Tag: Shakespeare

Exaggerations of the Simple Stuff of Human Life

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Act 4, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when the second witch says:

“By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.”

And Macbeth enters.  What a marvelous scene.  Witches, bloody ghosts and a demigod truly drained of his humanity.  A horror story in a stage play.  And then Ray Bradbury takes that line, “Something wicked this way comes” and makes it the title of his own American ghost story; the story of a haunted carnival.  Now what does Macbeth have to do with Bradbury?  Well, in both cases we have basically good people seduced by the devil.  Whether it’s Shakespeare’s witches or Bradbury’s Mr. Dark it is the story of men succumbing to the devil’s promise for their heart’s desire in exchange for their souls.

Macbeth wants the Scottish crown.  Bradbury’s Green Town denizens want various things.  Tom Fury and Mr. Crosetti succumb to lust.  Mr. Tetley wants money.  Miss Foley and Charles Halloway want their youth back.  Jim Nightshade wants to be older so he can indulge his various negative desires.  And for these things they risk becoming permanent prisoners of Mr. Dark and Mr. Cooger’s haunted carnival travelling the American continent in search of more souls to consume.

What a marvelous conceit.  An ancient locomotive from the Civil War era, arrives in small towns in the middle of the night and sniffs out the spiritually wounded inhabitants and lures them into the haunted attractions of the show.  If they wander into the house of mirrors, they will see their heart’s desire or their greatest fear.  Or they can follow the barker’s lure and enter the tent where the belly dancers expose their bodies for a silver dime.  And those that disappear are no longer recognizable as themselves and so cannot be rescued by any police force.

And redemption can only be had in Bradbury’s story if the devil is laughed out of town.  Laughter and happiness are the only cures for this evil.  The secret is to realize that life is not a tragedy.  Even at its worst, it is better than the alternative which is nothingness.  Pain and sadness and even death are a human story and in fact the only certainty in this world.  But it’s also still better than never existing.  Because no matter how sad and awful our existence, it’s still ours.  We get to feel it and react to it and maybe win a few rounds before we’re finally cornered and beaten by death.

So, the ride’s the thing.  That’s the lesson that Charles Halloway learns by the end of the story.  Even though he’s old and overwhelmed with trying to be the father of a young boy, that overwhelming challenge is his greatest opportunity to squeeze every bit of meaning and gusto out of what remains of his life.  And the boys get to see that fears and desires are exaggerations of the simple stuff of human life.  Lust and greed and fear are just the ingredients of life taken out of balance from their normal proportions and occasions.

I wonder who will take this theme up next?  Maybe I will, someday.

Donald the First

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William Shakespeare breathed life into Prince Hal and Marc Antony when he portrayed them in his plays.  He took some historical accounts and turned them into…?  Into what?  Well, into dramatic personae.  They joined Oedipus and Socrates and all the other characters that we know from the drama.  And not that the characters are historically accurate; they’re not.  They’re the invention of the playwright.  But they’re better than accurate.  They’re vivid.  Alive.  We know them.  We know them better than we know any real personalities from history or even the news of the day.  So, in a way they’re immortal.  Millions and millions of human beings have watched and heard and read the words spoken by Hamlet and Falstaff and Macbeth.  They’ve thought about the words, the intonation, the feelings the characters portrayed to understand what the characters were feeling and thinking.  This is a level of existence that otherwise only occurs for most people within the confines of their own family.  And in fact, rarely even there.  Which of us is so witty or profound or emotional that the day-to-day dialog we share with our spouses or children or friends does more than just bounce off of their consciousness?  It’s almost background noise in a way.  It’s only in moments of crisis or discussions about important matters that we choose our words carefully and fully listen to what is being said.

Outside of drama we rarely listen with our full attention to what people around us say.  Maybe during times of crisis.  I remember very clearly after September 11th 2001 that Bush gave a few very carful and important speeches and I remember that I was glad that his rhetoric wasn’t too flowery.  It was more about retribution and I was glad for it.  But that was an exception.  Most of what gets said by talking heads in the news goes in one ear and out the other and rightly so.

But it makes you think.

Who will be the next Shakespeare?  When will we get another dramatic poet of his stature?  And who will he write about?  I was thinking, “Will someone write a play called Josef Stalin or FDR or Donald Trump?”  It could happen.  These were men who defined their times.  If a great poet came along and breathed life into the character and made the story compelling future readers and viewers would be mesmerized by scenes where these characters mouthed the words that the author heard in his soul.

Of course, it might be a hundred years from now or even a couple of thousand.  Shakespeare’s closest foray into recent history was one of his last plays, “Henry the Eighth” and it was hardly in line with his greater works.  In fact, it’s doubtful he wrote most of it.  If an audience a thousand years from now watches (or however entertainment is sensed at that point) about Donald Trump it’s doubtful that the real Trump will shine through at all.  Only a comic genius, a futuristic Aristophanes could capture the bombast and swagger that “The Donald” provides in all of his speeches and interviews.  And if he did manage to capture that spirit would the audiences (especially the critics) reject it as too over the top and exaggerated?  They probably would.  But I’d go see the show on the first night.

Darth Vader is Dead!

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The iconic actor James Earl Jones has passed away.

I think it was the summer of 1972 (but I could be wrong) I went to see Shakespeare in the Park with a girl I was going to high school summer school with and it was Jones playing King Lear. The park was full of unwashed hippies and life was good. There was a convenient summer thunderstorm during the storm scene. He was a fantastic King Lear.

 

Finding Significance

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Regular readers know that I admire, perhaps excessively, a small number of well-known literary works.  Shakespeare has several of my favorites.  But there are gems scattered throughout western literature from the Iliad on.  And of course, there’s the Bible.

I’ve always admired this speech from Macbeth:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

 

These are the words of a man who has come to believe that life is meaningless.  But it’s really a rationalization for the results of murdering his own conscience.  He was describing the hell he had created and that soon would engulf him permanently.

And I find this idea instructive.  I think if you keep in mind that there is a moral order, then it gives you a sense of perspective.  You can be surrounded by evil and forced to deal with the worst of humanity.  But if you can work to preserve the things that are good then you can have some peace in knowing you are giving meaning to human life.  And that’s not nothing.

Despair is a godless pleasure that we’re not allowed to imbibe.  You have to work to make this crazy world of ours better.  Certainly, we are currently seeing a diminution in the state of our world.  The morals, the morale, the wisdom of our society is draining away in a shocking way.

And that’s alarming.  But it’s far from the first time and it’s probably not the worst example on record.  It’s important to keep things in perspective and act reasonably.  We will be surrounded for the foreseeable future by people who have bought into the current narrative.  This includes all kinds of very harmful ideas and practices.  The results of this are the excesses of our culture; confusion over things like the roles of men and women and the importance of traditional practices in living our lives and raising our children.

We can instill meaning and purpose into our actions and interactions with each other by choosing carefully to perform the actions that improve our surroundings and make us better people.  And this is especially important in our relations with the young.  They are growing up in a world that has been stripped of reason and dignity.  They spend their every waking minute immersed in a world of TikTok influencers and other phony celebrities telling them what they should think and what they should value.  It’s a wonder they haven’t all been degraded down to the status of sub-human idiots.  I feel it’s especially important to enrich the lives of the young people in my life with things that nourish and expand their minds and souls.  There is the meaning that we can find; keeping this world from falling into a new dark age.

Life is brief but it is a tale told by whatever truth you have in your heart.  If it signifies nothing then that is what is in your soul.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen; Lend Me Your Ears

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Mark Antony’s eulogy of Julius Caesar.  Everyone has heard the first few words.  They’re in my title.  But have you ever watched a dramatization?  Many years ago I saw a small production in the Berkshires.  And in its bare bones presentation; no fancy costumes or sets, it was well done.  But I do not remember Antony’s speech impressing me.

Here are three versions.  Two are Hollywood spectacles.  One with Marlon Brando and one with Charlton Heston.  The third is a solo recitation.  See if you can guess which one I favor.  And I’ll give those who care to watch them a chance to provide their own judgement on which is best.  Lend me your ears.

 

 

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Transgender Hubris Through Lear

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Andrew Klavan is a gifted writer. He breathes emotion and conviction into his arguments and they ring true. In this essay he interprets transgenderism and other manifestations of “transhumanism” through the stories of Lear and Prospero in Shakespeare’s plays.

What he points out is the hubris that confused men commit when they ignore that they literally are not God.  When we pretend that the definitions of human life do not apply to us we set ourselves up for the catastrophe that will follow when we attempt to ignore these boundaries.

“We have now reached the nadir of that mode—or the zenith, depending on where you stand. This is that moment that Nietzsche talked about, the “catastrophe” of a civilization awaking to find its foundations gone.”

Klavan sees King Lear as the cautionary tale for human hubris and rejection of the natural order and The Tempest as a fairy story about restoring it.  Well, I like Shakespeare so I like when a gifted writer uses it to make a point.  Bravo Andrew.

Hamlet Scenes

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I was rewatching Olivier’s Hamlet today. So I picked out the scenes I thought were noteworthy. The characters are so strange to modern audiences and the plot so improbable. But there are some scenes that are iconic. Many will recognize the famous quote or the scene. My favorite is the gravedigger’s scene. Alas, poor Yorick. Shakespeare’s fools and jesters are obviously his favorites and always have the best lines.

Anyway.

To Thine Own Self Be True

That is the Question

The Play’s the Thing

I Knew Him Horatio

But Let It Be

The Bard’s Birthday

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Whether Shakespeare really wrote his plays or they were the product of the Earl of Oxford I would like to take this excuse to heap praise on the man who created so many wonderful words.

Any man who could write:

‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’

and

‘To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.’

and

‘I  am a man more sinned against than sinning.’

deserves great praise from me.  I have gotten great amusement seeing and hearing and reading his works.  They are a treasure for all mankind.

Happy birthday Billy boy.

 

 

Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight) (1966) – A Movie Review

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I’ve been looking for a good print of this movie for a few years.  Orson Welles made this in his later years when money for his productions was very hard to find.  So, he allied himself with a Spanish production company.  The movie didn’t make any money and the prints of the film weren’t preserved well.  But at last, I was able to see a good copy.

The story is a pasting together of sections of three of Shakespeare’s plays (Henry IV – Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 and Henry V) that deal with Prince Hal and Falstaff.  Welles was able to assemble a cast that did justice to the work.  Welles plays Falstaff and was born for the part.  John Gielgud is King Henry IV and Jeanne Moreau plays Doll Tearsheet.  Ralph Richardson performs narration.  The rest of the cast I’m not familiar with but I will say they acquit themselves admirably especially Keith Baxter, the actor playing Prince Hal.

This is Shakespeare, not modern cinema so not all audiences will enjoy it.  But for those who have a liking for the Bard this motion picture will reward your time.  It’s a very human tale of a young man (Prince Hal) rebelling against his place in the world.  And at the same time, it is the story of a larger-than-life character, Falstaff.  A man that combines wit, braggadocio, cowardice, humor, lust for life and villainy in almost equal proportions.

Technically there are some aspects of the film that aren’t up to modern standards.  The audio track isn’t perfect.  But for the most part it’s an engaging production.  Even the battle scene which was made on a very small budget is a cinematic success and enhances the film.

I need to buy a good copy of this film.  I can see watching this one about every six months or so.  Recommended for the lover of Shakespeare.

19NOV2021 – Another Autumn Poem

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Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

William Shakespeare