Shakespeare: a Life

      John Mortimer. Will Shakespeare (1977) Supposedly written by Jack Rice, a boy actor in Shakespeare’s troupe. Well done. It covers the “lost years” of Shakespeare’s life, and provides a plausible version of Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway. I would have welcomed a longer and more detailed book, but then Mortimer would have had to invent additional narrators.
      The better you know Shakespeare’s plays, the more pleasure in the reading. There’s a convincing (at least while you read it) explanation of the “two loves” of the Sonnets. Mortimer knows theatre, his descriptions of Elizabethan theatre have the ring of truth. As do his accounts of the many ways which people scrabbled for a living in a time without social safety nets, when patronage was the best, if also riskiest, path to professional advancement, and sickness was likely to kill you without warning.
     I enjoyed the book. The cover announces that it was made into a TV series, of which I know nothing. The book is worth looking for. ***
     The TV series is available (low resolution) on Youtube.

HAL is Dead: Douglas Rain

Douglas Rain, the voice of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died.

How to enjoy Shakeapeare in school

     Robertson Davies. Shakespeare For Young Players (1942) Davies loved theatre. He was a founding member of the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival. He wrote several plays, a couple of them for “young players”. His first novel Tempest Tost tells of an amateur theatre group putting on Shakespeare’s Tempest. His novels all allude to or use theatre, show business, as a central metaphor.
      This schoolbook fits in well with Davies’ enthusiasm. He takes it for granted that middle school children will enjoy acting out Shakespeare. His subtext is that this is the best method of teaching Shakespeare: The plays are scripts, not novels. His introductions to the excerpts, his notes, his directorial hints, all are designed to help the pupil have as much fun as possible. The excerpts from Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard II etc are I think well chosen: Davies argues that literature should acquaint young people with the harsh realities of life, so that they will be prepared when those realities confront them.
     The only quibble: Davies’ tone comes across as somewhat patronising these days. Long out of print, the book is still I think a model for a course on Shakespeare or theatre generally. ***

Another Serving of Interviews

     John Mortimer. Character Parts (1986) A follow up to In Character, and just as good. Mortimer had a list of standard questions, but willingly departed from the list if an answer suggested further conversation. The effect very often is that I would like to talk to these people myself, that they would be good dinner companions.
     As in the first book, I get the impression of a complete character with every interview, although rational reflection reminds me that I’m getting a performance. Two performances, actually, Mortimer’s and the interview subject’s, and very convincing ones. Still, some of the subjects seem to me nicer people than others, more aware of their own vulnerabilities, less sure that they deserved their successes, even while they sought them. Lauren Bacall, for example, or David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham. Others have arrived at some certainty about their place in the world, such as Graham Leonard, Bishop of London, whose lack of doubt is dangerous, or Lord Hailsham, First Law Lord, whose certainty about his ability to reason prompts him to change his mind when a question suggests a different take on a problem.
     I think both of these collections are wonderful historical resources. They also allow a wallow in nostalgia. I knew of almost all the characters Mortimer interviewed. But even those who were new to me reminded me of the 70s and 80s, a time when I took many things seriously that now seem to me have been mere bubbles on the surface of the river. ***

Movers and shakers no more

     John Mortimer. In Character (1983) Collection of interviews of important, influential, and interesting people, first published mostly in the Sunday Times. Mortimer has the knack for getting people to talk frankly about themselves, and knows how to assemble the quotations that reveal and illuminate character and life. He’s an engaged interviewer, more than willing to give us hints of his own reactions and impressions.
     We end up believing that we know these people. We certainly know them better than we knew them before, but are Mortimer’s versions of them the real thing? That’s a pointless question: a person is their interactions with other persons. Mortimer’s willingness to give us his side of the interplay convinces me that we get an accurate record of what was done and said in that interview, even if obviously edited. What I make of these people is up to me; but in every case where I had prior and alternative knowledge, my impression of those people was enhanced and clarified. I’m left feeling that I would like to spend some time with any of these people, politicians, novelists, journalists, bishops, actors, artists, etc. I’m not sure whether I would have such a good time as Mortimer had, though.
     It’s also a record of its time. Many of the interviewees are now at best semi-remembered. The interviews remind me of the politics that seemed important at the time, and 30-odd years later, they show that some problems are as difficult to solve as ever, not because they are insoluble, but because the attitudes and values that cause them continue to prevent action. We humans are an irrational animal. As often as not, irrelevant feelings and wishes interfere with the ability to accept reality, and to fix what can be fixed. ***

Talks about Shakespeare in 1960

     B. A. W. Jackson, ed. Stratford Papers on Shakespeare (1960) Given at the Shakespeare Seminar organised by McMaster University’s Extension Department. I don’t know if the experiment was repeated. The participants are listed, almost all of them are women. Teachers mostly, I would guess. I think they got their money’s worth.
     C. J. Sisson (in his day a noted Shakespearean) discussed King John as an Elizabethan history play, outlining Shakespeare’s selections from Holinshed’s Chronicles and arguing that the play amounted to propaganda for the Tudors. Of course. King John has always, I think, mattered more as propaganda than as history. Sisson reminds us that the modern veneration of Magna Carta would have made no sense to Elizabeth. I’d go a step further. I think that anyone suggesting the typical modern interpretation of it would have risked losing his head.
     John Cook gives some apposite and cogent remarks on music in Shakespeare, using his experience as a theatre composer to explain how Elizabethan players used music, and to argue that modern productions need modern music. Agreed. His slighting references to movie music betray a blind spot. Movies aren’t theatre in another medium, so music plays a somewhat different role.
     RCMP Sgt R. A. Huber, an expert in forensic handwriting analysis, gives a cautious “probably Shakespeare” as his verdict on who wrote the extant manuscript pages of The Boke of Sir Thomas More. Sisson’s afterword adduces content and style as support for what he regards as a clinching argument that we do indeed see Shakespeare at work here. I don’t know enough to either agree or disagree with his conclusions, so will stick with Huber’s “probably”.
    In Shakespeare the Writer, Sisson presents a rather too bardolatrous study of Shakespeare’s lost years, arguing that he must have been writing scripts for quite some time before envious rivals bothered noticing him as an upstart shakescene, a valid and important point. He traces Shakespeare’s development as a writer and dramatist, arguing that Shakespeare’s plays increasingly were about character: Hamlet is about Hamlet, he says. True enough, but that’s not enough. Hamlet’s despairing The time is out of joint, O cursed spite that ever I was born to put it right announces the theme of the play. It’s the disconnect between Hamlet’s sense of himself and his times that’s kept the play relevant for four hundred years. It is indeed “about” something, the alienation caused by an increasingly human-constructed world.
     I’ve seen many Shakespeare plays more than once (Hamlet at least 12 times on stage and screen), so I found Robertson Davies’s after-dinner talk the most congenial. He says that he’s enjoyed Shakespeare more the more plays he’s seen and the more often he’s seen them. Exactly. Sisson’s treatment of the plays as literature tends to misses the point. They’re scripts, and a script must be acted just as a score must be played.
     An uneven but interesting collection. Out of print, but if you like Shakespeare, it’s worth looking for. ** to ****

How to study Shakespeare and survive

     Richard Armour. Twisted Tales From Shakespeare (1957) A re-read. The introductions are nicely done parody of what the student reads in school editions of Shakespeare’s plays. Then Armour dissects the six school classics: Hamlet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello. 

     The jokes are gentle. Armour likes puns, and he clearly has vivid memories of studying the plays, which inform his not-quite-fractured versions of the stories. Anybody who knows the plays will find amusement, those who don’t could do worse to read this book as a first intro to the canon. The best thing is Armour’s satire on the authorship question: It is a contemptible attack on higher education ... to suggest that a person who never went to college could have written poetry that is too difficult for most college students. Precisely so. 

     Recommended. ***

Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw

     Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw [D: Cedric Messina. John Gielgud, Sian Phillips, Barbara Murray. Daniel Massey et al] Bernard Shaw’s Play produced in 1977 for TV as “Play of the Week”. A nice example of why staging plays for the camera doesn’t work. The set is obviously a set, larger than one built for a theatre, but still a set. The acting is large as for a theatre, and doesn’t work for the camera. The sound is inconsistent, and in places distracting: for example, the "stone" steps are clearly wooden. Intercutting the stage action with black and white clips of Zeppelins attacking England doesn’t help. The blocking of the characters is clearly intended for a theatre audience, and doesn’t work for the camera. The director uses overhead shots, but all they do is emphasise the staginess. The absence of a laugh track hurts the production. In a theatre, the audience reacts, which energises the actors. Reactions by other members of the audience help one follow the performance, too. But for some probably purist intention, there is no laugh track, no musical score, just the silence of the sound stage.
     Shaw’s script doesn’t help, it’s one of his wordier plays. Of course all his plays are wordy, but the best ones have a narrative arc keeps the talk focussed. Here there are the usual Shavian witticisms and pseudo-paradoxes, but too often they distract rather than create character or illuminate relationships. I gather from various socio-political remarks that Shaw intended the play to critique the property-owning classes, and to riff (once again) on how the marriage market destroys romance. Or something like that.
     This effort is of historical interest: this is how culture was once done on TV. Nine years earlier, Zeffirelli made his Romeo and Juliet, showing how to translate Shakespeare’s scripts from stage to screen. He cut and paraphrased the dialogue, and frequently used the camera instead of words, thus paying Shakespeare the compliment of professional respect. But some critics panned the movie because Zeffirelli showed that Shakespeare’s scripts could make great movies. I think Shaw’s plays can make great movies, too. This Heartbreak House is merely a photographed play, and more’s the pity. *

Sheridan Morley, ed. Punch at the Theatre (1980)

     Sheridan Morley, ed. Punch at the Theatre (1980) A lovely compilation of articles, cartoons, squibs and satires and so on, from the 1841 (its first year) to 1979. It’s sad that Punch didn’t survive (it shut down in 1992, was resurrected in 1996, but was closed again in 2002). Often, a compilation is tedious to read in anything other than small sessions, but not this one. If I hadn’t fallen asleep, I would have read it at one go. A goodly dollop of nostalgia energised me. The names of the actors, plays, playwrights, and even theatres triggered memories. Good stuff, all of it. The only pity is that so much of the pleasure of reading it depends on knowledge of the subject. But that’s true of humour in general, and satire in particular. *** (2008)

Ngaio Marsh. Swing, Brother, Swing (1949) & Opening Night (1951)

 

    Ngaio Marsh. Swing, Brother, Swing (1949) A murder takes place in plain view of a roomful of restaurant guests, including Alleyn. The puzzle is one of Ngaio’s lesser efforts, too tricky by half, and with insufficient clues, but the story-telling and the characterisations are as usual very well done. **½ (2007)

     Ngaio Marsh. Opening Night (1951) One of Marsh’s best: it’s about theatre and Theatre, told mostly through the viewpoint of Martyn Tarne, a New Zealander whose cash was stolen shortly after her arrival in England and who fetches up at the Vulcan Theatre, run by a distant relative of hers. The theatrical plot is complex, the characters are believable, the on- and back-stage atmosphere is beautifully rendered, and the murder, when it comes, is seamlessly integrated into the story of how Martyn comes to go on as understudy and succeeds in her role and ambition. Alleyn does a neat job of ‘tecking, but we’re used to that. Wonderful book, worth reading as a story about theatre (with a bit of crime included.) **** (2007)

Ngaio Marsh. Killer Dolphin (1966)

    

  Ngaio Marsh. Killer Dolphin (1966) US title of Death at the Dolphin, with internal evidence of some textual changes, for example, “torch” printed in italics: it looks like the typesetter didn’t replace that word with “flashlight.”
    
Most of the book is about the Theatre, specifically The Dolphin, a derelict building that almost kills playwright-director Peregrine Jay when he goes to view it. A mysterious stranger who rescues him turns out to be the owner, who then agrees to renovate the old building and underwrite its operation. A glove, allegedly made by John Shakespeare for his grandson Hamnet, and a couple of documents (one of them in W. S.’s own hand) that attest to its authenticity figure in the plot. Jay writes a play about W. S., which opens the new Dolphin, and is a huge success. An attempt at stealing the relics goes awry, an elderly watchman dies, and an obnoxious child actor barely survives being tossed over the balcony rail.
     Alleyn is brought in early to “advise” on the security arrangements around the display of
the Shakespearean relics, and appears briefly to solve the puzzle, but as in many of Marsh’s later books, the police work and detecting are there for formula’s sake only. She loved the theatre, was an accomplished playwright herself, and was damed for her services to the New Zealand theatre. Over half the book deals with the realisation of Peregrine’s vision, the casting and directing of the play, and the workings of show business. Nicely done, and very entertaining. ***  (2007)

Mel Gordon. Lazzi (1983) & Susan Kelz Sperling. Poplollies and Bellibones (1977)

      Mel Gordon. Lazzi (1983) A compilation of stage business bits used in the Commedia. Of interest to scholars, as they say, and perhaps to actors studying improv. * (2007)

      Susan Kelz Sperling. Poplollies and Bellibones (1977) Sperling has not only collected “lost words”, she has devised rimes, dialogues, and catechisms using these words. Lovely. Dad made notes of related Austrian and German words, and I’ve made a few too. A Poplolly is a little darling, or mistress. A Bellibone is a pretty girl. A book for the words shelf. *** (2007)

The Lion King (Theatre review)

     The Lion King (2000) An awesome show. The story is simple, archetypal, and of course somewhat more sentimental than it needs to be. But as a play it works much better than as an animated movie. Why this should be so is hard to decide. The music is much the same, the characters are much the same. But live actors pretending to be animals, masked and costumed in semi-abstract style, choreographed to mimic the animals’ movements, and so on: these things impress far more than animated special effects.
     Perhaps it’s the body-language, which on stage must be abstracted, simplified, exaggerated, and therefore very clear. Perhaps it’s the costumes and masks and puppet-like structures worn by the actors. We were always aware that someone was acting the role, and perhaps that’s the real reason for the effect – the connection with a real, live person, one who talks directly to the audience. We participate in a live show in a way we can’t possibly participate in a screened one. No matter how interactive the games become, it’s still just shadows on a glass, while the live actor, the live, right-now voice, the actor’s working with the audience, not for the audience (the camera), these things make for an immediacy that’s new every time.
     I didn’t want to go to this show at first, since the Disney label is for me not a recommendation. But I was wrong. This show is very, very good theatre. **** (2002)
     Update 2013: The show is being revived, and will be coming to Toronto. Go see it.

Agatha Christie. Towards Zero in The Mousetrap and Other Plays (1978)

     Agatha Christie. Towards Zero in The Mousetrap and Other Plays (1978) Adapted from the novel of the same name, the play moves briskly through the plot. The characters are well enough defined for good actors to give them credibility, even though their speech is not well-differentiated (Christie’s dialogue is true to class, but only vaguely evokes the individual). The stage directions are for a director, not a reader, and so they interfere; I have a hard time with “moves above table,” etc.
     Apparently amateur drama groups love Christie plays, and one can see why. They are “stagey”, though usually not in the bad sense of that word. Christie liked dramatic endings to scenes; she loves to drop the curtain on a plot point. Even the endings depend on a few lines of dialogue and action in the last two minutes or so. Her plays don’t wind down, they end with a bang. I don’t especially like a play that has a punch line, but many people do. Her plays for the most part are box office successes. Christie also likes realistic sets, “natural” props, and so on, and takes great care in describing them. In other words, they are the kinds of plays that people who like a good story will enjoy; but I doubt I would like them much; they are weak theatre. I can’t imagine these plays working on a bare stage, but it might be fun to try. As for the stories themselves: the scripts make it even clearer that Christie had a strong sentimental streak in her. These plays are romantic love stories with crime as the spoiler of true love’s deserved happiness.
     It’s also clear that she had an essentially dramatic imagination. Her novels rely a great deal on dialogue. This makes transposition into video easy, and often the video does a better job of presenting the story than Christie’s prose does. Or so it seems to me.
     I skimmed a couple of the other plays, but didn’t find them attractive reading. ** (2003)

Bertolt Brecht. The Threepenny Opera Transl.. By Desmond Vesey

     Bertolt Brecht. The Threepenny Opera Transl.. By Desmond Vesey (book) and Eric Bentley (lyrics). This is not the book that the Stratford (Ontario) company used. I have no idea how the different versions compare in terms of fidelity to the German; this one advertises itself as including every word of the German text. I’ll have to read The Beggar’s Opera now, for comparison. Anyhow, the script is fairly straightforward. Brecht’s insistence on spelling out his theme is rather irritating, he knocks you over the head with it. His use of “epic drama” techniques is also rather obtrusive; or rather, his “actor’s tips” about this feature in my opinion demonstrate that he didn’t really understand theatre very well. Recent scholarly work has shown that his scripts were in large part written by others.  Considering the obtuseness of his advice to actors and the virtues of the script, I can well believe it.
     Reading this script so soon after seeing the debacle at Stratford probably prevented my enjoying it. However, Bentley’s lyrics are not as good as the traditional ones. Mack the Knife especially suffers from what appears to be Bentley’s attempt to reproduce the German text. ** (2002)

Alan Ayckbourn. Bedroom Farce (1977)

     Alan Ayckbourn. Bedroom Farce (1977) Two act comedy. Three couples prepare for their respective evenings: Delia and Earnest for an anniversary dinner, Malcolm and Kate for a party; while Nick stays home with a bad back, and Jan goes to the party. Delia’s son Trevor and his wife Susannah are having marital problems and interfere with all three couples. They spoil the party, interrupt people’s sleep, and finally reconcile.
     The set consists of the three bedrooms, and the action takes place over a few hours on a Saturday evening. The play is “good theatre”, that is, it affords the actors and director an opportunity to do a lot of fun stuff to make the play work. The story is simple enough, the dialogue is typically British middle class, which means very little difference between the characters’ styles of speech, and there’s also the typically British eye for the absurdity of everyday or ordinary life. The script is marked up by Doreen, she played Susannah. I’d like to have seen that. **½ (2002)

E. J. West Shaw on Theatre (1958)

     E. J. West Shaw on Theatre (1958) Collection of essays, and public and private letters, therefore somewhat repetitive. The last few pieces, written when Shaw had outlived everybody who ever mattered to him, could have been left out, but in fact are the best summaries of his views and knowledge, and should be first reading for any student of GBS. His claim that he went back to earlier modes of drama is one I can’t check, but from what I know of Shakespeare and the Greeks, I think it’s exaggerated. His claim that the declamatory style of acting is the main tradition, and that he wrote for it, is easier to check: one simply goes to a modern production. And guess what: his plays work just as well done in the low-key naturalistic style that is now once again in vogue. Which means that his scripts are largely director- and actor-proof, just as Shakespeare’s are.
     GBS's contempt for what he calls police magazine stories and petty adulteries as the stuff of theatre gets shriller as he ages. From what we now know about his sex life, it appears he protests too much. As some other cynic said, as sexual capability and interest diminish with age, sexual disgust increases. I read this book as much for the style as for the information. Pretty good, and quotable. *** (2002)

Selected Writings (Oscar Wilde)

     Oscar Wilde Selected Writings. (Selection 1961) Several essays, the fairy tales, and the two great plays – a pleasure to read. Wilde’s great gift is to express a morally serious point of view through in elegant epigrams. He is always a pleasure to read – and that pleasure exhibits Wilde’s greatest weakness. Unfortunately, many people believe that a funny saying cannot be meant seriously, and so don’t listen to the satire, even if they hear it. I read most of the selections this time round. The Importance of Being Earnest is a joy. ****

In the Frame (book review)

Helen Mirren In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures (2007) I don’t often read biographies, auto- or otherwise, but when I do, I’m  pleased to see how people’s lives are all the same mix of the ordinary and the surprising. That’s the impression, anyhow, but reflection shows that what’s surprising to me is ordinary to others, and vice versa. Mirren’s background is Russian: her family were what in England would be called “gentry”. Her parents, like many others, ended up on  England because of the Bolshevik Revolution. Many years later, Mirren was able to reconnect with the extant Russian branch of the family, an event that meant a lot to her. She is deeply committed to her family, and very proud of them all.
     She decided quite early on that she wanted to be an actor, and has worked hard at her profession. She’s generous with praise for the help and teaching she got along the way from many different people, and equally generous with praise for her fellow actors, for directors, cinematographers, costume designers – all the people that make a show work. It looks like she simply omitted mention of the jerks and doofuses that must have crossed her path. She does say she’s still angry at a couple of men who took advantage of her naivete when she was a student, but on the whole she has had a satisfactory love life, and is obviously deeply in love with her latest (and last) partner, Taylor Hackford. They married after 11 years together. Although she claims not to take weddings too seriously, she clearly enjoyed hers.
     Someone has pointed out that an autobiography by definition is false, since the author decides what persona to present to the world; and we all are more than and different from our personas. True; but truth is always incomplete. As with any history, the question is, Does this, incomplete though it is, have the ring of truth? For this book, the answer is Yes. I’ve liked Mirren ever since I saw her in Prime Suspect. If anything, this book made me like her more. Recommended. ***
More at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_mirren

Links: music and theatre blogs

If you like classical music, look at Ken Stephen's blog: 
http://offthebeatenstaff.blogspot.ca/
Ken is a former colleague: he taught at Elliot Lake Secondary School, and retired a few years after I did. He was and is much involved with theatre, and has a blog on that subject, too
http://largestagelive.blogspot.ca/