Category: Shakespeare Geek

Rockabye Hamlet

~ duane ~ 11 Comments

http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=972968&dt=10&boardid=1

A little glimpse into my evening at home: Wife and I realize that “Don’t Forget The Lyrics”, a show we used to watch, is back for the summer with celebrity editions.  This time it’s Meatloaf and his daughter.  Cool.  My wife during the course of the show will ask, “Is he married to her mom?” which causes me to hit up Wikipedia and find the answer. Lo and behold what else do I find?  That Meatloaf, he of “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”, was actually in a Hamlet Musical called “Rockabye Hamlet.”  I knew he was well trained, and did some time in As You Like It.  But a Hamlet musical? Sure enough, the link above speaks to a recent revival of the 1976 flop.  But read the comments, people who saw it say the loved it:

The original was a trip is all I can say. It was ******* amazing
A then unknown Meatloaf, Beverly D Angelo & others performed the hell out of it.

I am trying desperately to find an audio recording. Then again:  http://www.musicals101.com/1970bway1.htm

Rockabye Hamlet (1976 – 7) was the most embarrassing nail in the rock musical’s coffin. It was based on Shakespeare’s classic drama about a fictional Danish prince avenging his royal father’s death. Director Gower Champion staged the show like an all-out rock concert, and the result was such an incoherent mess that many found it hard to believe that Champion could have been responsible for it.

List of songs:  http://www.ibdb.com/ProductionSongs.aspx?ShowNo=7578&ProdNo=3790 He Got It In The Ear???   FOUND IT!  http://theproofisinthepudding.blogspot.com/2008/09/rockabye-hamlet-rory-dodd.html

Author of "Infinite Jest" Found Dead

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/14wallace.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I was unfamiliar with the work of David Foster Wallace, professor of English at Pomona College, who was apparently best known for the 1000-page novel “Infinite Jest.”  I suppose comparing someone to Thomas Pynchon is intended to be complimentary, but I know I was never able to finish Gravity’s Rainbow.  However, one reviewer refers to the overall effect as “something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola.”  I’d be excited about that prospect if I knew anything about Zola. The death appears to have been a suicide.  Does anybody know more about the author, and want to say a few words?

Why Do You Hate Shakespeare? What Do You Hate About Shakespeare?

~ duane ~ 43 Comments

When I blogged about “Why Is Shakespeare So Hard” based on references in my search logs, it became one of my most commented topics.  I’m curious if that trick will work twice.  The Romeo and Juliet thread made me think of a similar question, as seen above.

What do you hate about Shakespeare?

Now, as a bunch of Shakespeare geeks who are voluntarily spending our time talking about it, I don’t expect that the regular readers hate him all that much.  What I’m hoping is that people googling the topic will stop by and enlighten us about why *they* hate him, and then maybe we can do something about it or at least understand it a little better. Of course, if you’re a Shakespeare pro and you’ve got some hatred to vent, go for it. 

Oh,When I Shall *Die*! Now I Get It!

~ duane ~ 13 Comments

Rosenbaum’s Shakespeare Wars continues to be the most serendipitous book I’ve ever read.  By that I mean that I’m never quite sure when I’ll turn the page into a new chapter and he’ll be talking about something I was just talking about two days ago. In this case it’s the “When I shall die” line (as opposed to “When he shall die”) that we talked about last month.  Certainly it’s supposed to be “Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die, cut him out in little stars….” rather than the version Luhrman gives us, “When I shall die, cut him out in little stars….” After all, if he’s not dead, why are you cutting him up?  Oddly, though, my googling showed that most Shakespeare versions do in fact have it as I, not he. Rosenbaum gets to this near the end of his book, speaking of a trip to Bermuda. He even points out that most editors do indeed go with the “he” version (which is apparently Fourth Quarto) because the “I” version makes no sense. And what Rosenbaum offers (not his own hypothesis, but rather one he heard, though I do not have the book handy to quote the original author) immediately makes sense to me, I’m just not sure if I love or hate it.  He goes back to the more bawdy version of “die”, namely “orgasm”.  He says that Juliet, a mere 13 yrs old and not married, is to put it bluntly thinking about wedding sex, and how good it’s going to be.  You have to admit, if you make that little word translation, it still fits.  Now you’ve got an anxious young girl, in love but also certainly in lust, waiting for that big moment when … ummm….hmm, how can we say this and keep it clean?  Shall we say, when she gets to consummate her marriage?  It’s going to be so good, she tells herself, that all she’ll see are stars, and her Romeo.  (I’m not sure when all the rest of the world comes into it, though?) I love it because it works, pretty much.  It’s somewhat crude, it’s the sort of thing you don’t talk about when you talk about the story like it’s the greatest love story ever told, but sex is certainly a part of that type of love, and it’s certainly believable that a virginal bride-to-be is contemplating what it will be like.  (Now that I’ve seen that interpretation, other parts begin to fall into place –  “I have bought the mansion of a love, but not possessed it, and though I am sold, not yet enjoyed”???) I hate it because it destroys what I consider to be one of the most romantic lines in the entire play.  It’s an opportunity for Juliet to explain how much Romeo means to her.  Normally it’s the guy spouting all the poetry and the “You’re my world” stuff.  Sometimes it’s nice to hear it back the other way.  What would Juliet do without Romeo?  She would repaint the heavens in his image, and the rest of world would say, “Wow, yeah, we like that better.  Who is that guy?”  🙂   Thoughts?  Nobody mentioned the sex interpretation the first time we discussed that line, so I’m curious if it is a popular interpretation.

Characters, Sorted By Number Of Lines

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/characters/chardisplay.php?sortby=lines&searchterm=

Shakespeare Geek Merchandise Now Available
Shakespeare Geek Merchandise Now Available!

UPDATE – OpenSource Shakespeare has actually removed the “sort by lines” feature and replaced it with “sort by speeches”. This is somewhat more accurate, as there is no set rule about line breaks in most of the text.

However, counting speeches isn’t remotely as fun. One character might have 10 small speeches, compared to 3 lengthy speeches from someone else.

The results are still what you’re thinking – Falstaff, Richard III and Henry V top the list, all of whom appear in multiple plays. The remainder of the top ten might as well be, “Title Characters” — Hamlet, Othello, Antony, Cleopatra. Even Timon (of Athens) gets in there.

The one spoiler? Iago, He’s got almost as many speeches as Othello!

Open Source Shakespeare is a great resource for doing things like this (not my idea, I just found it).  Here, we have characters sorted by the number of lines.  Obviously, it’s a little crude as Shakespeare himself shows up in the #1 spot with no plays listed, but right behind him are Falstaff and Henry V (both having appeared in numerous plays with major roles, it only makes sense), and then Hamlet (who, for only have a single play, has the most lines). Other interesting bits…

  • Othello and Iago have almost an identical number of lines.
  • Anthony has more lines than Cleopatra – but he was in Julius Caesar, too.
  • Behind Cleopatra, Rosalind from As You Like It has the most lines for a female.
  • Romeo has substantially more lines than Juliet, though they both have quite a few.  Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, has barely 1/3rd the number of her husband’s lines.  Tybalt barely registers with just 17 lines!