The Return of Geeklet

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

My girls got Kindle Fires for Christmas, so my 5yr old son has basically taken my old iPhone and uses it for his own game playing.

Just now he wanders in, face in the screen, and says, “Daddy, I’m reading Shakespeare.”

I look at the iPhone and sure enough he’s gotten into my Shakespeare app.  Specifically, Winter’s Tale.

“Oh,” I tell him, “You’ve got Winter’s Tale there.  That’s a hard one.”  He is actually looking at the Dramatic Personae.

“Well I don’t know what the words say,” he tells me, “But I like to look at the words.”  He has never grown out of the little speech thing he has were all his “er” sounds come out like “or”, so “words” actually sounds like “wards” and it is the cutest darned thing. 🙂

“You can always sound out the words and find the ones you do know,” I tell him.

“Can you find me Hamlet?”

“Sure,” I tell him, and bring up Hamlet, Act I.

He tries to walk away reading it, then quickly comes back saying, “I don’t know these words. Can you find me To be or not to be?”

“Sure,” I tell him again, and show him how to look up Act III.  I find the speech he wants and show it to him.

Off he goes, reading Hamlet.  I’m sure he put it down 2 seconds after he left the room, but still, gotta love the boy.

Shakespeare’s Most Shocking Moment?

~ duane ~ 11 Comments

While discussing Emilia’s big final scene over in another post, I thought of a good question.

There’s plenty of killing in Shakespeare’s works.  Macbeth kills Duncan in his sleep, Hamlet kills Polonius (thinking him the king) in front of his mother, Tybalt kills Mercutio (accidentally?) and Romeo kills Tybalt (probably not accidentally).

Which do you feel is Shakespeare’s most shocking moment? The one that you absolutely do not see coming?  Plenty of people die in Macbeth, but I’m not sure if any of the deaths is shocking.  After all, when people aren’t dying or killing, they’re talking about it.  Lot of blood in that one.  The murder of Macduff’s family is scary, but you also know that the murderers have been dispatched, so you see it coming (even if you do see it from between your fingers, underneath your seat).

Mercutio’s death is pretty shocking, no doubt. Once upon a time we talked at length about how, up until this point, Romeo and Juliet is a romantic comedy. And then when the audience is least expecting it? Bang, likeable sidekick, dead. I think in fact that this one is so shocking that it takes a little while to sink in.  There’s still half a play left to go.

Hamlet’s attack on a defenseless arras is certainly up there.  He’s talking to his mom.  He hears a noise.  Thinking it *her husband*, not to mention *his uncle*, and oh by the way, *the frickin king*, he jumps up and without another word blindly stabs him. For a guy that’s spent the entire first half of the play saying “Let’s think this through…” it’s a pretty bold move.

But I think I’m going to give the prize to Iago murdering his wife Emilia right in front of everybody, to shut her up.

You think that we’ve already hit the climax of the play. Othello has
killed his wife, Emilia has discovered the truth, the authorities are
now on the scene and we’ve essentially moved into what I love calling
“the Horatio scene” where we wrap up all the loose ends before we go
home.  Or are we?

EMILIA

O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou speak’st of
I found by fortune and did give my husband;
For often, with a solemn earnestness,
More than indeed belong’d to such a trifle,
He begg’d of me to steal it.

IAGO

Villanous whore!

EMILIA

She give it Cassio! no, alas! I found it,
And I did give’t my husband.

IAGO

Filth, thou liest!

EMILIA

By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.
O murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool
Do with so good a woman?

OTHELLO

Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder?–Precious villain!

He runs at IAGO
IAGO, from behind, stabs EMILIA, and exit

GRATIANO

The woman falls; sure, he hath kill’d his wife.

We know that Iago is an evil bastard before this, of course.  But he’s always been the schemer and manipulator. Now he’s in a room filled with the equivalent of a police squad ready to arrest him for his crimes.  Does he just run?  No, he *stabs his wife in front of everyone* first, and then he runs. That is just full on crazy, right there.  Afterward you can argue “Sure, it was always clear he was capable of something like that,” but that’s a world apart from seeing it coming.

I love to read Gratiano’s line as, “WTF, did he just kill his wife?!” like even the characters on stage can’t believe what just happened.

Any other contenders?  Make your case.

My Husband! My Husband?

~ duane ~ 14 Comments

So I was flipping through Othello today helping somebody look for a monologue, and I was struck by Emilia’s reaction to Othello right at the end of the play, where Othello basically says, “Iago told me everything,” and it all falls into place for Emilia.  Check it out:

OTHELLO

Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.
O, I were damn’d beneath all depth in hell,
But that I did proceed upon just grounds
To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.

EMILIA

My husband!

OTHELLO

Thy husband.

EMILIA

That she was false to wedlock?

OTHELLO

Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,
If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and Perfect chrysolite,
I’ld not have sold her for it.

EMILIA

My husband!

OTHELLO

Ay, ’twas he that told me first:
An honest man he is, and hates the slime
That sticks on filthy deeds.

EMILIA

My husband!

OTHELLO

What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.

Emilia repeats the exact same line 3 times.  Othello even asks her, “Why do you keep repeating yourself?”

Somebody get into her head for me.  How do you play that? Is it denial?  Not necessarily that her husband is a bastard, I’m sure she knows that – I’m thinking more that Emilia recognizes that if *she’d* seen through Iago sooner, then Desdemona might still be alive.

Or is it more like, “That son of a b*tch, I’ll kill him!” Like she’s not even listening to Othello. She’s already put everything together in her head, and now the fact that she keeps saying “My husband” over and over again has nothing to do with Othello.

Or something else?

Mostly just curious. If she’d said it once, or if she’d worded it differently each time, I wouldn’t even have noticed.  But the repetition is obviously there for a reason, so as an actor or director, how do you make it work? Why does she do that?

Who Was David Garrick?

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

Here’s one of those times where I get to ask the readers a question.  I’ve heard the name David Garrick mentioned frequently enough in the history of Shakespeare.  But I don’t really know much about him.  So, rather than just going to read his wikipedia page I thought I’d ask the audience.  What I’m mostly curious to is this – would you argue that he was a major positive force in crafting the image of Shakespeare we know today, or do you think that perhaps he did more harm than good by catapulting Shakespeare until into that “literary deity” realm, causing people to spend the last 200+ years trying to knock him back down to reality?

Tempest DVD Winners!

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Thanks everyone for the amazing suggestions about what to do with all my Tempest DVDs!  It’s going to take me awhile to fully process what I can realistically do, but it seems like almost everybody suggested donating to local schools/clubs, so that will certainly be on the list.  I also like the idea of creating something, like producing a modern interpretation of a scene from the play. 

Anyway, I promised 3 winners chosen randomly, and here they are:  Cass, Brian and Alexi!  Even if I already have your address, please drop me a line so I don’t have to go searching for it.

Thanks for playing, everybody! Look for more opportunities to win (both from me and from some other Shakespeare blogs, hint hint big hint) soon!