The Sonnets on Stage

Southwest Shakespeare Company has a way with combining the new and the old, the familiar and the fresh. They'll perform Shakespeare plays and they'll perform contemporary plays. They'll set the Shakespeare plays in their original settings, or in a more recent time period. It keeps things fluid. Their latest production pushes the fluidity even more.

"Shall I Compare Thee: The Sonnets," directed by Mary Coleman Way and Dathan B. Williams (who was also the playwright), combines various of Shakespeare's sonnets into a play. It's one of the cases in which you have very little idea going in about what you're going to see on stage. They said there would be music and dance, but I still had a lot of questions. I was imagining a small cast and more of a monologue style. 

What they came up with much more cohesive than what I was imagining. The cast included eight actors and three musicians. Not only was this a larger group than I'd expected, but it's also a large group for the small venue at Taliesin West. That theatre gives the opportunity to feel fully enveloped by the stage. There was a light framework of Shakespeare's biography to give a kind of context to each sonnet. So the actors switch in and out of speaking directly to the audience (when explaining various factoids) and performing the different roles within each sonnet. 

Some actors played Shakespeare himself at various ages: youth, adulthood, and maturity. They all played either the speakers or subjects of the sonnets. So the play was a constantly-changing kaleidoscope of sound and visuals and emotional beats. But it didn't feel convoluted. In fact, it was quite a delight. There was very little pressure in the watching as compared with a usual Shakespeare play. Normally, if it's a play you're not familiar with, you have to glance at plot or characters beforehand so that you'll be able to keep up with what's happening when you watch. Here, though, the "action" was simple. And if a particular few lines eluded you, no worries: that sonnet will be over soon and you'll move on to the next. 

Their musical explanation of a sonnet's construction deserves the limelight. It would be the delight of high school English students eager for a few minutes of a YouTube video to lighten the load of learning. In fact, the whole play had that sense of delight. Maybe it's because the actors were constantly moving in and out of breaking the fourth wall that there was greater awareness of their love of their craft. That plus the experimental nature of this play showcased the fun and whimsy of hamming it up to elevate dialogue and sequences. 

And we hit the more serious emotions, too, all the way from the opening sequence speaking of death to the closing "Shall I Compare Thee?" We walked away reminded of what a difference it makes to produce and consume art. "So long lives this and this gives life to thee." Art in the hands of performers with an audience becomes a tangible, living thing that outlasts the ages. It's quite a glorious thing to behold. 

The Tempest in Our Hearts

Although they were back doing live shows last fall, I haven't had a chance to watch any of Southwest Shakespeare's current season until seeing The Tempest last week. It's playing in repertory with Farinelli and the King until March 19/20. 

I'm familiar with some of the basics of The Tempest, but this was the first time I had seen a full production. It's quite grand, jolly fun, isn't it? I tend to prefer the tragedies over the comedies, but this one follows a slightly different tone than is most common with the tragedies. Sometimes the comedy is all about innuendo; that wasn't as much the case here. And with the addition of magic, the plot has a wonderfully random quality. People drop in here and there, setting up a series of little tableaus in which we can focus on separate elements one after the other. 

Then also we have some heavier concepts within the themes. Director Ingrid Sonnichsen's notes in the program explore the idea of forgiveness in the story. Most specifically she refers to Prospero's forgiveness of his brother and the freedom it gives him from isolation. That's great. We can look at the island as a sort of metaphor for how we try and deal with the circumstances we have faced in life. Prospero, with the help of Ariel, is messing with the people he used to know and making them turn this way or that. He's trying to manipulate circumstances in the way he wants--which compares to the past, in which he was, you could say, a victim of circumstances. But along the way of playing with the magic of this island, he comes to realize that he doesn't need to play the game anymore. 

There is a line in the play that I wish I could quote back. It was about love, about how love should stand fast through all circumstances or storms. At least, something to that effect. That's terrific. It connects to forgiveness, too, because of course as people we all fail one another in one way or other at some point; love needs to be willing to accept that and endure through it. We agree to work through the difficulties rather than to run away. We face the tempest head on. 

Though simple, the set effectively put us on the strange island. I particularly like the way in which the draped strips of cloth at some point in the play lit up with lights. It added to the otherworldly, anything-can-happen feeling. For a chance at escapism and for a dive back into Southwest Shakespeare after a long break, The Tempest hit all the right notes. 

Macbeth Doth Come

When it comes to the Shakespeare plays that are more easily digestible to the audience and those that are less easy to follow, Macbeth falls into the former category. Not because it is shallow but because it has approachable concepts: ambition, greed, glory, murder, fear, and horror. You can easily explain the plot in a sentence or two, so you always know at least the gist of what's going on, even if it's your first time seeing the play.

This was not my first time seeing Macbeth performed live, but it's easy to say that Southwest Shakespeare Company (with Drew Shirley directing) found a way to make this a unique performance and yet also one that did not take a less traditional approach. "Less traditional" usually means a modern setting or the addition of music or silly props--that sort of thing. It was traditional in the sense that they kept the time period and kept most of the classic elements, but it was unique because they mixed things up.

Most notably, the wytches. The three wytches are one, performed by Elizabeth Broeder. She plays a strange, demon-possessed-like creature that feels truly evil and wrong. Instead of three witches dancing around a cauldron (an image with which we are all overly familiar with from fiction by now), they gave us something to disturb us fresh. And she sticks around. She doesn't disappear after the start of the play; she stays, leaking her poison further and deeper, all the way to that final scene, that hint of the offer of evil that the future will always bring to each person.

In their earlier scenes, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth felt more like people, just people. And in their later, haunted scenes, they are us in our darkest moments. They are haunted by horrific deeds that will soon be made public. We may not be doing the same (hopefully not), but we are still, in our darkest moments, hidden and alone, in deep corners wondering how we can ever recover from what we have done or what has been done to us. They are us when we crave escape and don't know how to find it. Kyle Sorrell gave that style of line delivery that pulls you immediately into the feeling of an existential crisis.

On the practical side, the lighting of this show was beautiful, so I must give a nod to Lighting Designer Dallas Nichols. There were shadows of the actors on both walls that extend out from the sides of the stage; this helped to create that eerie atmosphere but also to set up that concept of being watched. The lights on the stage, as well, set up strange color and obscurity and focus, whatever suited each moment. In fact, the lighting was a character of its own.

Now, despite what I'd said, there was a big way in which SSC departed from the traditional. They switched male for female. They made Banquo female. I thought at first they had just cast a woman for the role until another character referred to Banquo as "she." And they switched Macduff and Lady Macduff. So it is in fact Lady Macduff who kills Macbeth. It all went along with the gender concepts in Lady Macbeth's speech; she asks for all of the tender, female parts of her character to vanish so that she can help Macbeth in the dark and evil tasks ahead. So to have her give this speech and then to see both male and female characters taking part in different types of events shows that evil is not male or female, tenderness is not male or female, and both male and female face temptation and the option to choose one way or another, to choose right or to choose wrong. If, however, you are not interested in exploring such gender questions, they did these switches in such a simple way that you can simply ignore them if you wish. That is, they weren't distracting to the main events of the story.

This was one of the best plays Southwest Shakespeare has put on in a while. Partly because it's Macbeth but also because they approached it so well. They made it freshly creepy, and I can say nothing better than that.

Ophelia Speaks

In May, I wrote that post about the connections between Ophelia, Padme, and Jane (Eyre). I talked about the name Byronic hero and asked what we call the heroines that accompany such characters. Like I mentioned there, I don't think anyone refers to Hamlet as a Byronic hero, but he does have some of the traits that go along with such a figure.

Then I saw the trailer for Ophelia, which is Hamlet from Ophelia's perspective, and it was like someone else saw what I wanted and had made it. I absolutely couldn't wait for this random film that probably still no one else has even heard of. It came out with a limited release on Friday. It was only playing in one theatre in the greater Phoenix area and only at one time during the day. I was one of only five people in the theatre.

No matter, though: it was like someone had taken my soul and put it on the screen.

I was throughly enraptured by this film. That doesn't mean that it was flawless, but what film is? I didn't particularly like the narration that the movie begins with, but when I realized at the end that it's based on a book, that made more sense. This wasn't an original story; it was a book to movie adaptation. So there is a certain condensing that takes place in certain parts rather than everything being created for this medium (film) from the beginning. So that's why we'll start with narration of Ophelia telling rather than showing.

Because this story is Hamlet but not Hamlet, it does not cover the same length of time and it does not cover the same scenes. Some scenes are the same; some are not. Some scenes are missing; some are there. Some lines are there; some are not. Some are changed; some stay the same. The lines that are added, though, all give the same feeling, all fit the same fabric.

We see Ophelia, her intelligence and her wit and her imagination and her passion--the things that make her a woman that Hamlet would fall in love with.

This movie is an indulgence, and you must see it that way or you will miss the whole point of it.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the decision to make Hamlet and Ophelia's madness feigned. This is one of the things in the play that can be acted out in various ways. Either Hamlet is mad or a little mad or he's just pretending or he's doing both, etc. Here both he and Ophelia feign madness. It makes sense for the story and it fit and flowed well, but here's why I questioned the artistic choice. I realized that I don't think Hamlet and Ophelia were feigning madness. Maybe they weren't full out, put them in a psychotic hold out of control, but I like to think that they were a little . . . off. Because so many of us are. I don't want to explain away something that is part of who we are as people because I want to love us as we are.

(And here there will be some spoilers, if anyone cares about that.)

However. Remember what I said about this movie being an indulgence? It's a fantasy; it's what we want, not what's true. Everything is beautiful. So we watch Hamlet and Ophelia pretending they're mad even though we know that they are struggling and some of it is actually real. We watch Hamlet marry Ophelia even though we know that he really didn't. We watch Ophelia live even though we know that she didn't. We watch her with his child even though we know she didn't have his child. We listen to her story even though we know she never got to tell her story. We watch what we want to watch to see something beautiful.

Ophelia, the woman who loved and was loved by Hamlet. Ophelia, who drowned in her watery grave, lived and was happy simply to have once been loved. We see her dissolve her pain and her reality and we believe that we can dissolve ours, too.

There is more to talk about, especially the theme of identity. What they did with Gertrude and Claudius. The other ladies in waiting. Etc. Plenty to talk about. I wish I could hear what the literature professors are saying about this movie, not what the movie critics are saying. (And I don't usually take this angle, but might I point out that most movie critics are men, aren't they? So if this movie isn't getting stellar reviews, hey, I think that just goes to say that it's more a movie for women than men, if it's going to lean one way or the other.) But what resonated most with me was that theme of the voice that I want Ophelia to have.

I asked for focus on these heroines--and I got it. Ophelia spoke. Ophelia declared her identity and her love for Hamlet, her never-ending love for him. That quote keeps running through my head: "Doubt that the stars are fire; / Doubt that the sun doth move; / Doubt truth to be a liar; / But never doubt I love." It's like this chant of victory. Just because she lost Hamlet doesn't mean Ophelia was wrong to love him and doesn't mean she can't treasure her memories of him and doesn't mean she can't continue to live a happy life after he is gone from it.

Doubt that the sun doth move . . . but never doubt I love. Never doubt I love.

The Death of Kings

Heading over to see what Southwest Shakespeare Company has going on at Taliesin West always turns out well. The Death of Kings: Seize the Crown was performed by a group from UC Santa Barbara's Department of Theater and Dance. The play itself combines eight of Shakespeare's history plays, only one of which I have watched.

Frank Lloyd Wright's little theatre up at Taliesin is already such a strange (in a good way) spot to see a play. This played used the space differently, bringing the back "wall" of the stage farther back than in the other plays I've seen there. The other plays have had small casts, usually just a few people. This one had a little over a dozen. So they did need a bigger physical space--and yet they were still in the smaller physical space of the theatre itself.

I talk about space because this production emphasized the use of space and visuals. They had that not-quite-abstract, artistic approach. The same wooden poles in the hands of the cast could represent either the swords of the battlefield or the wood that burns Joan of Arc. The physical passing of the crown from one monarch to another was a theme in and of itself. And red light or red hands or red cloth, well, I'll let you imagine that. It was all done in a fluid way, though. Sometimes such an approach can feel like the actors are pretending to show something happening; but the approach here was, instead, a direct representation of what was happening.

Although the cast was on the bigger side, most were playing at least two or three roles, in addition to being part of the ensemble. The 90 minute play, after all, puts together eight plays. The whole play, then, was much about the overall concept of changing thrones and yet also about each moment. In this moment, this actor is this character and they are playing out this scene, even if they were a completely different character in a completely different scene just a minute ago. In this way, they took the pressure on themselves instead of putting it on the audience: we were free to just sit back and watch it all unfold, not needing to worry about keeping track of who's who or what's happening. Indeed, the carefully placed snippets of narration also worked to provide whatever guidance the audience might need.

All of these pieces of plays came together to create something dark and dramatic and exciting and funny and thoughtful. The concept of different generations falling and rising brings up questions of what we are doing in our own time, or how the present would look as just a single strand in a whole stack of events. What would you choose if you were being watched in the pages of history?

In the Forest of Arden

Ha ha ha, Spring Break, Winter Break, three day weekends--these are phrases that not freeing and leisurely when you work in certain industries; rather, they are terrifying. When you're the person working so that everyone else may take their leisure time, all you do is work during their leisure time. So . . . even though I've had things to post about (since there are an abundance of shows going on this month and I seem to be making it to them all), I just haven't done so.

So I'll go ahead and bundle Southwest Shakespeare's latest plays into one post. They ran them together, anyways, so I suppose it's fitting enough. Now, often when they do this, there is one play that stands out over the other. This time, though, I was impressed with the quality of the performances in each one. The two plays in question are The Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It.

Probably it's easier to say that the former was the better one. But that's because it was filled with humor and laughs and to have the audience constantly responding to all of that wittiness and energy was an experience. However, the delivery in As You Like It was just as much of quality; it was just less humor (although there was still certainly some).

The Taming of the Shrew was the play I was completely unfamiliar with. I'd heard of it, of course, but not much else. Knowing that it's one of those plays that can be . . . problematic for the modern scene, I found that they did very well with it. Maybe I'm just used to viewing things in context of timelines, but I wasn't offended by this play and I even felt like much of it could have been written today (as opposed to so many of my dear Victorian novels that I love but are definitely often quite dated in certain respects). So whether this was the careful choosing of which lines to use or the delivery or just the overall strutting and direction of the play (or most likely a combination), well done to everyone involved. It was just a fun comedy, making everyone laugh at the silliness of humanity and then ultimately ponder what our statements and our actions really mean in the end.

What As You Like It did best was to create that sense of the forest of Arden. Arden is that place that is a state of mind. Given that this play used the same set (a heavy structure with a balcony and doors and stairs) as the other (since the two were running at the same time, of course), I wondered how they would create the forest. Turns out they introduced it bit by bit. As the characters spend more time in the forest and get, in a sense, mentally deeper into the forest, the entire forest overlay emerges. Wonderful there. Once more, this was one of SWS's plays to feature music throughout. And in this case, the music helped to create that sense of the forest as this single moment in time, this state of mind, that helps the characters to ponder who they are.

Pondering, pondering in the forest that is our minds. Both plays, though different, contained that sense of pondering the self. We're in this forest--who are you and who am I? Do we know or do we have yet to discover? The discovery is a journey, that is certain.

Romeo & Juliet

Well, you know, Romeo and Juliet wouldn't exactly have been a play I would want to rush out and see, except that I do like to keep an eye on most of Southwest Shakespeare Company's productions. You just never know which ones will click with you and resonate in a powerful way.

Romeo and Juliet (directed here by Patrick Walsh) began and I thought I was seeing things that I expected. The prologue, the two families, and the comedy. But then something happened. I want to say it was around Mercutio's Queen Mab speech that I noticed this production was taking a different angle. That speech is dirty even for Shakespeare--I remember finding it dirty in high school even though I probably didn't even realize then just how dirty (why, again, tell me, is Romeo and Juliet the main required Shakespeare text [even though there are other Shakespeare plays out there] in high schools, even when sleeveless shirts or shorts that don't come down to your knees are considered too inappropriate for school? I digress). That speech is usually just played as comedy, but here it became a frenzied bit, where Mercutio starts entering his own zone, which made the scene fall in an entirely different way from what I am used to seeing.

That concept of actors entering a zone reminded me of Hamlet last January.

And then I thought more of Hamlet as the play continued to unfold, greatly slimmed down. As I continually mention, I prefer Shakespeare's tragedies to his comedies. And though Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, it's still full of all of the comedy that I generally dislike. This production cut most of that away, leaving us with the core love story. Romeo and Juliet a love story again, a story where you can genuinely feel these two characters falling in love? Wow, that's impressive simply given how familiar this storyline is. It all had so much to do with the performances of Sasha Wilson as Juliet and Kyle Sorrell as Romeo. They did that thing of making the audience believe what we were seeing on stage, of entirely bringing us in.

Some versions of this play emphasize the youth of the two characters. This one didn't. Their age was mostly irrelevant. Their doomed love was central.

Maybe also watching this play brought all of the emotions of falling in love because of the music. Ben Vining provided live cello music. The cello is already one of those instruments that speaks with a human voice, and the way that the music was mainly subtle and yet always just perfect for the moment established the emotional tone. Cello music can be tender and it can be heartbreaking--like love.

Romeo and Juliet runs through this Saturday. And it's exactly the type of production I like to see from Southwest Shakespeare.

The Rapid Shakespeare Comedy

Fall is coming upon us, and you know what that means: Southwest Shakespeare and the rest are starting in on their new seasons. Friday night was the opening of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) directed by Debra K. Stevens. The evening was particularly special as a sign that the company was still able to stay on schedule after the huge setback that was the fire in their warehouse over the summer. You can read more about the fire here and make a donation either there on their website or on their GoFundMe page, if you feel so led to help out the arts.

Whilst watching The Complete Works, I felt like I had the perfect perspective to come in to this show. I don't necessarily like Shakespeare. At one time, I disliked Shakespeare. Then I eventually conceded that I liked a lot of things about Hamlet. Then I realized that I like the tragedies more than the comedies. Then I admitted that there is plenty of literary content to analyze in the plays. And then finally I found that it's the performance that also gives meaning to the text, and a performance can be great to watch even if the text isn't necessarily your favorite to read.

This play is marketed as being for everyone: those who do like Shakespeare, those who don't, and those who hold neither opinion. It's absolutely true, too.

It's a comedy and a parody, performed by three actors (in this case, Breona Conrad, Louis Farber, and Alexis Baigue). They condense the plays down into quickly presentable forms, and they give some "background information" on Shakespeare and his plays. This leads to some discussion here and there about all of the various topics (artistic, literary, historical, and social) that come along with the plays; while it's all comedic, there is true content in there, as well. That's the heart of good parody, after all: good parody gets to the heart of its subject, leaving that part intact while adding fluffy or silly extensions here and there like feathers stuck into a central sphere.

This play isn't just about the actors trying to quickly run through the dialogue of thirty-seven plays at lighting speed. It isn't that kind of show. Instead, they spend a good portion of time on Romeo and Juliet because it's one of the most widely read and viewed. They cover Titus Andronicus and Macbeth a little more quickly--I don't know about everyone else, but I'm familiar with both of those plays. They comedies all get lumped together into one wacky composition, and Hamlet delightfully gets the entire second act because it's also one of Shakespeare's biggest plays.

Parody or not, I found myself wishing that Shakespeare were performed like this more often. I'm not referring to the rap song or the tap dancing bit or the lightsabers. While those worked great for this play, what I want to see more of is this kind of delivery. These three actors all owned the stage, the scenes, and the dialogue. Part of their parody work involved real Shakespeare quotes, and they knew how to deliver the lines like words spoken by characters (as opposed to those performances where you're not even sure if the actors know what the words mean or if they were too busy trying to memorize difficult dialogue to even be able to interpret it). There was life in this performance. Sure, they purposefully overdid the enthusiasm a bit, but I don't think that's entirely un-Shakespeare of an approach. I think productions in general could use a little more of that style.

While I'm on the subject of the actors, let me also mention how quick, on point, and versatile these three actors were. Like with Wittenberg back in April, it was a small group where every person played an important role and played it well. Wittenberg used comedy to make the audience think, but The Complete Works uses comedy as the result after thinking. We've all formed opinions on Shakespeare; the play gives us a time to sit back and smile and laugh over it all. From half smiles all the way to uncontrollable laughter.

This was a tiny theatre, one of the spots in the Mesa Arts Center that I had never been in before (the smallest one they have there, I believe). Wittenberg had a small theatre at Taliesin West, as well--but that was different seating. This seating made you feel more like you were hanging out with the rest of the audience and with the actors. There was more of a physical connection among everyone, which of course worked well given that this play does involve a bit of audience involvement. Maybe all of this is part of the reason why the show built momentum as it moved along: the actors weren't just performing a script; they were feeding off of the audience's enthusiasm (this was such an enthusiastic audience, too, I might add). Sit in the front rows if you want to; don't if you don't. Involvement aside, I prefer the back rows because they're tiered and I'm short, so I get a better view from tiered seats. It's open seating, so if you want to be able to choose the place that suits you best, arrive early.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is running through the end of the month; click here to see all the performance dates on Southwest Shakespeare's website. Go see it for a compilation of laughs; you'll just walk out happy, still glowing from that delightful treatment of Hamlet at the end.

Comedy and Drama Meet at Wittenberg

I have come, over time, to love Hamlet's indecision, his crisis over life and death, and simply his overall dramatic conflict. This January I left the theatre entirely captivated after Southwest Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which William Wilson played the title role. How excited was I then to see their latest production, Wittenberg directed by Kent Burnham, in which Hamlet (once again played by Wilson) is a student at Wittenberg before his father dies and his teachers are John Faustus and Martin Luther. Intriguing, no?

Rather than their usual setting at the Mesa Arts Center, Southwest Shakespeare brought Wittenberg to Taliesin West (which is the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture). As this was my first time seeing Taliesin, I must give a nod to the beautiful location and the notable architecture of the place. Simply driving in at sunset was gorgeous.

The theatre itself was smaller than what I'm used to. It was open seating, by the way, so it is advisable to arrive early if you want to be able to choose your seat. I sat in the fourth row because I'm not used to being so close to the actors and because this seemed more at eye level, anyway. As the play began, I found that the small setting worked well for this play: there are only four actors and the content of the play revolves around statements and explorations of their personal viewpoints.

That is, Hamlet is troubled (as Hamlet gets), and Faustus is trying to get him to rely on reason and to simply live life as he wants, while Luther is advising him to rely on religion. And all the while, Luther is himself questioning religion and Faustus's way of living that he so loves is not always turning out the way he thinks it should. So Hamlet is caught in the middle, not sure to whose advice to listen.

Probably it goes without saying that you'll want to have at least basic familiarity with these three figures. The play is full of references to their lives and their quotes. There are plenty of references to other material, as well, but those are the types of details that you can go either way with recognizing or not recognizing; you'll still enjoy the play.

And enjoyable it is. It's a comedy because it's full of laughs. And it's a drama because the characters are asking deep questions. I suppose it's also a tragedy because we know what will happen to Hamlet and Faustus afterward.

Especially for including so many literary, historical, and theological references, this play does not feel heavy at all but rather flows smoothly, thanks no doubt to the performances by the actors. All four of them, William Wilson as Hamlet, David Dickinson as Faustus, Marshall Glass as Luther, and Allison Sell as the Eternal Feminine (she played four different female roles throughout the play), gave top tier performances. They instantly showed the tone of each character, they gave all the right comedic timing, and guided our way through all of these philosophical questions.

In one particular scene, Faustus gives Hamlet one word at a time, asking him to say the first word that comes to mind for each one. Talk about comedy and drama tied into one. It's a funny scene and yet it builds up to the darkness of Hamlet's inevitable fixation on death until it becomes something so tangible that no description of what theatre is seems like enough. I was talking about the fourth wall earlier this week, and this play was more like gazing through the fourth wall until all the walls become a bubble and you're focusing on this sphere of quasi-reality that takes precedence, for this moment, over everything in the real world. That's all thanks, once again, to the actors.

I'll finish with a note on the questions that these characters struggled with throughout the play. We all, at times, feel the conflict between opposing viewpoints. Maybe we align more with one side versus the other, or maybe we really have no idea which makes more sense--but we've all experienced being able to see the two sides. Sometimes it's confusing. Sometimes it's discouraging: even if we know which side we've chosen, it isn't always easy to know how we relate to the opposing side. So I loved seeing these three characters caught up in the opposition, tossing and turning until finally something begins to make sense to them.

Questions. Questions go on as long as life does. We don't need all the answers--we just need the right answers to make clear the uncertainty.

Wittenberg is playing until the 29th. As one of my favorite productions that I've seen from Southwest Shakespeare, I would definitely recommend going to see it. It's one of those plays that you won't forget.

Shakespeare's Star Wars Tragedy

It is once again the end, though still the beginning. 

The end is the end of the prequel trilogy's William Shakespeare's Star Wars treatment--and the beginning is there because, well, Ian Doescher basically said in his Afterword that he will be doing the upcoming trilogy, as well (as I was hoping he might). 

Do I even need to say again what this series has elevated into? It's a high tribute to this story--but it also is this story. It's the same frame and the same basic dialogue, just eased into beautiful, detailed language. And the transition is so smooth that it causes me no pause anymore. I've been kind of sick this week, and at one point I picked this book up to try and read some (I had planned on finishing it much more quickly before my eyes became like to water fountains); for a moment, I forgot I was reading a Shakespeare-ization because of how smoothly the words flowed (and because my slightly muddled head made me forget that these words even existed in any other context). 

It's like this story was made for this treatment. There are stellar moments in here, like when Padme is pondering while Anakin is going over to the Jedi Temple to carry out the Emperor's orders (I know he isn't Emperor yet at this point, but I always call him the Emperor). Or some dark humor when the Jedi are wondering about Order 66. Or that Hamlet reference when Palpatine uses a play to win over Anakin: that was a brilliant use of material. And, yes, the whole final moments are--wonderfully tragic. 

My favorite of Nicholas Delort's illustrations this time would be the cover, Yoda with the clones, Padme at the Senate when Palpatine forms the Empire, and the image of Padme's funeral. Oh, that funeral image: it was almost transcendent when I was staring at it. That shot in the movie of her is beautiful, the way that they made her echo Ophelia (for the tragedy of love and all)--and here we have the echo of a Shakespearean plot come around and be in a Shakespearean-style plot. That was a great moment of staring. 

The Clone Army Attacketh

Wow, are we already on the fifth installment, The Clone Army Attacketh, in the Shakespeare's Star Wars series? It's all flowing along so easily and simply now, like it was all meant to be. 

As I've mentioned before on some of the more recent installments, the comedy is lessening now (it's still there, just less often) and instead these books are becoming more of a celebration of what makes Star Wars great. And let me also say that Episode II benefits rather heartily from Shakespeare-ization. (Or maybe I secretly like Episode II more than I thought I did, given that it was also one of the novelizations I enjoyed more, despite the fact that I generally think of it as the weakest movie from the two trilogies.)

First we have Anakin and Padme's scenes together. They run more quickly in Ian Doescher's retelling and the dialogue, while still essentially the same, is much improved: a certain kind of sappiness is okay in Shakespeare language because it is more pristine and it is intentionally moved to a higher dramatic and poetic sphere than regular life. So what sometimes came off awkwardly in the movie came off rather lovely in its Shakespeare-ization.

All of the politics are condensed, too, so that you get the theme and all of its importance before you get all the little details about voting and government loyalties and such. Makes for great readability and, again, easy taking in of the overall theme. 

One of the nicest scenes in the movie is when Anakin is riding out to find the Tusken Raiders: the colors and the music and the black cloak and the determined fury in his eye. And it was portrayed just wonderfully in words--that's the heart of tragedy right there. 

As far as Nicholas Delort's illustrations, my favorites this time were the one of Taun We and the one of Anakin and Padme on Naboo. 

The sprinkling of Shakespeare quotes and references tends to be more subtle now--and is somehow even more satisfying now being that it's this way. So even though it's a half ridiculous idea to have a Shakespeare-ization of all six episodes (or perhaps because it is), I am still thoroughly enjoying this ride.

The Jedi Doth Return Most Heartily

What fun this has been. Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars trilogy has, I think, enchanted us all. I enjoyed the first book as new and so very right, and I thought the second was even better. And now we come to The Jedi Doth Return. From an early age, I had a soft spot for The Return of the Jedi, so I was thrilled to learn that Ian Doescher is the same--I, however, did not learn this until after I had finished his wonderment of a book and come to the Afterword. 

Everything I loved about the first two books was in this one. The flawless combination of Star Wars plots with Shakespearean flavor, the familiar dialogue blended with the bard's style, the direct references to quotes in the plays, all of that. But it all felt amplified this time. The Return of the Jedi is wonderfully dramatic, and the text in The Jedi Doth Return elevates every stick of drama into a cascade of powerful emotions and characterization. I particularly enjoyed the Hamlet references, since (although I claim not to care much for Sheakespeare) I also have a soft spot for that play. The Jedi sing thee line is gorgeous. 

Be thou assured, however, that there is lightness, as well. The line where Luke comments about Leia's slave outfit in Jabba's Palace, that one made me laugh out loud as I read--and I don't often do that. There's fun even among all the tragedy. So, yes, my last words are, I loved William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return. 

The Empire Striketh Back with a Fury

So last October I read William Shakespeare's Star Wars and loved the concept of combining Shakespearean style with Star Wars. Now Ian Doescher is back with the sequel, William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back. Let's just take a moment to appreciate that title and this Yoda-adorned book jacket.

While I really enjoyed the first installment, this second book was, I believe, even better. Possibly much, much better. All of the seamlessness of combining the two worlds remained and was also amplified. Where in the first book I sometimes could tell that the dialogue was being taken from the movie (which, of course, it is), here it always felt so natural--as if its existence could have just as easily started in this book rather than in the movie, as if the movie's dialogue was based on the book's. Everything was so coherent. Extra flourishes, descriptions, and metaphors made the text glow that familiar sense of drama. 

And that's the thing, too. Once again, Ian Doescher reminds us of how like a dramatic play is the Star Wars trilogy. His combination with these books works because characters, themes, plot, even setting, all flow according to a recognizable, treasured tradition. This second volume plays all of that up, letting us see what the characters are thinking at certain moments, foreshadowing what is to come, and pondering the symbolism of certain events or conflicts. Much of it is beautiful language, really--I know there are still direct references to Shakespeare, but I found myself recognizing less of them in here than in the first book. So instead I was left, blissfully, forgetting about Shakespeare in favor of a Shakespearean-flavored Star Wars drama. 

I also started to realize that these books are written so that they could actually be performed as plays. How interesting that would be . . . 

I look forward to the third installment, and perhaps also the prequel trilogy while we're at it?

Shakespeare Wrote Star Wars?

Perhaps you have been seeing this book around? William Shakespeare's Star Wars? Does that ring a bell? Does it just sound like a coffee table or gift book, not something to read and enjoy? Well, well, well, let me tell you otherwise. 

In case you have forgotten, I love Star Wars but feel lukewarm toward Shakespeare. But since I love books, I nabbed this one, if only for the cover. Seriously, isn't that a great cover? And while I'm at it, let me give a shout out to Nicolas Delort, who did the illustrations for this book. I know there aren't a huge amount of illustrations, but the only place I could find the illustrator's name was on the publication page. So let me here thank him for his ability to combine Shakespearean imagery with Star Wars in a mixed, almost comic book style. Besides the cover, I especially love Jabba the Hutt.

This book, as one might have guessed, isn't about comedy or parody; it just makes sense. Star Wars being such a classical story, it reads much like a Shakespeare play with all its drama. Ian Doescher translated the dialogue we all know into iambic pentameter, adding in some Shakespearean phrasing and metaphors and soliloquies and such. And it works perfectly. Because we already know what's going on and what everyone is saying, you don't have to work at all to understand them. (And, let's face it, this book isn't as complicated as many a Shakespearean play can be, especially when you're unfamiliar with the story.) So the base is the same, but the lavish details piled on top give a new and rather beautiful perspective. This book made me love Star Wars all over again. 

Even though I said it was so easy to read, if you're completely unfamiliar with Shakespeare or you really, really hate reading him, you might not have the same experience. But if you're a Star Wars fan and feel even slightly more friendly to Shakespeare than that, you should do fine. This book is that wonderful. I wonder what it would be like in a classroom . . . 

Hurrah, then, William Shakespeare's Star Wars is not a coffee table book. It is one to admire on the shelf and in the hand. This book covers Episode 4; perhaps that means there will be more in the future? 

Lucy Snowe & Hamlet & Agency

Long, long ago (that is, nearly four years ago), I posted on how I identified with certain of Hamlet's traits. He has long and rambling emotional thoughts, but is slow to action--call it a fault or simply his nature, as you will. But now I'm thinking of another character who makes things more complicated than they necessarily need to be.

Lucy Snowe of Villette.

She is another literary character I should hesitate to admit I identify with, but oh, how wonderfully are her thoughts and struggles described. This book makes me weep, mentally. But on to my comparison. Lucy doesn't have a direct order/object she is hesitating to carry out, but she is searching for something on her own. Lucy wants friendship, companionship, love--a full life, if you will. She succeeds financially, but her attainment of love and communion are achingly temporary. While Lucy didn't drive M. Paul away like Hamlet did to Ophelia, she did lose him. And her friendship with Dr. John essentially faded, or faded from what it could have been--if Lucy had seized action a little more. Lucy has a terribly low self-esteem, something I'm glad to say I don't share. She's unlike Hamlet in this regard: Hamlet thinks over all his doubts, but he's also so quick-minded that his problems with himself aren't Lucy's.

I guess that's why both these characters have generated so much analysis--and mixed feelings. Villette is sometimes called ahead of its time (which I completely agree with), but we do know that Charlotte read Shakespeare. Do you think perhaps Hamlet affected Lucy Snowe, or would that statement be stretching?

Love's Labour's Lost

About four years ago, I went to see the Southwest Shakespeare Company's rendition of George Bernard Shaw's play Pgymalion with school; I liked it so much that I had to go see it again--I think I was very afraid of forgetting anything about it. I was afraid of temporality.

I have no idea how I haven't managed since to see another play by this company--I have wanted to, very much wanted to, even. So it was a happy sort of occurrence that I was required to see Love's Labour's Lost for one of my classes this semester; given that we also have to write a short paper on the production, I won't be going into much critical detail here, but I do want to give a few thoughts.

A few thoughts perhaps on how wonderful it is to see a live performance unfold before you. I don't generally like Shakespeare much (sacrilege for a literature major, perhaps), but I love seeing things live (though I don't often get the opportunity). Reading one of this plays is like staring at puns on a page, but watching one is watching what the actors (and everyone else involved) bring to the stage. Their gestures often cause more laughs than their words themselves.

I was a little disappointed, overall, by Berowne: I was expecting him to be more vibrant and silly like he was in another (recorded) production, so he didn't stand out so much to me. But Costard, Costard was great--the actor's biography mentions how much he loves Shakespeare and it shows. He was a scene-stealer because of his tactile approach to the role. Armado and Moth were also great in their scenes. Do you notice the trend here? I found myself enjoying the "lower classes"/the comedic roles more than the main gentry characters.

I also realized that I was seeing, for the first time live, many things I knew much about. When I first read the play-within-the-play, I was bored to see it once again (it's also in Hamlet), but it was entirely different to see onstage. There was a musical component to this play, culminating in the ending song that almost acted like a bridge between the play's world and our world. So that's it: colliding of worlds, worlds of fiction and reality--that's what's amazing about seeing plays live.

Dramatic Shakespearean Deaths

As I was finishing up the last act of Othello earlier today for a class, I realized something. It's always a strange experience reading someone's death scene in Shakespeare because they get stabbed or whatever it is, then speak some mournful words (something like, "I'm killed!"), then converse a bit with other characters, then you see off to the side "[Dies.]" Maybe not awkward played by a good and proper actor, but to read . . . I just imagine them crawling around for a few minutes, saying they're dead, before they suddenly fall down unconscious. Which is exactly how Lucy fakes deaths in "I Love Lucy." I'm thinking in particular of the episode when she rents her apartment out to a man who is recovering from the shock of witnessing a murder (my, what a convoluted sentence!) To scare him, Ethel pretends to shoot Lucy, who falls all over the sofas, crawls around the floor, makes pitiful sounds, and has more than one false end. Just like a Shakespearean character.

On a completely separate note, we've been reading slave narratives in another of my classes. First Frederick Douglass, now Harriet Jacobs. The most comparable work to these, well, depressing reads that I have read before is The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, a teen who died in the Lodz Ghetto during the Holocaust. I remember when I started reading that book, I started analyzing it, saying, oh, such and such is interesting in terms of such and such, etc., etc. Then I felt guilty. I felt guilty because I was placing a microscope over this person's suffering; I felt I was dehumanizing him by the way I was treating him in my thoughts as an topic, an example, a study instead of a person with a life that was taken away. But in reading Harriet Jacobs today, I realized the difference with the slave narratives. These were written with the express purpose of spreading the word. Their writers wanted people to analyze them so that much needed truths could be found again. Not that I suppose Dawid would have anything to say against someone reading his words to learn more about humanity, either, but the difference between a diary and a narrative is still rather great.

I Act Like . . . Hamlet?

I should probably be glad that my work on Hamlet has been over for a little while now, but no, I decide to return to it on my own.

You see, as I was reading, there was something familiar. I probably shouldn't be too excited about finding a similarity between myself and Hamlet since people often make fun of him for his rambling speech and inaction, but I can't seem to help it.

Now, I don't speak soliloquies out loud or anything, but I do think sort of like Hamlet, minus the amazing sharp wit. We both have this idea in our heads that we constantly link to other things to examine in detail all the wrong things before in a very roundabout way at the same conclusion a simpler person would've reached right away. And the inaction thing . . . well, nobody likes to admit a fault like that, but I could probably be quicker to act, also. (Hmm, did I just blog about how I resemble a literary character's negative, not positive, traits? Well, depends on how you think of the overthinking part . . . )

The Rochester Character

I've been neglecting this blog, but these last couple of weeks have been busy. And I got sick somewhere in there. Not fun. But I should be able to take comfort from the fact that Josh Groban was sick at the same time.

Anyway, I'd like to compare two characters today: Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre (where else?) and Henry Higgins from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. If you're familiar with these two, that probably sounds pretty drastic, but just hear my argument first.

Last spring (almost exactly a year ago), I saw a great version of this play in Mesa by the Southwest Shakespeare Company, starring Broadway actor David Adkins as Henry Higgins. I thought it was hilarious, so I had to go see it a second time, which happened to be its last performance. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's based on the myth of a sculptor who falls in love with his statue of his ideal woman. In the play, Higgins is a professor of phonetics who teaches Eliza Dolittle, a London flower girl, to speak with a proper accent. At times, it seems like they're going to end up together, but they actually don't for character reasons.

Now, both Rochester and Higgins have changeable natures. They're often curt in speech, jumping quickly from one attitude to another. Rochester studiously examines Jane's paintings before abruptly ordering them away; Higgins excitedly tells Pickering about recording his visitor's speech until he sees that it's Eliza and grumpily sends her away. Higgins is more easily likeable, though, because it's so easy to just laugh at his antics, whereas Rochester is a darker character.

Both of them are overbearing towards Jane and Eliza. They order them about and treat their feelings rather harshly. But Jane welcomes the attention, Rochester's strength, and the chance to help someone improve himself. Eliza is too strong a character to bend underneath Higgins, who is himself too complete in himself to ease up enough to keep her.

Keep the two main points of "the Rochester character" in mind. Changeable and controlling. I'll probably refer to this more, especially when I bring in another couple characters.

First Impressions?

With so many things, like music and books, the way you're introduced to something can mean so much about how well you like it. If you hear some piano music on an upbeat day, you might not really like it; if you hear rock on a mellow day, the same thing could happen. That's why I have trouble putting my iPod on shuffle. Depending on the mood I'm in, I won't necessarily want to hear everything that comes up.

It's also an outward thing, not just inward. Back when I was first introduced to Hamlet, the teacher relied more on the movie version with Mel Gibson. We didn't even read the whole play. Now, I'm no big fan of the crudeness in Shakespeare, and the movie really plays up that part, so I didn't enjoy it. Just the opposite. I'm reading the play again for class and, though it's still not my favorite, some of it's interesting this time around. All the double meanings keep your mind constantly at work. Minus the odd teaching style, I'm able to appreciate it now.