This oughtta be good for some discussion. What, exactly, is “bad Shakespeare”? If you saw 6yr old children attempting Henry V, would you call it bad? What about prisoners behind bars, or juvenile delinquents, or any other situation where it’s to be performed by people who are not actors by trade? What about a good actor who does a less than stellar job? Here’s my thinking. The only way that it’s bad is when it doesn’t show appropriate respect for the source material. If your production is attempting to do a good job, then by definition I think you’re on the positive side of the scale because even if the words aren’t coming out of your mouth properly, you know that you want them to, you are striving to make that happen, and that’s a good thing. But if you’re phoning it in, and you couldn’t care less whether you’re reciting Lear or the phone book, that’s where I think I have a problem. Make sense? I will be disappointed with a production not because of its quality, but because of its effort (or lack thereof). I’m tempted now to apply this reasoning to movie version of the play like Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet, or Al Pacino’s Merchant of Venice, but it’s not that easy since I don’t know rationale that went into some directorial decisions. Did they really think they were doing Shakespeare justice in some of their choices? Or did they think that the source material needed a serious overhaul to make it better? I can say I didn’t like Hawke’s Hamlet (I’ve not seen Pacino’s Merchant, only read reviews), but I couldn’t necessarily call it “bad Shakespeare” unless I sat down with the man himself and got his opinion on why he did what he did.
Month: August 2010
Yes, I Smothered Myself With A Pillow. Why?
If you came here from Google looking for the actual Shakespeare Pillow, sorry for the confusion. You’ll want to go here for the nice version with the love quotes, or here for the “naughty” version. Enjoy!
Am I the only one that sees a bit of a plot hole in the final scene of Othello? Othello strangles Desdemona in her bed. It’s very important for him not to leave any marks. It’s often done by smothering her with a pillow.
But, when Emilia (why didn’t somebody tell me I was spelling her name wrong?) comes in and finds her still alive, Desdemona replies “Nobody,” has done this, “I myself.”
Does Emilia not then ponder, at least for a moment, “How did you smother yourself with a pillow?”
How else is the death scene handled? I’d like to talk about the Boston production I just saw, because I think there was one good thing and one bad one, but I don’t want to put in any spoilers yet.
Or is this part of it? That Emilia never believes it, she knows exactly what happened? I suppose that’s the most logical assumption, but if that were the case you’d think Emilia’s reaction would be more immediate, and they wouldn’t go through that whole “I have to report the truth as she told it to me” nonsense if she knows different. Unless Emilia’s afraid of Othello as well. But I never think of her as physically afraid of the men around her.
They Were Just Like Us! Who Knew?
It’s always fun when we get to point at Shakespeare’s work, some 400 years old at this point, and show evidence of truths back then that are still true today. There were plenty of things in Othello last night that qualified, but one of my favorites was here:
OTHELLO
Indeed! ay, indeed: discern’st thou aught in that?
Is he not honest?
Think, my lord!
By heaven, he echoes me,
As if there were some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown.
I love it. That whole “You don’t want to answer the question so you just repeat the question back at the person” thing? You probably do it yourself on a regular basis. You’ve certainly seen it spelled out on any random television sitcom. Yet here’s Othello calling Iago out on that exact behavior, centuries ago.
Shakespeare Smack Talk
“Shakespeare Insults” is one of the most popular Shakespeare-related topics out there. The problem is that most of those sites are, in fact, just random phrase generators that result in funny-sounding insults that never actually were used in Shakespeare’s works.
Shakespeare is well-known for his sharp wit and clever insults, which have become iconic in popular culture. Some of his funniest and most memorable insults include lines like “Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood” from King Lear and “I do desire we may be better strangers” from As You Like It. Other memorable insults include “Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward” from Measure for Measure, and “Thou art a natural coward without instinct” from Henry IV, Part 1. Shakespeare’s insults were often used to mock and ridicule characters who were seen as foolish, vain, or cowardly, and they have since become a hallmark of his plays, adding humor and entertainment to the already rich and complex narratives.
Last night during Othello, I heard one that I don’t think I can call an insult, but it certainly goes under the banner of good “smack talk”. Othello is listening to Cassio talk about Desdemona (so he thinks). Where Cassio cannot hear him, Othello says, “O, I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.” Nice! Who talks the best game in the works of Shakespeare?
Review : Commonwealth Shakespeare Othello 2010 Boston Common
To date I’ve seen Commshakes’ productions of Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors … and now, Othello.
Best one yet. First, let me get a few geeky things out of the way. The group behind us actually brought a game of Othello, winning serious geek points (Othello at Othello, yes?) I thought about it and posted it on Twitter but was unable to find a set in time. I told these people that, and the lady told me, “Amazon. Two weeks ago. I’ve been planning for this.” She seriously needs to hang out here because that is one major Shakespeare geek.
On with the show. I find that I’m always disappointed with Iago in the opening scenes, and I think I know why. In theory, I build him up like some sort of demonic sociopath, and I expect a Charles Manson or Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs sort of figure. When he inevitably is not, I immediately think, “Oh, I don’t like this guy.” But then he grows on me.
Othello, on the other hand, I loved. He’s … perfect. Sweeps on stage and never loses control over anything. When they tell him, “Desdemona’s father is looking for you!” he calmly goes to look for him because he knows he’s done nothing wrong. When he’s basically put on trial for using witchcraft against Desdemona, he again says with absolute certainty, “Go ask her yourself.” He is almost inhuman in this, like “No one is really like that.” You almost want to see him crumble just a bit. Maybe not as much as happens, but just a little.
Before we introduce Desdemona, a word about the setting. I was trying to place exactly what time frame they were going for, and I think it was WWII. At first, I thought they had a sort of Casablanca look about them, and afterward, when we were discussing the show, the movie LA Confidential came up. So imagine this as Desdemona enters, done up like something out of a Lana Turner movie – nicely dressed in a suit, hair swept back under a tiny hat. Later, during a dinner scene, she’ll be dressed in a shiny gold evening gown. I’m painting the best picture I can here, people. Work with me. 🙂
So this Desdemona is … well, she’s a woman. I think with the whole “stolen from her father” thing, Desdemona is often thought of in an Ophelia-like “this is just a child” sort of way. Not here. Here, Desdemona is a grown woman who stands up to her father. Interesting choice.
One of the great things about Othello is that it’s so directly connected to human emotional response. See that guy there? Yeah, he’s mad at the black guy. So he’s gonna get that other guy drunk because he knows that when that dude gets drunk, he gets violent. Cool, that guy got in a fight, now the black guy is pissed off and just fired him. So he’s gonna go to his boss’s wife and try to get his job back, and the villain guy is going to use that to make the boss think his wife is cheating on him. There’s not a great deal of politics (although the bits about war and geography and who’s been sent where are a little tricky to follow). Basically, you get to see this guy at the top of the world brought down by his supposedly honest and trustworthy right-hand man, Iago.
I wonder if it was this production in particular doing something deliberate, but I never really noticed how much Shakespeare pounds us over the head with a hammer in this one. It seems like every character, every time, referred to “honest Iago.” It practically became a running joke, the more villainous he got and the more the people around him got so stupid, saying “Oh, Iago! Someone surely must have been whispering in Othello’s ear to turn him against me! Since you’re so honest and trustworthy go figure out who could have done such a thing!” There are many instances where you pretty much feel like everybody else on stage is stupid. The scene where Iago doesn’t want to say Cassio slept with Desdemona, which then turns into “Welll….I shouldn’t say anything, but he had this dream where he said I love you Desdemona, and then he threw his leg over mine, and kissed me full on the mouth ….” The audience was laughing pretty hard at that. How could Othello have been so stupid?
Speaking of Othello, he deteriorates nicely. His perfectly tailored uniform becomes unbuttoned, his tie crooked. He no longer stands at attention. He repeats himself, and he stutters. One of my favorite scenes comes after Iago has planted the idea of Desdemona’s infidelity in Othello’s mind, and an increasingly crazed Othello pulls a gun on his “ancient”, saying (in appropriately Shakespearean terms), “You show me proof, motherf*cker. You call my wife a whore? You plant this idea in my head to drive me nuts? You bring me proof or you die.”
Othello is not stupid, and that’s part of the point. He knows what he’s been told and that it is not proof. But when he confronts Desdemona, and she can’t produce the handkerchief? That, in his mind, is proof. The big death scene was pretty scary, as expected. It’s always weird when Desdemona seems to start the scene so calmly. “Why are you planning to kill me, husband? What did I do?” But by the time he actually means to go through with it, she’s screaming and begging for her life. It’s pretty terrifying. In this particular production (is it really a spoiler when talking about Shakespeare?), it takes a little while for her to go down, we’ll just say. There’s a lot more that goes on than just some smothering with a pillow.
I like the ending for the action – Amelia spills the details, Iago kills her and escapes, and Othello kills himself. I do not like all the talking, the emphasis on “We’re gonna torture you later, ok? You there, don’t forget to torture that guy. Trust us, we’re gonna torture him.” Iago’s “I’ll never speak again” line I find hard to pull off. This is one of those moments where he should be something other than human. I prefer to go away thinking no, no amount of torture will make him talk. When he speaks in the same tones he’s spoken throughout the play, he sounds like he’ll crack as soon as they’re off stage.
Since Carl mentioned the other day that the last lines of Othello are his favorite, I was waiting for them specifically. He’s right; it’s a very good ending. That whole scene is intriguing to me because here you’ve got a guy who killed his wife, thinking that he was in the right to do so, now surrounded by armed soldiers and having just discovered that he was completely wrong. So once again, he does the “right” thing and suicides. I like that part of the ending. As always with Shakespeare, there’s the cleanup bits (“Don’t forget to torture that guy!”), which I think are always just a bit anti-climactic.
The best thing about a play like this is that afterward, we got to discuss it. We talked about whether it’s a play about racism or not. Iago never comes out and says, “I hate him because he’s black”, but man, there’s certainly some racially-charged language in there. Someone refers to Othello as old “thick-lips”, among other things, and when Iago and Roderigo first wake Brabantio they’re making some pretty obscene beast references.
Great show. One of my favorites, by far, for many reasons. I hope they do some more biggies in the coming years.