Man's Attitude

What do you think? Did Portia nail it on the head?

PORTIA
They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit,
That they shall think we are accomplished
With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accoutred like young men,
I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride, and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies,
How honourable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
I could not do withal; then I'll repent,
And wish for all that, that I had not killed them;
And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,
That men shall swear I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,
Which I will practise.

Yes, yes she did.

Honestly it's a little bit sad that a man's attitude has not changed in the last 400+ years. I mean take a look at the character of Barney Stinson played by Neil Patrick Harris on "How I Met Your Mother." His whole goal in life is to have as many one night stands as possible. Does this sound like Portia's bit:

"Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies,
How honourable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died;"

It's not the exact same, but it's transformed into something worse. Rather than just lie-bragging about women whose heart's Barney has broken he's actually disgraced over 250 women. Granted he's a fictional character, but I've actually heard this kind of talk all over the place. It's not very common place to hear of a guy that values the relationship he's had with a one-night-stand. In fact, it's nearly impossible to find.

Racism

Portia says this in respect to a Moroccan Prince:

"if he have the condition
of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had
rather he should shrive me than wive me."

To most people this would sound like racism! But is it? Is it racism if you are just not attracted to a certain body type or skin color. I know for me I'm personally not attracted to Asians. I don't know why. I'm just not, which is strange considering my best friend is full blooded Chinese. I have nothing against them. I respect their culture and think it's actually fascinating. But even if an Asian girl is really good looking, I'm just not turned on.

See! She's gorgeous. But in my head I'm going "eh." :/

Now on the other hand, the scene between Antonio and Shylock is FULL of racism.

SHYLOCK
Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
'Shylock, we would have moneys:' you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: moneys is your suit
What should I say to you? Should I not say
'Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or
Shall I bend low and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this;
'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn'd me such a day; another time
You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much moneys'?

Now the question to me is where does the hatred of certain race come from? Mostly I'd say that it comes from an initial confrontation between two people from two different cultures that was never resolved. Between the Jews and the Christians specifically it all goes back to Christ. The Jews crucified Christ and the Christians never forgave them for that. The Jews also have a burning passionate opinion that Christians worship in a heretic fashion. But most of all, they both lay claim to the same religious monuments in Jerusalem. Take a look at this article. (Click on the picture)

Shylock really encompassed the thought process when he gave this monologue

"To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? 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? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction."

Does this kind of racism still exist? Absolutely! Check this article out.

A Monologue of Humanity

I love this speech Henry V gives. It reminds me of how I should think of all men, despite their office; my boss, my parents, my singles ward, the President of the United States, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; they are all men trying to do their best, but they are just that. Men.

Henry V-

No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I
speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I
am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the
element shows to him as it doth to me; all his
senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies
laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and
though his affections are higher mounted than ours,
yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like
wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we
do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish
as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess
him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing
it, should dishearten his army.

Making Fun of the French

Okay so there is a way of acting in Theater developed by a man named Bertolt Brecht called "gestus" (Guess-toose). This is where the actor portrays a character the way that the opposing faction would see them. So a villain in any show would be extra evil, and the hero would be extra showy and full of smiles and ridiculously brave. In Henry V, I think it's interesting that all of the french characters have their own little things that Shakespeare makes fun of them for.

Dauphin: Always makes horse analogies. There have been some Shakespeare students that believe that this guy was a fan of bestiality because of that reason alone. Also this line, and the scene that follows, helps lean to that suggestion: " for my horse is my mistress."

This was our Dauphin. The costume was ridiculous as well!

Fluellen: a natural lisp is written into the script. (bridge becomes pridge) Also Fluellen cannot STOP TALKING. he just reiterates what the person before him says, and then repeats her own repeats for paragraphs upon paragraphs. Not too unlike Pistol, except Pistol is less annoying in my mind. ha ha

French.... blech

Okay as cool is it is that there's full on French in the text, it's really not. There's no point in even having this part in the story. So what if some lady is learning English? Most of the people watching Shakespeare plays back in the 1600's couldn't speak french. They just liked to make fun of them!

Famous Quotes

Did you know that Sherlock Homles with Robert Downey Junior quotes Henry V? yeah he does, both him and Watson join in at the end of the "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;" speech with the line "Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' "


And no Saint George is not the same St. George as in SW Utah. :/

Librivox?

So this week I'm listening to the text as I'm reading it and it's throwing me off. I keep on imagining how these guys did it when I was back in high school.
Henry's voice is a woman and the Boy's voice sounds like Peter Loore from "Arsenic and Old Lace." (the small guy) In our version we had the Boy played by a small girl and we just tucked her hair up in a hat and gave her a crutch.
The only other problem trying to use this form of digital media is that everybody speaks in a really bad English accent. And then there are those that sounds that their voices were recorded underwater. Who records this stuff?

Henry V Thoughts as we go

I LOVE the cunning of Henry V in Act 2 Scene 2. To be able to wait patiently to embarrass the traitors in the court is more than I could ever have done. If I were king I would've had them thrown in the dungeon first and then interrogated them. To think that just weeks ago Henry was a boy drinking in the tavern with Fallstaff and Mistress Quickly. It just proves to me that men will rise to the position given them regardless of their previous "sins" or attitudes.

I love this line by the chorus and I think it sums up the new found perspective in Henry V
"What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do"

I really enjoyed reading The Tempest. I especially enjoyed reading the witty banter between Antonio and Sebastian. The word play really got me into it. I will admit though, sometimes I found myself skipping people's names before I'd read the text just so I could keep the flow of the dialogue going. It sometimes got confusing when there were four characters all talking at once, but really what was important was the story line not who said exactly what.

Every time I read this play I wonder what Caliban would look like. Prospero infers that he is human, but the text suggests that he could have deformities or is maybe half beast half human. I've also wondered how a being could live in such misery. If I were Caliban I would have made a raft and fled the island, or struck out at Prospero until he couldn't cast his magic any more. Caliban to me represents the carnal man. There is not a more perfect example of it in Shakespeare's plays I feel. I think it's even more interesting that he is often portrayed as half beast, as if there were something in his genetic code that made him not want to change into a cultured man with morals governing his choices.
This is one portrayal of Caliban that I particularly liked done by a friend of mine two summers ago.

By Small and Simple Means are Great things brought to Pass

So I was flipping through my Complete works of Shakespeare today to get to The Tempest and I flipped instantly open to a passage that I marked 3 years ago when I was making a cutting of a script back in high school. The line was said by Caius Lucius to Imogen, who just found the beheaded body of her lover (or so she thinks). Lucius took over the father role in her life when he said this to her. "Be cheerful, and wipe thine eyes. Some falls are means the happier to arise."

Now normally this would be just a normal uplifting line that gets you giddy. However, for me it was something else today. I just went through a break up and I was having a hard time dealing with things until I read this line. It gave me courage. It gave me strength. I instantly sent the line over to a friend and she related how that happens all the time to her when she's having a rough day and flips open to a scripture. Not that Shakespeare is scripture, but he wrote a lot of good things.

Personal Learning plan

How do I plan to make this semester course in Shakespeare meaningful to me? I feel like I already have a broad scope of the Bard's plays except for his romances. I have generally focused on his Histories and Tragedies. For one of my plays that I get to choose to read I think I'll read All's Well that Ends well. I've never read it or seen it. As for the other I think I'll pick a history. Perhaps Richard III. But I have time to pick that one.

As for a Critical view, I have had extensive experience with the Shakespeare's First Folio (aka his draft that he gave to the actors. He misspelled words and broke the rhythm of the lines on purpose as to help direct the actors through the words rather than having extensive stage directions). So instead of focusing on the language I think for me it'd be more important to read up on the historical relevance of the plays.

For Creatively engaging Shakespeare, I'd love to do another video of a segment of a play. I'm thinking specifically of a fight scene with dialogue, so not only will our minds be enriched by acting of the words, but also our inner child will be entertained by staged sword play, or a knife fight. I would actually like to enlist the help of some good buddies of mine that helped me do some other projects, namely those who did the Coriolanus play with me last summer, but I don't know if that's allowed.

I would love to talk to people about Shakespeare on a daily basis, but I'm going to have to go out of my way for that one. All of my co-workers hate Shakespeare and my family doesn't much care for it either. Looks like a time to put Facebook to work by means of statuses and chats.

Gaining a digital literacy interests me specifically in the production department. I think it would be cool to write out a sonnet every once in a while, or make a video of what people can remember of Shakespeare's lines off the top of their heads. I've never really tried to put these kinds of things into mass production before.

This is an extremely long post, but I hope I covered my bases since the terms of the assignment were fairly vague. Here goes nothing!

Giddy for Psychology

So i keep on thinking about this class that I'm doing this blog for. I've never had a class that I got to just study Shakespeare the entire time. Even though I've had extensive experience with his plays, there's always something else to discover in his works. It's like a where's Waldo of human psychology. He was brilliant in adding in hints of mental disorders into characters that we are only nowadays learning about and fully understanding. A perfect example of this is the Character Cloten from Cymbeline. Some friends and I are fully convinced that he has a very major form of Schizophrenia. You'd have to know the play to understand why. After all he does plan on raping and killing his stepsister. You don't realize that he's mentally ill till a few scenes before he gets beheaded though, ha ha. oh got to love those cavemen in the forest! Very good show; I suggest reading it if you get the chance, or if you go to Broadway you can see it right now. The guy in the middle played Cloten when I did this show about 3 years ago.

Living the Words of Shakespeare

Billy and I go way back. I fell in love with him back in 8th grade when I read Romeo and Juliet, but i didn't get into the rhythm of it until Juliet was about to kill herself. Bad time to get into it right? Since then I've read a bunch o' Will's plays and even competed at the Utah Shakespeare Festival twice. Took home the first place duo/trio scene trophy with a scene from Titus Andronicus where Titus goes a little bit crazy and murders a fly. In our version Titus stabbed through a bowl, through the card table, and nearly into my leg every practice/performance. It was a little bit tense if you could imagine.


I love doing fight choreography, especially for Shakespeare plays. It's kind of a life pursuit. Weird, I know :/ But it's way fun. Here's an ad for a play that I did fight choreography and produced this last summer with Such Stuff Productions. check it out! And feel free to comment on the actual video, I know the director would love it.