can just cross them out, and probably will.   But I want to at least hint at my vision, how I see the scenes working. Sometimes, when I've assumed a dynamic was obvious, I watched a scene go very wrong, at least in my eyes.  Something I meant to accomplish in the scene was not being accomplished, and I could see it was not the writing that had fallen apart, but the interpretation.

Shakespeare was fortunate in many ways, and one of his great good fortunes was being embedded for 20 years  in a company of players that had a stable core, men who respected him and whom he knew inside out as players, both their strengths and their weaknesses. He wrote for their voices. Some of the texts even show him referring to the characters  they played by their own real names.  And then, often,  he directed them.  Of course, this is Shakespeare. So who are we to tell him he shouldn't direct his own work?  For the rest of us, a fresh eye is welcome, and the actors must be free to create.  They are not puppets.  Still, may we not write in some of our humble suggestions?  And not just for the gym teachers of this world.

BLOG POST #29 HITTING A LOGJAM AND HOW TO BREAK IT

I've been writing/researching/writing play #3 of my Shakespeare trilogy for weeks now. Four scenes came pouring out of me, the frame scenes and two parallel scenes on either side of the equation.  And just as I was thinking (and, unfortunately, saying) that this play was writing itself, it stopped.

I was almost in a panic. This has never happened to me before.  All of a sudden, I was sketching out mechanical scenes, all of them based more on conveying information than on portraying real characters in action.  Fortunately, these were tentative outlines. I didn't "work up" any of the scenes I was suggesting to myself on my long yellow pad. They felt wooden.

But now I believe I've figured out the problem.  I have been trying to "get this play written." For me, this is a bad sign.   My focus should be on the work, telling the story, enjoying the work and being playful with it, finding within the chosen sequence of events the scenes I would like to SEE if I were an audience member.  Doing the research with possibilities for interesting little discoveries that will determine the coloring and texture of each scene. 

Finding the fun and the pleasure, that's how this play will be written.  It won't write itself.  I will write it.  And I won't be satisfied with dead scenes that merely move the plot along. I'm back on course now, not by adopting a new methodology, but by a new attitude.  I am giving myself permission to take things more slowly, to relish them, and enjoy the writing as ideas come to me.  And they will come.  They've already started, now that I've stopped trying to drag them out of their beds and throw them up on the stage.  This is when it starts to get good, when it starts to feel good. 

BLOG POST # 28 BEAUTIFUL VOICES & TWO LOVE STORIES

Alan Rickman has been married for three years now, at least according to recent news, to a woman he met when they were teenagers.  Their love has spanned decades and, apparently,
 in 2002 while they were in New York City,  after many years of living together (I believe the number cited was 40), they tied the knot.  It was a very private ceremony, and then they celebrated by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and having a nice lunch somewhere.

Now, someone may  suggest that tax laws may have prompted this decision to wed, but I think that would be very unromantic.

 I think Alan Rickman is one of those men who has a voice that is not just a useful instrument for an actor.  It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. One of those incredible English voices.  It conveys deep sorrow, deep joy, and the capacity for passion. And intelligence and wit.  Nuances of kindness and understanding.  Oh, man.

When my mentor and I were discussing casting my first play for its first public presentation, he asked me, "Ideally, who would you like to see in this?"  Now, "this" is a full-length play that takes ten actors to perform. And I said, "Alan Rickman and Michael Caine, doing all the roles." 

Michael Caine has his own wonderful love story, which he tells in his autobiography.  He fell in love with his beautiful wife when he saw her on t.v. in a coffee commercial.  I can't tell the whole tale the way he can; so you might want to look it up.  It is a lovely, wondering, and fond reminiscence.  And there is also this about Michael Caine: not every movie he's been in has been wonderful, but he has been wonderful in every movie he's been in.  This past Christmas we watched "A Muppets Christmas Carol" once again.  Michael Caine is Ebenezer Scrooge.  And there he is: his intelligence, his wit, his wide capacity, and that voice--and we are moved to tears--tears, even as the chickens dance and the rats rejoice at Ebenezer's return to humanity.

BLOG POST # 27 EXCERPT FROM MY SHAKESPEARE MONOLOGUE

In honor of the day, I have placed below a portion of my monologue "The Great Will Shakespeare Speaks."  If anyone reading this is interested in reading the whole thing, for fair use, please write to me at sarahredux@yahoo.com.  Thank you.  And Happy Birthday, once again, dear Will.

Whoe’er wrote aught unprompted by the call of heart’s ambition?

We would be great,

Would move the souls of fellow creatures of our Age,

Mayhap, of ages yet to come.

Would leave our stamp.

Would live on past our lives.

Ah, bitter, bitter, bitter jest.

I am renown-ed, yes.

Though some would place my laurels lightly

       On the heads of others.

Yet, this sensible warm motion,

This life.

How fleeting.

It matters not how poor,

Time passes and we sigh to see it pass.

We weep. (Rueful smile)

What folly.

We are creatures of a day.

And so we write,

In writing give relief to our despair—and to our joy.

We give the groundlings, and the Court, somewhat to fill their hours—

          their heads, if they do have them.

And their hearts.

What’s Hecuba to them or they to Hecuba that they should weep for her?

But weep they do

If we but put it to them fair,

If words we find which touch the chords of their great sorrows. . .

BLOG POST # 26 WHAT ALL THIS IS ABOUT: SHAKESPEARE

In two days we will be commemorating the 399th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare of Stratford.   And if tradition is correct, extrapolating from his baptismal date,
 we will also be celebrating the 451st anniversary of his birth.  The Man from Stratford
 has been both adulated and disowned by the world.  His amazing gift turned him into a god for some. But Nineteenth-Century adulation paved the way for the world's perhaps predictable reaction.  Today, his lack of breeding, rank,  and a university education makes him suspect as the unworthy  and false receiver of  Shakespeare Worship. 'Tis said the lavish credit  due to the plays and poems of "Shakespeare" undoubtedly belongs to  some highly educated aristocrat whose name has been lost in the mists of time.   

I cannot review here and now each claim, reviewing each absurdity and dismissing it. James Shapiro has done all the legwork needed and made well-presented and well-founded conclusions.  If you have the slightest doubt who wrote The Works of Shakespeare, please read a copy of Shapiro's Contested Will.  Not only will you be convinced of Will's authorship, you will also read a ripping good tale of fan lunacy, with one would-be debunker sadly but amusingly named Looney.  

SO, IT IS ALMOST HERE:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILL!!  AND THANK YOU FOR ENRICHING OUR LIVES AND OUR CULTURE BEYOND MEASURE.

BLOG POST #25 NATHAN LANE CAPTURES THE EXPERIENCE

Nathan Lane recently accepted the Monte Cristo Award for his Outstanding Contribution
 to The Theater from the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.  He pointed out that he was honored, of course,  but also a bit dismayed about starting to rake in Lifetime Achievement awards, as 'I'm not quite done yet.'  But then he described what it was like to perform in a play that works as serious theater should, as a temporary alteration of the audience members' consciousness:

About appearing in "The Iceman Cometh" and his experience performing in this play:

When it works, when you hear the stunning silence of a thousand people, listening, thinking and feeling and you're lost in the complicated. . .[tearful moment] it's what you hope and pray for as an actor.

I want to add it's what I hope and pray for as a playwright.  I've never had an audience of a thousand people, not yet.  But I've had audiences that were so rapt and quiet, it was uncanny. And the largest audience I've had, the 200 people who came to see the final reading of "Shakespeare Rising" at The Utah Shakespeare Festival, they made a bit of a racket when they arrived at the theater.  But they settled down, the play began, and they didn't move or cough or make a sound.  No, I think there was one line that got a gasp.  But, basically, they were absorbing the play, as Nathan Lane describes it.  At the end of the play, there was great applause, with the whole audience on their feet.  A standing ovation is exciting and wonderful. But their intense silence during the play was even better.

BLOG POST #24 STRANGER THAN FICTION: PART II

This dream took place while I was writing "Shakespeare Rising," and the dream came to me just before I woke up. So, instead of forgetting them, I wrote  down the details of this one.  It took place on the battlements of Elsinore.  Both sentinels were there, looking up, at a spinning object in the night sky.  As it descended, getting closer and closer, they realized it was a small farmhouse and that it was going to crash on the battlements.  Just before it crashed down on them, Barnardo called out the opening line of Hamlet: "Who's there?"  And then the house, with Dorothy and Toto in it, landed on them.  It was one hell of an opening!

BLOG POST #23 THOSE BEAUTIFUL VOICES

My husband has wondered why so many men of the United Kingdom seem to have incredibly beautiful voices: Burton, Olivier, Hopkins, of course.  Benedict Cumberbatch, to modernize the list a bit.  Ronald Colman  for fans of old films.  Nathan Page, to reach as far as Australia. But, seriously, their voices are, by and large, different from the voices we're used to hearing in America. 

Is it because their vocal cords are different, just genetically different? Is it because their schooling routinely allows for rhetoric, elocution, the training of the voice, as a routine aspect of being a gentleman, not merely a quality reserved for the stage? I know that in singing there are exercises to line up one's vocal cords.  Perhaps preparation for public speaking does the same thing?

Or for the bar!  Go to an English court or Irish court (I can't personally speak for the others), and you will hear magnificent voices worthy of the Royal Shakespeare Company presenting one side or another of a case.  These are not the kinds of cases you see in films, with movie actors letting out all the stops to make heart-rending pleas.  These are ordinary barristers who are simply trying to win an argument for the prosecution or for the defense. They have incredibly beautiful voices.

BLOG POST #22 THE SHIFTING OF SOCIAL RANK: OR, WHAT SHALL I WEAR?

Before Robert Devereux, the Second Earl of Essex (otherwise known as Errol Flynn), was
 sent to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth I to quell a dangerous rebellion by the Irish, she warned him, that whatever he did, she did not want him to create new knights.  She was very careful about whom to advance and whom to honor.   (And why she didn't follow her gut and keep him out of the Irish wars completely is undoubtedly investigated by exasperated historians; but I don't know if I'll ever get very far into that question.  English history can become an enticing maze that lures one away from establishing one's own plot line!)

My point here is that Essex ignored her orders.  He made many new knights as soon as he was out of her reach.  The upshot:  well, there were plenty of upshots.  Essex ignored many of her orders. But, this one had rather sad domestic consequences.  For the men whom Essex had advanced in rank wrote home to their wives that they had risen in the world and, according to the sumptuary laws of the time, the ladies could now go out and buy a higher quality cloth and have nicer dresses made.  Imagine the outcome when Elizabeth stripped all these men of their premature and forbidden honors.  Men came to her at Court, humble, hat in hand, saying, basically, "My Gracious Queen, whatever shall I tell my wife?  She hath spent a fortune on red velvet." 

BLOG POST # 21 THE "TRACKING DOWN" PROCESS

      I've been meaning to write another post, even though I've begun in earnest the "tracking down" phase of writing my third play.  What that entails is this:  I'm trying to familiarize myself as much as possible with the characters I plan to use.  Not all of them will make the final cut, as the story develops, but I'm trying to form a picture in my mind of the major players in The Lord Chamberlain's Company in 1601.  Can't write a backstage play about Shakespeare's men and ignore the information that is available about them all!  There are facts and there are hints and anecdotes.  So, I'm tracking down those.  My own conjecture will follow, as I select (or invent) details that will move my story along.

       I've also been researching a couple of noblemen and their roles in the events I plan to cover in this play.  This is a little tricky for me as, ironically enough, I have never been very good with dates.  It doesn't help me that in different generations of the same family the names and titles seem to shift with the family's fortunes!  Renaissance England was truly a shifting time!

        As I read through my printed sheets (from computer research) and the notes I've taken from some books (more to follow: I can hardly wait to get my copy of Henslowe's Diary), I'm sensing suggestions of how to plot my play, and how to sub-plot my play.  I hope I don't end up with too much material, although that is a GOOD problem.  As my Grandmother from Benevento used to say: Better too much than not enough.  Of course too much good material can clutter the atmosphere and cloud the judgment.  "Oh, I have to include this."  No, Mary Jane, no you don't.  Enjoy it, make a note of it for possible future use, and move on! That has been one of the hardest things for me to learn: to write a play that has a playing time of an hour and forty-five minutes.   Even then, I'm bucking up against the new Gold Standard: 90 minutes without an Intermission.   I'm counting on Shakespeare to bail me out as he set the Gold Standard as "the two-hours traffic of our stage."  And even then he went way past when he felt the need.  "O, reason not the need."  

        Tom Stoppard also seems to write what he needs to write.   He operates on the assumption that his canvas is his canvas, and if it's a whole wall, well, if it's interesting and beautiful enough the audience will want all of it.    Of course, I have been to plays by Stoppard (even Stoppard!)  where people with expensive seats have walked out at the Intermission never to return!!!! I believe this is called voting with one's feet.  But if a playwright starts out trying to please everyone and to follow each theatrical fashion, I think that playwright is putting on unnecessary shackles.  Audiences sort themselves out. The playwright needs to honor his/her voice.  Otherwise, what is the point of doing this at all?  What is that trimmer putting out into the world but an artifact that is half-hearted?  Faint heart ne'er won fair lady, nor the golden apple.
 

BLOG POST # 20 A LINK TO A MARVELOUS MAP

Thank you to my husband who sent me this link.  I was unable to transfer the illustration,
 but I believe the info. will still work for you.  This is a map of Shakespeare's London which you can use to travel through the City of his time.  I think this will be a lot of fun to use and also very helpful with my third play.

And here's the link:

Explore Shakespeare's London With This Interactive 16th ...

The project brings 16th century London into the present.  

View on www.citylab.com

Preview by Yahoo

BLOG POST #19 A STORY YOU MIGHT LIKE

To avoid spoilers, all I can say is that you might enjoy reading a short story by Jane Gardam called "The Groundlings."  She's a wonderful writer, and this is a sweet story.

BLOG POST #18 STRANGER THAN FICTION

While I was writing the first draft of "Shakespeare Rising,"  I had the flu and a high fever. Also a cough; so I slept down the hall in the spare bedroom, to spare my husband the risk of contagion and also to help him get a good night's sleep.  While I was sleeping there, I woke repeatedly, partly to cough, but partly because of my dreams. 

In one dream Shakespeare came to me and told me things.  What things?  I have no idea.  I was hallucinating, my fever was so high. Even if I hadn't been ill, I doubt very much I would remember the contents of a dream unless I woke myself up to write down the details.  But I definitely came away with the sense that I had been visited and had a friendly connection with my esteemed friend Will. Oddly enough, this feeling persisted while I was writing that play. 

BLOG POST # 17 THE GREAT TOM STOPPARD

Or, Sir Tom, if we should ever meet.

How do I love him?  How can I count the ways?  I'd like to say he reinvented wit and brilliance for the modern stage, but I have to consider the possibility that this is a mite of an exaggeration.  Still, there is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" to consider, both stage play and film.  All the rest of his amazing plays. My latest favorite "India Ink."   What an achievement to have written "Jumpers" and "Arcadia" and the "Coast of Utopia" trilogy.  Go down the list and stand back in awe.  (Well, that's my approach, anyway.)   And the most amazing thing of all:  He is COMMERCIAL.  For all that he's whimsical and demands a great deal of intellectual concentration from his audience, the audience is THERE for him, in great numbers, because he's clever, he's amusing, and he plays on our feelings at times so that we are helpless in his embrace but secure in his confident hands. 

And then there is the film "Shakespeare in Love."   What a delight.  An enchanting experience that brings the audience into the center of the Elizabethan theater world.  Some things never change ("I'm the money." "You may stay, but be silent.")  This is beautifully delivered by Ben Affleck, the successful and egotistical Edward Alleyn, along with the following:  "What is the title of this play?" "Mercutio."  "I shall play it."  And Rupert Everett as the witty, dark, but charming Kit Marlowe: "What are you calling it?" "Hamlet and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter."  "Good title."   These are some of the SUPPORTING cast, along with the great Tom Wilkinson (the money) and Geoffrey Rush.   And Colin Firth, detaching himself from his Mr. Darcy image, to play a man who is so undesirable one could almost call him "icky." Colin Firth! 

And, of course, there is the imagined presentation of the first performance of "Romeo and Juliet," with Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes bringing to life the best screen minutes I've ever seen of a play by Shakespeare, all the more poignant for the frame within which Stoppard has placed the performance.  Stoppard has done magic, affirming all along, "It's a Mystery."   He has taken the premise: What if the young Shakespeare has gone dry in more ways than one.  What if he has writer's block and is also very low on  sexual potency. What would he do in such a situation? See his psychiatrist, of course.  And here we are, pretending the past was so much like the present. Pretending.

BUT.  I have a very smart friend who assumed that everything in this delicious confection was true, ignoring the anachronisms, the author's finger pointing to the sign post: Isn't this fun?  It's not true, but don't you love the flavor?  And I ask myself, what am I doing in my plays?  Aren't I presenting my own versions of Shakespeare ? Aren't I trying to pull together visions of him that are plausible as well as entertaining? Or moving?  I write fictional stories about him based upon mere skeletons of historical facts. Not even skeletons, just a few bones.  And yet I'm searching for the truth, for MY Shakespeare.  Where is the REAL Shakespeare?  Is he lurking in the plays he wrote?  Well, yes, I think, in a way. But his plays are varied.  His mind created different mazes for us to run, as his imagination ran them.  Ultimately, I think the last word is that of Sir Tom:  "It's a Mystery."  Would we want it any other way?

BLOG POST # 16 WHO'S THERE?

In preparation for writing my first play, "Shakespeare Rising, I did quite a bit of  reading  about the play Hamlet. I wish I had taken better notes!   I've read some things that struck me as
 brilliant and would like to credit them.  One particular observation, which I wish I could footnote for you, jumped at me out of a book I was reading. And if I can ever find the citation, I will put it into a new post, called "Who's There, Part II."   (Or, perhaps someone who knows where the idea originated would kindly write me a comment.)

Here is the idea:  The first words of the play are: "Who's there?" spoken by Barnardo, one of the sentinels guarding the battlements of Elsinore Castle.  This phrase, though a seemingly ordinary one, the attempt of one guard to determine who is approaching him in this dark and isolated spot, defines the core of the play in three or more ways.  On a simple level, who is this ghost that has appeared?  Is it the ghost of King Hamlet who is dead, buried, and thoroughly replaced, or is it an evil spirit who seeks to deceive young Hamlet, to provoke an unholy murder that will damn the young man? The second level of meaning underscores the extremely personal  issue of appearance and reality: what is the truth behind the façades of Gertrude, or Ophelia,  or Claudius himself? Or all who live at Elsinore? And, thirdly, the ultimate of "Who's there" is aimed at the very core of young Hamlet himself.  How can he say to himself, or to the girl he loves, who he really is, when he has lost hold of all the landmarks that have identified him to himself?  He needs to redefine himself for himself before he can take effective action, and, in the meanwhile, in his pretense of madness, he flirts with the real thing.  Ultimately, it is with a kind of euphoric relief that he announces, at Ophelia's grave site, "'This is I, Hamlet the Dane!"

BLOG POST # 15 CLEARING THE DECKS

    This is not much of a post.  It's more of an admission.  The third play of the trilogy will
 NOT be called "The Queen's Men" for the simple reason that I made a mistake a while back, but I will not be perpetuating it.   I had thought it would be such a lovely play on words, that the theater company in question should be called the Queen's Men, and that the play would also be about  Queen Elizabeth's emotional entanglements with the few significant men in her life in 1601, two years before her death.

       But history cannot be bent to our wills--well, not very much, nor should it be. And the fact is, I need to create a chart to keep straight  all the different theater companies during the reign of Elizabeth.  (Who's on first?) The Queen's Men is not the company I thought it was.  My husband had warned me I was barking up the wrong company, and I had resolved to look into his warning.  Now, alas, I have.   No, not alas, because I've been spared making a huge blunder.

         I'm working through the materials that have been accumulating in my office for a while now. (Oh, do not ask now long it has been since I started accumulating and stopped imposing order on it all.)  Now that I am making a serious beginning to write the third play,  I need to have my research materials easy to reach and consult.  It's important for me to start with things in order. And one of the things I needed to put in order was this title, The Queen's Men.  I see I will be making a chart of names and dates sooner than I had expected.

          It feels good to make an earnest beginning, with ideas in my head, the right books on my shelves, and lots of notes I've taken during the past couple of months.  So, this last day in March is the beginning of my new year.

BlOG POST #14 HAMLET: BRIEF COMMENTS

I spoke of Hamlet as he is sometimes spoken of by others, as a wimp who cannot make a decision.    I would like to make it clear that I do NOT think of him that way.  But it's been said. And, then again, there is Olivier's movie.  (More soon about the movies. Mel Gibson, astonishingly enough, may be the winner here.  My husband said I had a very odd perspective, and that was because when I first saw Gibson as Hamlet, I had never seen any of his other movies. So I came to him totally fresh. Have you seen it?  It is remarkable.

Hamlet's "indecision" is right up there with his "madness" as a topic that seems to bring out the worst in people.  As Bernard Shaw once wrote, and I paraphrase, Are the critics of Hamlet mad, or just feigning madness?

I plan to write about a few of the Hamlets I've seen, having already written about ones I would have liked to have seen: Robert Preston, Jackie Gleason, and John Goodman; also  Ralph Fiennes and Daniel Day Lewis.  Oh, and Paul Gross.  But my focus may very well be on Richard Burton's Hamlet.  Not sure yet. Right now I'm reading the Richard Burton Diaries, for which I'm very grateful to his devoted widow Sally Hay Burton, although Burton seems to have skipped the months I wanted to read about, his work on his famous production of Hamlet. Well, perhaps he stopped writing in his diary because he WAS working so hard on his role. Still, it seems a bizarre gap.

Thanks, also, to Mrs. Burton for her finding, preserving, and making available the tape of Richard Burton's stage version of Hamlet.  Apparently, all the tapes of that stage production, once shown in movies theaters (and colleges), were destroyed.  I cannot fathom why. A p.r. stunt?  But each actor was given a souvenir copy. And after Burton's death, his widow found his copy with some of his other personal possessions, in a garage, I think.  And that's why a DVD of it is available.  I do NOT intend to hold up this version of Hamlet as a model.  I just plan to discuss it.