Brush up on your Shakespeare

Brush up your Shakespeare, Start quoting him now. Brush up your Shakespeare And the women you will wow. From: Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate

 

William Shakespeare (a.k.a "The Bard of Avon") was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. His plays have been translated into every major living language (and even into Klingon!) and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. His works are considered classic.

Mark Twain defined a classic as "something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read" and for many people, the works of Shakespeare fits this description.



Et tu, Fido?

Like many people, I was first introduced to Shakespeare (his works, not William himself. He died in 1616) in High School English, when we had to read Julius Caesar.  


To aid in understanding it (make it more palatable), our instructor also showed us the 1953 MGM version starring Marlon Brando, James Mason, Deborah Kerr, and Sir John Gielgud. Black and White film, same "weird" dialog, but it had Brando in it!

I have discover that some of the younger generation is unaware of who Marlon Brand was For those of you born after the Beatles broke up, Marlon Brando was an American screen and stage actor, widely regarded as having had a significant impact on the art of film acting. While he became notorious for his "mumbling" diction and exuding a raw animal magnetism, his mercurial performances were nonetheless highly regarded, and he is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century, best known for his role as Don Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972).
 

He also played Superman's (real) father in the 1978 film Superman.

I won't try to explain James Mason, Deborah Kerr, or Sir John Gielgud.

But I digress.

"Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war." ~Julius Caesar

I have always been interested in history and historical things, and much of Shakespeare and his works fit into my sphere of interest. I got a few books on Shakespeare, read a few of his most noted plays, and found that (after deciphering Elizabethan English) I enjoyed it. I also found, after the decipherment, Shakespeare was full of sexual innuendo (this is important to an adolescent male).



Mrs Ellingsworth

In my senior year, I needed one more Literature and/or English credit to graduate high school. I had taken all the required Eng/Lit classes, so this was an elective, and I elected to take Shakespearean Literature. There was only one obstacle to my goal: Mrs Ellingsworth, the instructor.

I had Mrs Ellingsworth before in a previous class. Mrs E suggested that I might do better if I selected another Eng/Lit class. Admittedly, I was not in the top 10% of my class, but I wasn't in the bottom 10% either. It had more to do with the fact that I dress like, well... as Shakespeare would say, like a ruffian. Denim jeans and jacket, rock and roll t-shirt, leather boots, baseball cap - OK, I might have been a bit intimidating, but that should not have barred me from becoming edumacated.

 I wanted to take the class, so I needed a plan.

"It's because I'm Jewish, isn't it?" I asked her, load enough to be heard by the teachers who sat on either side of her at the Eng/Lit table. That comment, coming out of (seemingly) nowhere, caught he off guard

I'm actually not Jewish. I don't say this because I am prejudiced against Jews - I'm not. I say this because I am, in fact, not Jewish. I can't be Jewish - I like bacon. The reason I said I was Jewish will become evident, anon:

"No, no" she protested. "That has nothing to do with it. I just feel that you would..."

I would what? Do better in someone else's class? Maybe Mrs. Bickley's Introduction to Mother Goose? I didn't let her finish that sentence, immediately going into my "theatrical" debut (or perhaps "audition," so to speak) - and this is the reason I claimed Jewishness.

"Hath not a Jew eyes?" I began orating, cutting her of from further comment. "hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same Winter and Summer as a Christian is: if you prick us do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us do we not die?"

(For those who are not familiar with Shakespeare, this is from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 1.)

 There was a silence at the Literature and English table as instructors turn to watch my "performance." Mrs E sat silently staring in my direction, unsure of what to do. Finally, Mr Morris (Creative Writing Instructor) broke the silence.

"Kathy" he said, laughingly. "After that, you can't possibly object to him enrolling in your class."

 Facing peer pressure, Mrs E signed my form (thus allowing me to attend her class). I thanked her, and went quickly to the register's desk to turn in my now completed registration slip. I was in.

And for those who are interested, I got a B+ out of the class - so if you ask me a question about Shakespeare, there is an 85% chance of it being right.
 

"Thou callest me a dog before thou hast cause. But since I am a dog, beware my fangs." ~The Merchant of Venice

Nitara Ashling
(my personal pick for
the roll of the Fairy Queen)
 

With Pika Kyosei
(as Puck)

I read a few years that a theatrical troupe was performing A Midsummer Night's Dream in Central Park.


For those who are not familiar with Shakespeare, Midsummer portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play, categorized as a Comedy, is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.

A Shakespearean presentation in Central Park, in itself, is not unusual. Numerous theatrical performances, Shakespeare and other, have been performed at the Delacorte Theater. What is unusual is that the fairies (or rather, the performers who portrayed the fairies) were topless.

Topless???
 

Now don't get me wrong. I like nudity (just ask my girlfriend). But is this a good idea? A free, outdoor, public performance, in New York City, with nudity? Isn't  that going to attract the wrong element?

But on second thought, maybe this is a way to introduce people ti Shakespeare that would normally not get exposed to the humanities.

It would attract a few hommies to the theater.

Quite a few.

With that, I would like to present my own Shakespeareanesque creation (a Fakespeare, if you will), which I have entitled:

 

A Midsummer Evening's Trip

to See Shakespeare in the Park

 

Dramatis Personae

VINNIE, Leader of the gang
CHUY, his lieutenant
LEROY, another gang member
"BOB" ROSENCRANTZ, another gang member
"TOM" GUILDENSTERN, another gang member
SHOPKEEPER, Mr Rubinowitz

CAR, a '91 Chevy

The scene: A street corner in New York.

[Enter: Shopkeeper]

SHOPKEEPER: Look, anon. Young ruffians do loiter about,
Darkening the doorway that leadeth into my humble establishment,
Preventing the ingress of customers that payeth.
Begone, varlets! Linger not in front of my shoppe.
Go! And procure gainful employment! Becometh respectable citizens!

CHUY: Yo mama!

[Other gang members express their displeasure with the shopkeeper non-verbally by extending there middle fingers in the shopkeepers direction.]

[Exit: Shopkeeper.]

VINNIE: So, what yous wanna do today?

CHUY: Dunno

[Bob and Tom shrug there shoulders]

[Enter: LeRoy]

LEROY: Hey! Check it out! I just heard that they is having some free Shakespeare in Central Park

VINNIE: Who?

LEROY: Shakespeare!

CHUY: Hey, that's the guy what wrote that Julio Cesar that we had to read in Mrs William's English class.

LEROY:                   Julius Caesar

CHUY:                                  Whatever.

I don't want to go so no boring-ass Shakespeare.

[Bob and Tom nod in agreement]

LEROY: No, no. Check it out: it's got fairies.

VINNIE: Fairies?

CHUY: No way, man. I don't wanna see no joto fairies.

LEROY: Not that kind of fairies. Fairy fairies, with wings and stuff.

VINNIE: Like Tinkerbell?

LEROY: Yeah

VINNIE: I don't know...

CHUY: No way man.

LEROY: No, no. Check it out: the fairies are topless.

[All are momentarily Silent. Bob and Tom stare in disbelief.]

VINNIE: You mean they got no clothes on?

LEROY: Yeah.

[Silence. Vinnie appears to be contemplating]

VINNIE: I's been meanin' to expose yous mofos to mo' culture.

[Excitedly] Get in the car! Get in the car!
 

[Exeunt: All]

Finis

I sort of envision hundreds of home boys out in the audience, all of them with there hats on backwards. In the third row, one of them is yelling "Bring on da fairies! Bring on da fairies!"

"Bulldogs are adorable, with faces like toads that have been sat on. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind; So flew'd, so sanded; their heads are hung with ears that sweep away the morning dew..." ~A MidSummer Night's Dream"

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I try to expose my dogs to the Humanities, and once I rented Macbeth. Freedom (my oldest) fell asleep during act I. Sarah (my female) was appalled by the fashion, and went into the other room during act III. Macky Rae watched the whole thing, and when it was over he asked me "What language were they speaking?"

"English" I told him.

"That was English?" he asked.

 I explained that it was Elizabethan English spoken 400 years ago.

"Did they really talk like that?" he asked.

"Verily, oh noble hound, they did talk thusly."