I'm sorry that there's only one post on this delightful play. I almost accidentally read it all before I could put up a post in the middle of it. It is very short and very funny, even if there are a lot of jokes that are difficult to get these days without checking footnotes.
Checking footnotes is a definite joke killer. It's exactly like the guy who tells the joke and then explains why it's funny. Ah! That guy drives me crazy! I've tried to help you out a little bit with the cuckold jokes, but I can't be bothered to look up all the weird stuff that was probably really funny a few hundred years ago.
This play is a farce, but it's got more depth than you'd expect from a farce. It opens with a merchant who's about to be put to death because he's landed his ship at a city that is at war with his city. The Prince asks what he's doing there. The prince actually says something like, "Tell me what you're doing here, because even though I can't pardon you, I can pity you." So this old guy, Egeon, tells a crazy story that is obviously heart-breaking for him about how he lost two sets of twins and his wife. And he keeps saying "please just kill me and don't make me tell this story." And the prince says "I do have to kill you, but first finish telling this story." It's a dark beginning to a farce.
A lot of craziness goes down in a really short period of time. It has to be an impossibly difficult play to stage because it requires two sets of identical twins. And, they both have to be able to pass for 33 years old. I mean, that's a bit of a tall order for most community theater troupes.
Look, I don't have all that much to say about it. It's hilarious, it's very good, it was a joy to read, but it's basically people misrecognizing each other. Ah, okay, I could do a whole essay here about recognition and mis-recognition. Projection. Yes, yes, this is a gold mine.
You see, Freud
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Romeo and Juliet--3 (then she is well and nothing can be ill)
Romeo and Juliet committed suicide before they got to register for wedding gifts. Jackie and I were not so lucky. Just kidding, I couldn't resist. But today we went to Bed Bath & Beyond to register. I think the concept of Bed Bath etc is "the store with everything no one could possibly ever need." I mean, really, who needs a $500 garment steamer? A garment steamer? Why should an iron cost $80? It's like this all through the store.
So, we go in and say that we need to register. Immediately this 19 year old girl takes over. Asks us a bunch of questions, has us fill out some paperwork, fine, fine, normal. Then, without pause or transition, says that she wants to show us something before we get started. She takes a coffee mug off of a shelf, places it upside down on the ground, and says "Okay, sir, I'm going to ask you to stand on this."
Where does the authority of sales people come from? It's like interrogators, where you get them to answer simple questions that don't matter, and then you get them into a rhythm and they just keep going until they give you the info you need. "You" here being the interrogator. So, I stand on the cup and neither it nor my ankle breaks, so I'm feeling good, the sales lady feels good, I guess the cup is okay. It's at least not broken. Then the lady says "Impressive, huh? So, I'll just go ahead and add this to your registry..."
Here, her spell broke, thankfully. But we still followed meekly as she led us to the knife sales guy and announced "These people have some questions they want to ask you about cutlery." Liar. We willingly felt out the balance of the blade and handle, blah blah blah, but refused to ask questions.
As my mom said: functionality as a stepping stool is not a key criterion for my dishes. Or something like that.
Romeo and Juliet are dead. I've always found the line in the title of this post haunting. It's how Romeo's man, Balthasar, tells him that Juliet is dead (she isn't, but Balthasar doesn't know that). Romeo says something like "tell me Juliet's well, for if she is well than nothing can be ill." And Balthasar says something like "then she is well and nothing can be ill." Oh, God, it breaks my heart.
Registering for gifts today, I couldn't help but consider how Jackie and I compare against Romeo and Juliet. Not a "who's better" thing, but just "what similarities?" Probably not many. In fact, in general I advise not comparing yourself to, or emulating, these two. Is the woman in your relationship thirteen years old? If so, you have a similarity with this great love story, and you should be in prison. Has the man in your relationship ever killed the woman's cousin? If so, you have a similarity with this great love story, and he should be in prison. Has a friar ever given you a special potion that will fake your own death and have you buried in the family crypt for a couple of days until your banished husband can sneak in and steal you out of the city only it doesn't work because of a sudden outbreak of the plague or something and so your husband never hears that you're only fake dead and instead thinks that you're really dead and so runs back to town, kills your fiance with a sword and himself with a poison that he bought from a poor apothecary? If so, you have a similarity with this play and I advise you to get up, leave the crypt, turn the friar over to the cops, and then go far far away to college where you can experiment with same-sex relationships before graduating with honors, thus enabling you to get a job all the way out of Italy, because things aren't really going to get any better there by the twentieth century.
I think Paris would have been very good at registering for gifts.
So, we go in and say that we need to register. Immediately this 19 year old girl takes over. Asks us a bunch of questions, has us fill out some paperwork, fine, fine, normal. Then, without pause or transition, says that she wants to show us something before we get started. She takes a coffee mug off of a shelf, places it upside down on the ground, and says "Okay, sir, I'm going to ask you to stand on this."
Where does the authority of sales people come from? It's like interrogators, where you get them to answer simple questions that don't matter, and then you get them into a rhythm and they just keep going until they give you the info you need. "You" here being the interrogator. So, I stand on the cup and neither it nor my ankle breaks, so I'm feeling good, the sales lady feels good, I guess the cup is okay. It's at least not broken. Then the lady says "Impressive, huh? So, I'll just go ahead and add this to your registry..."
Here, her spell broke, thankfully. But we still followed meekly as she led us to the knife sales guy and announced "These people have some questions they want to ask you about cutlery." Liar. We willingly felt out the balance of the blade and handle, blah blah blah, but refused to ask questions.
As my mom said: functionality as a stepping stool is not a key criterion for my dishes. Or something like that.
Romeo and Juliet are dead. I've always found the line in the title of this post haunting. It's how Romeo's man, Balthasar, tells him that Juliet is dead (she isn't, but Balthasar doesn't know that). Romeo says something like "tell me Juliet's well, for if she is well than nothing can be ill." And Balthasar says something like "then she is well and nothing can be ill." Oh, God, it breaks my heart.
Registering for gifts today, I couldn't help but consider how Jackie and I compare against Romeo and Juliet. Not a "who's better" thing, but just "what similarities?" Probably not many. In fact, in general I advise not comparing yourself to, or emulating, these two. Is the woman in your relationship thirteen years old? If so, you have a similarity with this great love story, and you should be in prison. Has the man in your relationship ever killed the woman's cousin? If so, you have a similarity with this great love story, and he should be in prison. Has a friar ever given you a special potion that will fake your own death and have you buried in the family crypt for a couple of days until your banished husband can sneak in and steal you out of the city only it doesn't work because of a sudden outbreak of the plague or something and so your husband never hears that you're only fake dead and instead thinks that you're really dead and so runs back to town, kills your fiance with a sword and himself with a poison that he bought from a poor apothecary? If so, you have a similarity with this play and I advise you to get up, leave the crypt, turn the friar over to the cops, and then go far far away to college where you can experiment with same-sex relationships before graduating with honors, thus enabling you to get a job all the way out of Italy, because things aren't really going to get any better there by the twentieth century.
I think Paris would have been very good at registering for gifts.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Romeo and Juliet--2
Baz Luhrmann (however you spell his name) set his R & J movie in Verona Beach, which I think is a real place. I can see why that works, but for me there are only two viable American settings for Romeo and Juliet.
One is basically the same setting as The Godfather. Put Romeo in the Tattaglia family, Juliet in the Corleone family, bada-bing bodda-boom, Romeo and Juliet.
My preferred setting, though, is the Wild West. I'd have Mercutio played basically like how Val Kilmer played Doc Holliday in Tombstone. That'd be a really different take on him, I think. Usually he's high-energy, wild, loud. Great, you know, that works great. But wouldn't it be kind of cool for the Mercutio-Tybalt fight suddenly to include "I'm your huckleberry" ?
The scene where the Capulets discover Juliet's undead (no, not zombie) body is seriously the worst scene I've read so far in the Shakespeare marathon. Here's a summary that is, seriously, not an exaggeration: Alack, alack, this is the worst day. No, it is the worst hour. Ah me, woe, woe! My one! My only one! No, my only one! Alack, alack, oh woe. Dead? Dead? This time is the worst ever!
That goes on for seriously about three pages. It's terrible.
I don't see why the potion thing comes into it at all. Why doesn't Juliet just go to Mantua to hook up with Romeo, then Friar Laurence can tell everyone that they're married? Verona is toxic, anyway.
One more Act of R & J, then the Comedy of Errors. R & J is better than I remembered. I should have had a better attitude. This is the longest sustained attention Shakespeare pays to non-ironic lyrical love (outside of the sonnets, which include plenty of irony, anyway). And it's very good.
One is basically the same setting as The Godfather. Put Romeo in the Tattaglia family, Juliet in the Corleone family, bada-bing bodda-boom, Romeo and Juliet.
My preferred setting, though, is the Wild West. I'd have Mercutio played basically like how Val Kilmer played Doc Holliday in Tombstone. That'd be a really different take on him, I think. Usually he's high-energy, wild, loud. Great, you know, that works great. But wouldn't it be kind of cool for the Mercutio-Tybalt fight suddenly to include "I'm your huckleberry" ?
The scene where the Capulets discover Juliet's undead (no, not zombie) body is seriously the worst scene I've read so far in the Shakespeare marathon. Here's a summary that is, seriously, not an exaggeration: Alack, alack, this is the worst day. No, it is the worst hour. Ah me, woe, woe! My one! My only one! No, my only one! Alack, alack, oh woe. Dead? Dead? This time is the worst ever!
That goes on for seriously about three pages. It's terrible.
I don't see why the potion thing comes into it at all. Why doesn't Juliet just go to Mantua to hook up with Romeo, then Friar Laurence can tell everyone that they're married? Verona is toxic, anyway.
One more Act of R & J, then the Comedy of Errors. R & J is better than I remembered. I should have had a better attitude. This is the longest sustained attention Shakespeare pays to non-ironic lyrical love (outside of the sonnets, which include plenty of irony, anyway). And it's very good.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Romeo and Juliet--1
There are two things about Romeo and Juliet. First, I was in it in high school. And when I say in it, I really really mean really really in it. We had split casts, to give more people roles. So, I was Romeo in one cast and Mercutio in another. Yeah. Memories of this are embarrassing for me and reliving it through reading the play is something less than awesome.
Second, there are some things that are best read at certain points in a person's life. For instance, I know that King Lear will be more powerful when I hit the sixties, assuming I'm still all there. God, I hope this blog is done by then. I remember seeing an old English prof of mine, who was wonderful, crying in front of the whole class while we read Act Three of King Lear. Romeo and Juliet is better when you're a little younger than I am. Juliet is what, 14? And she's the most mature and compelling character in the play.
Romeo has the approximate depth of a sheet of notebook paper. At the beginning of the play he wants to die because someone named Rosaline doesn't love him. We never meet her and Romeo forgets about her as soon as he meets Juliet. For whom he is willing to die. Within two lines of his first speech, we post-high school readers are bored with him. Geez, he sucks. If you haven't read this play, first travel back in time to high school, focus very hard on whoever you've decided you'd die for (romantically, and that person's worth does not matter), and then crack it open.
But I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the opening scene yesterday. I was also surprised at just how much Romeo bothered me. And, in case you're hoping for some embarrassing factoid about my acting, my entire Mercutio was an impersonation of the guy who played him in Baz Luhrmann's film (Michael from Lost), a portrayal that I don't think was all that fitting in all respects.
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