King Lear--1 (Every inch a king)

I've had three interviews in the past two weeks. Only one was directly for a job and it didn't turn out well. But at each interview I've been asked some variant of the question/command: "Tell me a little about yourself." This is an impossibly difficult question. What do they want to hear? Probably it's best to take the opportunity to explain my shoddy resume. But I don't have and never have had a job that explains much about "myself." Odd jobs, this and that.

What should I say to give an honest answer? That I have a wife, that I love her? Or something about my character? That would be most honest, I think. That my character was formed by the surprises I've had. That I learned anger, love, and humor helping my brother? That I learned compassion and shame and strength in Tennessee? That I relearned joy and light-heartedness and hope in Milwaukee? Or that my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the best because I use absurd amounts of jelly. . .

I don't think that they want to know these things. They want to know the level of my skill with Microsoft Excel. But it becomes hard to talk about yourself when you don't have a vocation. After a while, parts of your personal story start to slip. King Lear is a tragedy of unemployment. Lear quits his job as king, divides the kingdom betwixt his three daughters according to how prettily they can say that they love him, and then loses his mind. He ends up wandering the wilderness, cursing at a storm.

But, when asked to describe himself, he knows what to say: "Every inch a king." I suppose that I am every inch a reader.

Henry VI, Part Two

The play: it is bad and I'd rather not talk about it.

The job search: it is bad and I'd rather not talk about it.

You could read these three plays as a kind of prelude to Richard III, but I'm not sure that Richard III is good enough to justify reading all three of these. Maybe if there were three poor plays that led up to Lear or Hamlet, okay. But this . . .

I've been putting off Lear, saving it for when it was needed. It's needed. I have several Histories left, some of them very good. But first, I need to read King Lear.

My mom is coming to visit us in Chicago this weekend. Should be awesome, but may make it a little difficult to read much Shakespeare.

Henry VI, Part One

Henry V is dead. If this does not induce wailing and gnashing of teeth for you, then you have never read the THREE parts of Henry VI. These are all pretty bad. Henry VI is a kid in this play, whose main character, I think, is this guy named Talbot.

The play is about two fights, one waning and one just getting started. As soon as Henry V dies, everything goes to hell (except brave Harry himself). During his funeral, the nobles start fighting. This fighting eventually grows into the War of the Roses. Part One has a scene in which the two sides spontaneously seize on their respective rose colors, thus setting up a catchy name for their civil war, which doesn't actually break out in this play.

The other fight is the war with France, which is winding up, breaking down, however you want to look at it. It's not going very well. Supplies are disrupted because the nobles are quarreling. Sir John Falstaff shows up. This is interesting. Shakespeare wrote Henry VI very early in his career, but as far as English history goes, it's after all the great histories. So, when we read this Falstaff we can't help but have in mind the brilliant stuff that historically has already happened but Shakespeare hasn't written yet. It's an interesting cameo, since in Henry V Shakespeare will kill off Falstaff before these wars. In a way, this gives us a means of resurrecting Falstaff and actuating Harold Bloom's biggest fantasy: that Falstaff takes off for the forest of Arden to hang with Rosalind, instead of dying of grief after Hal rejects him. The last we see him in this play, he's taking off, having been stripped of his knighthood--in France (where Arden is supposed to be).

We get another interesting cameo, too: Joan of Arc. Shakespeare for some reason calls her Joan la Pucelle. Joan the Virgin. She is a really crazy character: vulgar, inspiring, holy, evil, I don't know. Things come a little unhinged when Shakespeare has her conjure a bunch of devils. She asks them to help her. They won't. So she offers to have sex with them in exchange for helping her win the battle. They refuse. The English burn her at the stake.

I can't believe I have two more of these to go. Not sure if I can do all three consecutively. What's up with you?

As You Like It--4 (Men have died, from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love)

I have an alternate line for the title: 'Tis good to be sad and say nothing. And Rosalind's response, Then tis good to be a post.

Horrible heat, unbearable humidity. Today is a fine reminder of why it's good not to live in the South. Jackie is out of town for a baby shower and is missing this heat (rained all day in Michigan). She, crazy, wishes she could be here for it. That's crazy. It saps your energy, it kills everything good and true and beautiful in you and leaves only sweat. And to imagine, in the South it's like this everyday for three months! Please, give me Fall. Give me a crisp breeze and a cardigan. I assume it'll be just a few more weeks.

Okay, I judged too quickly on the weirdness of this play. Yes, it's weird. Deeply, profoundly weird. But Rosalind's ploy is good. We know for a while that Rosalind is superior to Orlando, that he cannot really deserve her. But Rosalind, as Ganymede, and, um, as Ganymede playing Rosalind, teaches Orlando how to be her husband. Granted, he's still not good enough for them to make great sense, but she builds herself a man. Not quite a Stepford husband. It's good.

Tonight I watched the Branagh As You Like It and finished the play. Here's what you can expect if you watch the movie: kung fu (yes, really), sumo wrestling (yes, really), seemingly meaningless shots of spider webs, tree tops, etc, a spontaneously miltantly vegetarian Jaques, a Hootie (you know, from the Blowfish) look-a-like, a farmer-turned-whiskey-priest-turned-normal-priest, and a gradually strengthening movie, despite some overacting. Sometimes, it's like they're trying to cram all of their acting into the very speech they're saying. But look, I'm no actor. Seriously. I couldn't even act, much less overact. And I don't really know anything about the practice, so I shouldn't criticize. But then, I've criticized Shakespeare's writing at times on this blog, so I guess I shouldn't blanch at being audacious now.

Okay, seriously, there's some strange stuff in this movie but as Rosalind gradually takes over it gets better and better. One very good choice that Branagh does make is that he cuts out the part where Hymen, god of marriage, comes out on stage and does a little dance and presents Rosalind to everyone.

Yes, the god of marriage is called Hymen and he has a speaking role in this play. If you get the BBC video tape, this poor guy comes out of the woods wrapped in this silky thing and prances around for a while. Can you imagine being cast as Hymen?!

As You Like It 3 (and I'll employ thee too. But do not look for further recompense than thine own gladness that thou art employed)

Act III gets stranger. We've already covered that Rosalind has dressed up like a boy and fled to the forest. There, she meets Orlando who fails to recognize her. Orlando is busy carving love verses to Rosalind into the tree bark. Rosalind says something Shakespearean that more or less means "Look, stop carving stuff into the trees. If you love this lady, come woo me as if I were her and I'll cure you of your goofy love for her."

Okay, we can understand why Rosalind is into this idea. She gets to maintain her disguise, hear this guy woo her, and respond however she wants without giving herself away. It's a crazy version of sending a note via a friend that says "Do you like anyone in our class? Because someone in our class likes you! Tee-hee!" So sure, we see why she likes this idea, but why does Orlando go along with it? And, even more interesting, why is Rosalind pleased by seeing the guy she loves wooing someone he thinks to be a man? This isn't a question of homosexuality or homoeroticism, it's something a lot more complicated. I don't know what it is, though, really. Just Shakespeare's native berserk.

Jackie and I went to Chinatown.

As You Like It--2 (I like this place/ and willingly could waste my time in it)

Jackie got a mysterious phone call tonight, asking her to meet in Grant Park, during something called "Movies in the Park." It was a friend of hers, with important info that couldn't be discussed on the phone. This is exactly my kind of thing. She did Woodward, I did Bernstein. Or, she did Smiley, I did Guillam. This was totally unjust because my temperament is way closer than Smiley's than hers. But, it had nothing to do with me, so I couldn't very well take the lead.

Instead, I took the opportunity to stroll through Grant and Millenium Parks. These are areas that I am badly under-utilizing. Grant Park is where Obama gave his speech on Election Night. If you're a Republican or just not that interested in Obama, it's basically our Central Park. It's also a great place to read As You Like It, becauset in Grant and Millenium Parks there are beautiful--and I mean really wonderful--gardens. Especially the one in Millenium. This is good because As You Like It is pastoral and it's tough to get into the pastoral mindset when you're totally surrounded by concrete.

Act One basically just gets his people on the move. The old Duke has already been kicked out into the forest by his usurping brother, Frederick. Old Duke's daughter, the sublime Rosalind, is kept behind because she's friends with Frederick's daughter, Celia. This doesn't last long. Shakespeare valiantly holds out for three scenes, but then he can't take it anymore and has his heroine start cross-dressing. This because Frederick has kicked her out and she and Celia are taking off to the forest to find Duke Senior. And everyone knows you can't take a road trip without binding your breasts and changing your name to the overtly masculine "Ganymede."

Meanwhile, a young man named Orlando is also hitting the road, accompanied by his old servant Adam. Orlando is younger brother to an asshole, who plans to burn down his house while he's asleep. So, time to go. Orlando can't hope for protection from Frederick, because earlier that day he was in this wrestling match with Charles, the new duke's pal, and seriously won. New Duke hated Orlando's dad (but loves his brother) and so isn't best pleased. Rosalind, however, is and strangely falls for the good-natured and apparently strong but essentially dull Orlando.

Got it?

And so off they go, separately, into the forest. The girls are accompanied by the fool, Touchstone.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I want to read As You Like It in the gardens.

As You Like It--1

Jackie and I just got back from two weeks in MI, in which we got married and took our honeymoon. I took Othello with me, but after two acts I realized this was a horrible play for nuptials. Read it, and I think you'll agree with me that the "murder-your-wife" theme is quite prominent.

I should have taken As You Like It, for several reasons: it has a ludicrously happy ending; it ends with a crazy, LSD wedding; it features several successful, if somewhat uneven, couples; most of it is set in a forest; all of it is set in France. For those last two I should explain that for our honeymoon we went camping at the very top of Michigan, in the woods. Oh, and the very top of Michigan is very close to Canada, which has some people who speak French.

The forest of Arden is, in a way, Quebec in reverse. As You Like It is supposed to be set in France, but the forest of Arden feels really English and they even talk about Robin Hood (nod to Bloom, who says the same thing). And we all know that Robin Hood was a fox who lived in England in a time when cartoons were still drawn by hand. Quebec, however, is officially Canadian which is kind of maybe English, but they speak a weird French and have all those fleur-de-lis everywhere.

Well, I think I've shed some real light on As You Like It and on our humorous neighbors to the North.

Kenneth Branagh deserves our thanks for continuing to make Shakespeare movies, even if they are getting weirder and less successful. Hamlet was set in some sort of Victorian or Georgian-looking Denmark. Love's Labour's Lost was baffingly turned into a musical and had that guy from Scream and Hackers in it. And now, I find out that he did an As You Like It, but set it in feudal Japan! As soon as I can trick Jackie into watching it, I'll fill you in.