Look at that, I had a picture of Boatswain after all.
It dawns on me, as I sit here in my Tempest mood, that I’ve got almost 100 Shakespeare Geek designs in Amazon and RedBubble, but none of them have anything to do with The Tempest.
How’d that happen?
I immediately set about to remedy that problem when … I got stuck. I have no idea how to proceed! It’s easy to grab a quote and throw it on a shirt, but I think that’s just playing the “quantity over quality” rule and I don’t love that. Maybe that’s why I’m not raking in the cash, either, but that’s never been my goal 😉 If I’m going to put up a design and ask people to spend real money to own it, I’d like to feel like I put some effort into it.
So, who wants to brainstorm with me? Amazon offers t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, but RedBubble offers a larger selection of other merch – iPhone cases, pillows, blankets, journals, stickers, etc… so I can really do either. If you’re a fan of The Tempest, what do you think would look good on merchandise? A favorite quote? One of our old jokes or hashtags games from over the years?
I suppose we could look into original artwork if somebody had a cool idea. I’m already thinking about maybe digging into the public domain stuff and seeing if I can’t get creative with one of the old woodcut images depicting Prospero and Ariel. Hmmm…
Who’s feeling creative? I promise I won’t nag people to buy it if we end up making it. I just want to see some new designs flowing into the store, and The Tempest is the biggest gap I see right now. (Not a lot of call for Pericles merchandise.)
I ran across a bunch of Tempest references last week, and was reminded each time how much I enjoy the opening scene. I was even trying to think of a gimmick post that would allow me to talk about my enjoyment of the boatswain character. I called it “One Scene Wonders”, but then remembered he technically appears at the end of the play as well.
Then I figure what the heck it’s my blog I can write whatever I want.
How much do you love Boatswain? From his opening “Cheerly my hearts! Yare, yare!” it’s like he’s got his own language and personality, even though he doesn’t even merit a proper name.
Boatswain
I pray now, keep below.
He’s also got patience. First he tells his passengers, “Keep below.” Then he politely tells them, “Stay out of the way, you’re doing more harm than good up here.”
Boatswain
You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.
Then when Gonzalo goes and name drops the King, our hero does exactly what any worker would do when told the suits were coming. He says, “If you can do it better than go right ahead, otherwise get out of the way.”
GONZALO Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
Boatswain
None that I more love than myself. You are a
counsellor; if you can command these elements to
silence, and work the peace of the present, we will
not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you
cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make
yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of
the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out
of our way, I say.
He’s not even done. After complaining that his passengers complaints are louder than the storm, he sees them returning and asks, “Are you trying to get us killed?” When Sebastian swears at him he says, “If you’re going to stay out here pick up a rope!”
Boatswain
Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring
her to try with main-course. A cry within A plague upon this howling! they are louder than
the weather or our office.
Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO
Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o’er
and drown? Have you a mind to sink?
SEBASTIAN
A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
incharitable dog!
Boatswain
Work you then.
This poor chap’s just trying to do his job and not get them all killed, and these sorry fools are all getting in his way. Even Gonzalo has to acknowledge, “I like this fellow.” Granted, I’m not sure it’s a compliment to say “I see him more fated to hanging than to drowning,” but we’ll take what little appreciation we get.
GONZALO
I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he
hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his
hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,
for our own doth little advantage. If he be not
born to be hanged, our case is miserable.
All of Shakespeare’s openings are great, in their own way. I like this one because as far as setting the tone of the rest of the play goes (see Macbeth, Hamlet) it’s really more about what Gonzalo says after Boatswain’s big moment, all that stuff about “give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground” because in the next scene we see the island. So really the interaction with Boatswain is kind of extra, isn’t it? Sure it introduces the bad guys and gives a taste of their personalities but there’s plenty of ways he could have done that. I’m glad he picked this one.
Anybody else love seeing this guy make his brief appearance?
I saw a post on Reddit today that asked, “What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word Shakespeare?”
“Ooooo,” I thought, “This one’s right up my alley.” I start mentally forming my response. I click. I am disappointed to see everybody’s answer says nothing but “Romeo and Juliet” or “Hamlet” or something “Othello” or “Dream”. I’m also disappointed to see that the post was put up 13 hours ago, so there’s no point in responding, as nobody will ever see it. I only see it because I’ve got a search filter on Shakespeare posts. I decide not to post.
Good thing, too, because before archiving the post out of my news reader I realize that the question was actually, “What is the first PLAY you think of when you hear the word Shakespeare?” So they were all right, and I would have looked like an idiot. 🙂
So then I’ll ask and answer my own question here, because I can do that. What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word Shakespeare?
I’m grasping for the word I want but I can’t find it. Hopefully somebody will grok what I’m saying and deliver me my word. But for now I’m going to say it like this : Eleven. As in, “These go up to eleven.” I’m not just talking about what Shakespeare the man accomplished, although that alone makes a worthy life goal (Shakespeare wrote Richard III and Romeo and Juliet by the time he was thirty, what have you done, and are children studying it four hundred years later?) I’m talking about the depth and intensity of what he put up on stage. We’ll all feel at one time or another love, and hate, and ambition and grief and the whole host of human emotions. And when we do there’s always some Shakespeare we can point to and say, “Yes. That. That is what this feels like.”
When I first heard about the Hogarth Series that would product “modern novelizations” of Shakespeare’s work I thought, “Eh. So what. If you rewrite Shakespeare it’s not Shakespeare, it’s yours, and it’s just like any other novel.” As such I’ve avoided them all to date.
I decided to change that because we’ve got a book club at work and I wanted an excuse to read something of at least passing interest to me. When multiple people told me that Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood’s retelling of The Tempest, was the best one to come out so far, was hooked. If I’m going to give the series I try I might as well start with my favorite play.
So glad I did! I’m just about halfway finished with it but I’m very excited to get out a review (and, who we kidding, it gives me another post for Shakspeare Day).
Felix, our director, is in the middle of what’s to be his masterpiece, a production of The Tempest. He likes this play so much he even named his daughter Miranda. Unlike Shakespeare’s story, however, both Felix’s wife and daughter have passed away before the story takes off. But the next part plays out like you’d expect — control of the group is usurped by Tony and Sal, and Felix is “banished” from the theatre scene until he gets a job teaching Shakespeare to prisoners. He even uses the pseudonym “Mr. Duke”, an amusing callback to Prospero as Duke of Milan.
The plot is following along close enough to the original that you have some idea what’s going to happen. Tony and Sal are going to end up in the prison where Mr. Duke will make his triumphant return. I just have no idea what’s going to happen other than that. Our Prospero has no Miranda. This one seems to be all about revenge. What would Prospero have been like if everything else had gone the same, except Miranda had not survived? I think we might have seen the full scope and scale of his power.
While retelling The Tempest this book is also a lesson in The Tempest as Felix walks his prisoners through the finer points of the play. He makes them re-envision Ariel as something other than just “a fairy”. He asks them to find all the “prisons” in the play (apparently there are nine?) and they discuss what form each prison takes, who is imprisoned, and who has captured them. I’m learning lots of new things. I hope she gets back to the question of “is the island by itself magic” because I’ve often wondered about that myself.
I don’t want to spoil much more of the book so I’ll stop here. Suffice to say I’m loving it, and when I’m done with this one I’m going to dig into Jo Nesbo’s new Macbeth next. Definitely recommended.
Over the centuries it’s been common practice to spin a happy ending on Shakespeare’s tragedies. Romeo and Juliet live, King Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after.
What if you went the other way? The comedies are known for their happy endings. Can you spin your favorite comedy and give it a dark ending?
Twelfth Night is the obvious choice, with Malvolio’s ominous, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!” How does he not show up at the wedding with an AR-15?
How about A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The lovers wake up, the love potion has now worn off Demetrius, who sees Theseus and Egeus and immediately goes right back to the character he was in the first scene. Seeing no change in anybody’s feelings on the matter and with Hermia refusing to budge, Theseus has her executed. I was going to write that Lysander tries to protect her and gets executed for his trouble as well, but it’s more fun if he’s a coward who absolutely doesn’t do that. 🙂
Can we count The Tempest? I know, not technically. But it’s so easy to envision the entire play as the ravings of a poor old man alone on an island making up the whole thing.
