Salutations Gentle Readers,
William Shakespeare - AKA: The Bard, Bill the Quill and to
certain of his drinking buddies at the Globe Theatre, Old Shakey
- is one of the gods to lovers of literature. Shakespeare is one
dead Elizabethan guy who holds up pretty well after four
centuries, even in this iconoclastic age. Everyone quotes him
(or misquotes him), even people who have never read any of his
stuff. His plays have mostly survived the numerous updatings,
remakings, Hollywood versions, and unmakings, including Romeo &
Juliet in New York (better known as "West Side Story"), Mel
Gibson as Hamlet and a version of Othello set in a modern high
school. Shakespeare's stories and themes have proved flexible
enough to provide everything from a Japanese version of "King
Lear" (Kurosawa's "Ran") to "Romeo and Juliet" done in MTV-music-
video style to "Forbidden Planet," that classic 1950's sci-fi
movie based on "The Tempest." If the Bard was still around to
collect royalties, he'd be in about the same league as Bill
Gates.
In the world of English literature, there is Shakespeare and
there are all those other hacks. If there hadn't been a
Shakespeare, it would have been necessary to create him.
Unfortunately, most high school students are dragged through one
or more of the plays with little preparation and no way to wade
through the flowery Elizabethan verbiage with about the same
understanding as if they were reading a set of Swedish tax form
instructions. The famous "poor Yorick" speech in Hamlet, for
example, is nearly always presented as straight and deadly
serious. This plays as dull as muddy parchment. In fact, it is
one of the funniest scenes in the play, where teenage Hamlet is
clowning around with the comic relief grave diggers. Sure,
EVERYONE dies before the last act of the play, but the Bard was
far too much a showman to let the story droop in the middle.
Thanks this week to all of the special people around the
world that make this little blast of the week so much fun to
write. This week, we especially want to thank: Kiyomi Kanazawa,
Nnamdi Elleh & Ann, Jerry Taff, Hiroe Sugiyama, Kenn Venit, R.J.
Tully, Fumiko Umino, Bruce Gonzo, Lu & Dean Peet, Kerry & Carla
Miller, Tim McChain, Diana Lee, Jan Michalski, Joshua Brink,
Carol J. Becwar, Alison Becwar and Mary Crow. Now I'll just
borrow one of Shakespeare's own exit lines from "Midsummer
Night's Dream" to cover the rest:
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear."
Have An "As You Like It" Kind Of Week,
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"The Taming of the Shrew
by William Shakespeare
Additional Dialog by Sam Taylor"
- Movie credit from the 1928 MGM
version of the Shakespeare Classic
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BARD FROM TEACHING...
------------------
As hard as it is to make English students relate to
Shakespeare, the real difficulty might be to get school
_administrators_ beamed in on the Bard.
Respected actor and teacher Jared Sakren was let go by
Arizona State University a while back, allegedly because he
taught too much Shakespeare and Chekhov at the expense of more
modern works. The professor, whose former students include
Annette Bening, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Frances McDormand and
Kevin Spacey, has taught drama at both Yale and New York's
Julliard School. Besides the post-modern works he was urged to
include, Sakren maintains he was pressured to change works like
"Taming of the Shrew" so it "wouldn't offend women."
Sakren claimed his classical theatrical choices were deemed
by some colleagues as "sexist Euro-American male" plays and that
his refusal to teach pro-feminist works cost him his job. In the
weird world of post-modern interpretation, Shakespeare's "The
Tempest," in which the hero brings civilization to a desert
island, is accused of being an example of western imperialism.
And in "King Lear," the villainous daughters who throw their aged
father out into the storm are considered feminist heroines who
overthrow the patriarchal family.
Lin Wright, the department chair and Sakren's ex-boss said
at the time that, "the feminists are offended by the selection of
works from a sexist European canon that is approached
traditionally."
"Their interest was in presenting a certain viewpoint, a
feminist viewpoint," Sakren said in an interview. Sakren later
filed suit against the university.
While the university acknowledges that Sakren was pressured
to use more modern plays and less Shakespeare, they deny that
this was the only reason Sakren was let go. It doesn't bolster
their case much, though, that ASU quietly agreed to pay off the
ex-professor shortly before the suit went to the jury last year.
ASU settled with Sakren for $395,000, the equivalent of about six
years' salary.
Most of the fuss in the media was about one work suggested
by Sakren's ex-colleagues in the ASU English Department: "Betty
the Yeti: An Eco Fable." In that fantasy play, a hairy female
forest creature named Betty seduces a despondent logger named
Russ T. Sawyer (get it?) whose wife Terra has run off with an
ardent environmentalist named Trey Hugger. (Yes, operator, I
said Trey Hugger). While doing the horizontal mambo, the inter-
species lovers have to escape the watchful eye of a Japanese-
American female forest ranger. After a torrid session of
Sasquatch sex, the former logger becomes an eco-conservationist.
[ Surprisingly, "Betty the Yeti" is actually a mystery play.
After all, isn't it a mystery that anyone could believe this eco-
belch was better in any way than the crummiest of Shakespeare's
sonnets? ] (Reuters/AP/CNS)
[ " 'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,
but 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.
Rancor will out." Shakespeare, "King Henry
the Sixth" ]
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"The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's
Hamlet in the church basement on Friday at 7 p.m. The
congregation is invited to attend this tragedy."
- From a church bulletin
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FROM BARD TO BOARD
------------------
While he doesn't always seem to have a guaranteed home in
academia anymore, Shakespeare is doing pretty well in business
these days. Laurence Olivier's son is even using Shakespeare to
teach executives how to survive in business.
"The people who run today's multinational corporations face
the same dilemmas as the kings and dukes of 1600," said Richard
Olivier, whose father's portrayals of Henry V, Hamlet and Richard
III became screen classics. "Shakespeare is about power and
responsibility."
He might be right, at that... Studying "Julius Caesar"
could help business titans avoid being stabbed in the back.
Henry V is the perfect role model for leadership qualities.
"Macbeth" teaches the pitfalls of being obsessed by power. And
Lady Macbeth could even do your dirty work for you in the
boardroom.
But it could be that the pay's the thing to most stir the
conscience of these kings - the sessions at London's Globe
Theater cost 1,000 pounds ($1,600) each. (Reuters)
[ "They say best men are molded out of faults ...And
become much more the better for being a little bad."
Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure." ]
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THE DO-IT-YOURSELF SHAKESPEARIAN INSULT KIT
-------------------------------------------
In Shakespeare's time, most men carried swords and knew how
to use them. This probably explains why people became so good at
verbal jousting; if they're going to be your last words, you had
better make 'em good. Even the most cursory reading of the plays
is enough to convince one that the Bard was an absolute master of
the putdown.
While there is no easy way to gain the command of language
necessary to build proper Elizabethan slams on demand, we can use
modern technology to compensate with the SUNFUN Shakespearian
Insult Generator.
To construct a Shakespearean insult with ease, combine one
word from each of the three columns below, and preface it with
"Thou" as in "Thou mammering, idle-headed nut-hook" or "Thou
pribbling, flap-mouthed foot-licker!" Sure knocks the socks off
of calling someone a bonehead, even if that is what they are.
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
--------------------------------------------------
artless base-court apple-john
bawdy bat-fowling baggage
beslubbering beef-witted barnacle
bootless beetle-headed bladder
churlish boil-brained boar-pig
cockered clapper-clawed bugbear
clouted clay-brained bum-bailey
craven common-kissing canker-blossom
currish crook-pated clack-dish
dankish dim-eyed clotpole
dissembling dizzy-brained coxcomb
droning doghearted codpiece
errant dread-bolted death-token
fawning earth-vexing dewberry
fobbing elf-skinned flap-dragon
froward fat-kidneyed flax-wench
frothy fen-sucked flirt-gill
gleeking flap-mouthed foot-licker
goatish fly-bitten fustilarian
gorbellied folly-fallen giglet
impertinent fool-born gudgeon
infectious full-gorged haggard
jarring fusty-stenched harpy
loggerheaded half-faced hedge-pig
lumpish hasty-witted horn-beast
mammering hedge-born hugger-mugger
mangled hell-hated joithead
mewling idle-headed knave
mucking ill-bred lewdster
paunchy ill-nurtured lout
pribbling ill-suited maggot-pie
puking knotty-pated malt-worm
puny milk-livered mammet
qualling motley-minded measle
rank onion-eyed minnow
reeky plume-plucked miscreant
roguish pottle-deep moldwarp
ruttish pox-marked mumble-news
saucy reeling-ripe nut-hook
spleeny rough-hewn pigeon-egg
spongy rude-growing pignut
surly rump-fed puttock
tottering shard-borne pumpion
unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane
vain spur-galled scallion
venomed soulless scut
vexed swag-bellied skainsmate
villainous tardy-gaited strumpet
warped tickle-brained varlet
wayward toad-spotted vassal
weedy unchin-snouted whey-face
yeasty weather-bitten wagtail
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" 'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers."
- Wm. Shakespeare, "Romeo & Juliet"
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SHAKESPEARE GONE TO POT...
-----------------------
England is certainly known for its wide variety and scope of
acting companies doing traditional Shakespeare in many styles and
venues. But what has to be the smallest - and strangest - such
troupe is The Bog Standard Theatre Company in the western English
town of Malvern. This company has the distinction of performing
in a tiny, 12-seat theater that used to be a Victorian public
toilet. The company converted the space to a theater over the
past three years for just under $6,500.
"Shakespeare said all the world's a stage so I guess that
includes toilets," the troupe's Dennis Neale said.
But one thing proves that a miniature theater can have
convenience problems even Shakespeare's own Globe never faced.
"Ironically we don't have room for a loo [toilet]," Neale
admitted, "the audience have to run across the road to public
ones." (Reuters)
[ "He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd
stones." Wm. Shakespeare, "Taming of the
Shrew" ]
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GREEN EGGS & HAMLET
-------------------
His pa is dead, Uncle Claudius a putz.
So Hamlet comes home and pretends he's nuts.
Easy for him; he's under great strife;
His uncle and mom are now man and wife.
Haunted by dreams of King Dad floating by,
Ham hatches a plot (at least, gives a try).
He hires some actors to act as a nuisance,
Testing if uncle has Pa on his conscience.
"The kingdom is mine," old Claudius said,
"I'll hang on to it now 'til I turn up dead.
Yon prince should be taken far off the scene
Like a breakfast egg gone runny and green."
"With such a reaction," Hamlet did thinketh,
"I see that my Mom is shack'd up with a finketh."
Ham yelled at her, cause she fell for King Unc,
Then stabbed at the first noise next to her bunk.
But it wasn't old Claude that got stuck in the end,
'Twas the dad of Ophelia, Ham's nutty girlfriend.
That he hung out there was beyond expectation,
Mom's bedroom, it seems, was like a bus station.
"Send him to England," King Claude said. "Dammit,
I do not like green eggs - or Hamlet.
Give him a letter and banish that pill,
If the English don't kill him, the English food will."
With all that had happened, and all of it bad,
Poor Hamlet's girlfriend was driven quite mad.
Since all around her were living in sin,
Ophelia gave up and did herself in.
So, brooding Hamlet now had to decide,
Should he off Uncle Claude, or just let it ride.
"Shall I do this, or shall I do not?
It really puts me in a spot."
Ophelia's funeral and trouble was fueling;
As Ham and her brother started in dueling.
What yon Prince knew not, as slashed he asunder,
They were plotting to put him about six feet under.
But Hamlet, great swordsman, cut to and fro
And shortly made mincemeat of the late O's bro'.
Just 'fore the sliced one 'ere took his leave,
He gave the Dane prince more reason to grieve.
"Beware thee, young moron, Oh, why can't you see?
The king has it in for you. Truly, indeed."
When Prince so uncovered his foul Uncle's plot,
He vowed to end Claudius, right on the spot.
Off straight to Hell, he did wish to send him,
With swords that Ham knew were dipp'd in some venom.
This proved, alas, not a master stroke,
Since both got sliced and both did croak.
So, sadly ended the late Danish prince,
And Shakespeare some later, we can but wince.
Fear not Old Bard, the play's still the thing,
Only 400 years 'til "The Lion King."
- Bill Becwar
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© 2001 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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