Performance Review: The Merchant of Stratford

This weekend, my sister and I attended a children's performance of The Merchant of Venice - set at the PurpleTurtleYogurtLand in Stratford and Andelasia -- So cute! The performance, which included children coming up to play the roles of certain characters, was darling and made the play wonderfully accessible.

Venue
The theater in the round was interesting to me. I really with I had the experience of sitting on the floor as I mentioned in class because I wanted to be more in on the action and see the different characters faces at different times. I also thought it'd be fun to be in different characters' "boxes". I was in Shylock's corner and he never broke character. It was an unnerving corner to be in.

Casting

As for the casting of Shylock, I had imagined him being a shorter, smaller, weaker and bitter character. It was interesting to see such a large intimidating character instead. But what was even more interesting was that the character hunched the entire play. I thought it made him slightly more sympathetic, but his bigness made him hard to identify with because he seemed like such a bully.

The actor who played Bassanio was so earnest. It's hard to see Antonio/Antonia as the main protagonist because Bassanio really stole the lead with how easy he was to sympathize with (even with his blue hair).

The Folks

I found some more folklore and Shakespeare resources that I am super excited about:

First is a long essay by Kristen McDermott about folklore and the English Holiday Cycle as represented in Shakespeare's work. A nod to all her scholarship in looking into this. What a great resource!

The other is the one I'm most thrilled with. It is a course description for a class being taught right now through Cardiff University entitled Folklore and Magic in the Age of Shakespeare. There's a whole list of books I can use of resources, a Cardiff Shakespeare blog full of useful information, a Cardiff Shakespeare facebook page, a Cardiff Shakespeare twitter account, and like a zillion useful links to Shakespeare conferences and symposia, libraries, open access journals, projects, Shakespeare facsimiles, Shakespeare tools, societies, theater companies, and theaters! What a treasure trove of resources! Not to mention all the people I could connect with through this blog and course! I'm literally quivering with excitement! I'll let you know when I've dug in a little more!

Folklore in Shakespeare

After my last analysis of the Jew in England and the folklore that I'm sure Shakespeare knew about Jews, I was extremely intrigued to see if anyone else had done research on folklore from the time period and how that is represented in Shakespeare's plays. That would be an extremely interesting paper topic to me after my experience in my folklore class. I could focus on the importance of folklore in cultural literacy and how this is displayed in literary works. I'm hoping to find research articles on this, but anyone seen anything that might point me in the right direction?

UPDATE:

Look what I found right away by searching Twitter!! :) It's a book on folklore in Shakespeare! AND the book is online for free because it's in the public domain!

I looked up the author of the book, T. F. Thiselton-Dyer. He lived in the late 19th century and looks totally awesome!

Jews In England and Shakespeare

Photo Courtesy of JPaudit | CC Flickr

After my classes' discussion about the antisemitism or villainous Christianity (interpret it how you will) presented in The Merchant of Venice, I was intrigued to know a little more about Shakespeare's interactions with the Jewish people. I was surprised to find out, he didn't have any. There were no Jews in England at the time Shakespeare was writing.

HOWEVER, he did have experience with his country's history. He would have understood that when there were many Jews in England, they were not considered citizens (though they were not forced to live in Ghettos either) and thus is was hard for them to find work. Since citizens were not allowed to lend money with interest, the Jewish people often turned to usury and became their own debt collectors, thus creating a cultural resentment towards the faith and the people. He would have known about the two massacres of Jews in the 12th century. He would've known that Jews were forbidden to be moneylenders in 1275 and expelled from England in 1290, not to return till 1655 (hence no Jews in England during Shakespeare's lifetime.)

BEST of all, Shakespeare would have heard much of the folklore that circulated about the unknown culture of Jews after their expulsion from England. Jews were believed to ritualize murder of English peoples (especially children at Easter) in their private ceremonies (i.e. passover). This folklore has no basis in fact -- duh.

Merchants V Moneylenders

I read The Merchant of Venice this weekend. My mother-in-law is coming into town so I wanted to finish as much homework as I could this weekend so I could spend more time with her. I ended up reading the whole play on my Kindle but I felt like, for the most part, it was easier to understand than Henry V without annotations. I think his comedies are like that.

Anyways, my hope is to check out what resources Folgers Library online has for the play since that's the edition of Henry V I read and I saw they have a website. After I check that out I thought I'd snoop the Shakespeare blogging community that Seeing Rosaline posted about and also check out luminarium.

As for my personal play, I think I'll read As You Like It. For my paper, I'd really love to do something with the theme of marriage as presented in the different plays we've read this semester, but I'm not sure yet how to narrow that down. I'll have to do some more close reading and see what I come up with.

I'm blogging from my phone (while rocking the little dude to sleep) so not much research going on just now. Till tomorrow!

Understanding The Bard

Photo courtesy of goXunuReviews | CC licensed at Flickr

I read The Tempest entirely on my Kindle. I found I was still able to understand much of the play this way, because I could use the scroll to get to words and have them defined. Occasionally, there was not a definition for a word I wanted defined but I did my best with contextual clues.

However, when tackling a text like Henry V, I felt I needed a little more help. I am sort of an annotation addict so I grabbed a paper copy of Henry V by the Folgers Shakespeare library and read the entire play via that text. It was super helpful! I felt like I got a much better understanding of the play this way.

This, I feel, is one of the limitations of ebooks - annotations - at least in my experience. I've read a few texts with awesome linked annotations but these were on my laptop, and not in the lovely, easy-to-hold (even while nursing) format that Kindle allows. I'm sure in the future we'll overcome some of these setbacks, but for the next play, I think I'll use my Kindle and an annotated hard copy for reference when the reading gets tough. I just can't let my paper go. :)

Blood, Gore, and Fighting Words

My sister, Kristi, didn't have time to read the entire play of Henry V with me this week, so we watched a screen version together in chunks. We watched the first half of the Kenneth Branagh version of the play before I had started reading but after I'd done a little research to understand the basic plot line, characters, etc. A lot of it went over our heads. We were able to discern the gist of what was going on in each scene but our familiarity with the characters was difficult to establish.

It makes me think about how movie scripts are written now in a language that we've come to understand and familiarize ourselves with so that we can easily keep track of major players and plots. Shakespeare plays have a different language not just in that English has changed so much but the way screen-writers/ playwrights and audiences communicate things to each other. For example, today a slowly turning doorknob means something bad is coming through that door. I wonder what conventions from playwriting in Shakespeare's day go right over our heads.

Looking Forward to Hamlet

I love Patrick Stewart.

I love Sesame Street.

I've never read Hamlet, but we'll see. 

Henry Vee

So I stopped at the BYU bookstore on my way home from class Friday hoping to check out what titles they had about Shakespeare. I only had a minute to spare, but I thought I could at least browse. Unfortunately, when I asked at the info desk if they had books about The Bard, not simply books by him, the guy behind the counter looked at me like I was Caliban. So I had him point me in the direction of the books by Shakespeare anyways.

Earlier in the week, I should add that I was looking for Shakespeare apps for my iphone and stumbled upon one called No Fear Shakespeare, created by SparkNotes (which is now crashing every time I try to open it. Of course it would when I'm trying to tell you all about it - sigh). Anyhow, to my understanding, it presents Shakespeare texts side-by-side with their vernacular translation. It has a few acts of a few works available for perusal and the rest, ya gotta pay for. It looks pretty neat.

No Fear Shakespeare example of side-by-side translations

Now back to the bookstore-that-lacks-works-about-Shakespeare-and-only-has-works-by-him. I was looking at different editions of the texts and one of the sections caught my eye... No Fear Shakespeare! Totally cool! So I grabbed a copy of a play that my family is going to go see this summer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, As You Like It.

I Know We're Past the Whole Tempest Thing, but...

I had to write a post that I'd intended to write last week before I got horribly sick (sadly, almost all cold medications are strictly taboo for nursing moms, so we just gotta stick it out. I did try a fantastic combination of every home remedy ever suggested to me, which was kind of hilarious, and I got better after two days of bedrest, but alas neglected my blog a bit).

So!...

I want to respond (in a way) to Mikhaela's post about the fishy character of Caliban. I analyzed the same passage and Shakespeare's language here too caught my attention.

A strange fish! Were I in England now,
as once I was, and had but this fish painted,
not a holiday fool there but would give a piece
of silver: there would this monster make a
man; any strange beast there makes a man:
when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame
beggar, they will lazy out ten to see a dead
Indian. (The Tempest, Act II Scene II)

Shakespeare Baby

Onesie available through The Baby Shop

I had a wicked cold this week, so between dragging myself upstairs to take care of my 5 month old and trying every silly home remedy I've ever heard of, I've been a tad absentee from the blogging world. Bracken (my little guy) wasn't putting up with me not paying attention to him when I was alert enough to do anything, so getting on the computer was out. I was able to finish The Tempest however.

In order to entertain him, I read aloud (voices, pacing, and all) and not only did he enjoy the bard, but I got a very different experience with him. I caught different things. I feel like when I'm reading to myself I catch more of the humor cause I'm more likely to look up definitions and such, but when I'm reading aloud I feel more of the emotion. Interesting to note.

On another note, I'm dying to dress Bracken up in Shakespearean garb and use pictures of him in my blogposts, but I can't find such garb for five months old. Ideas?

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

So, I wanted a cool favicon for my blog. Favicons are the little symbol that appears on the tab next to the name of the site (blogger's normal favicon is the orange round-cornered square with the funny-looking white letter B in the middle.

To find a favocon, I just searched creative commons favicon in google. It turned up this site for creating your own favicon. So I did! I hope you can tell what it is. If you can't, it's supposed to be a feather pen crossed with a sword. You just design it square-by-square.

Serious Comedy

"O, woe the day." - Miranda 

Photo courtesy of Misti Atkinson. Painting by Rhett Murray. 

The photograph above is of a painting. The artist is my uncle, Rhett Murray. My aunt, Holly Atkinson Murray, posed as the model for Miranda - yes, she has long, curly, red hair. Yes, she is gorgeous. Yes, she knows it. Sorry, she is married. :) This painting hangs in my family's home and was, in fact, one of the reasons I was excited to read Shakespeare's The Tempest. My sister, Kristi, and I are reading The Tempest together. This painting highlights one of the concerns we had as we read Act 1 together.

So Not a Sonnet

I recently sampled a number of Shakespeare's sonnets. My favorite was numero 57, that's LVII for those of you who don't know. (My internet was down while I did my reading, so I had to quickly reteach myself roman numerals by counting and finding the pattern. I loathe roman numerals.) I'll just paste it in here, thank you Public Domain.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

 I have no precious time at all to spend

Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

Save, where you are how happy you make those

So true a fool in love that in your will,

Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.  

I enjoyed how he plays with the theme of love, almost mocking how foolish men in love can be by trusting without reservation and "enslaving" themselves to their lover, but it also seems relatively true to how I understand men to love. (I'd qualify "men" with the adjective "good," except that I don't believe the actions of those who call themselves men to be manly at all when they are not good, nor can I understand how they can call their perverse actions "love"). Men love deeply and wholly. I believe that men would do anything for their wives within reason (the "within reason" part of this is why women get so frustrated with men. We often think with emotion. They think with logic. Our reasoning powers differ and so persuading the other takes creativity and makes for an adventure). This poem takes this tendency in men to an extreme by impoverishing the man of any purpose of his own except to live for the other. That's where the humor comes from.

First Post

Hello world.