Was There A Two-Drink Minimum No One Told Me About?

Going to see The Tempest was, at best, an incredibly questionable experience. This play had a serious problem. That problem was the directing. When I first saw the set, I was very excited. The set was amazing. Unfortunately, the set was just about the only amazing thing about the production. The acting was incredibly mediocre. I felt like I was watching a bunch of teenagers who had never done Shakespeare before, not seasoned professionals with years of Equity work under their belts. They should have been amazing. The actress who played Ariel was the only remotely interesting person in the cast, and she wasn't on stage enough to make up for the mind-numbing bore that was the rest of the show.

The blocking (stage movement) was SO BORING. Anyone delivering a long soliloquy just stood there and did took some noncommittal shuffling steps back and forth. I mean, performing Shakespeare should be so freeing! There are no stage directions! You can do whatever you want! The world is your oyster! This play is so exciting and exuberant. You could do practically anything, so why the horrible boring blocking? If I was just interested in the words, I'd buy an audiobook. Theatre is a visual medium. Thus, when I go to the theatre, I expect visual stimulus.

I feel like this entire production just stopped short of its potential. I could see where they were going, but I don't think they took it far enough. They didn't utilize the space, I don't think they successfully portrayed the more subtle relationships between the characters (namely Prospero and Ariel), the costumes were too subtle. Caliban's acting, also, was incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes he crouched, sometimes he didn't. The fact that he ever kneeled at all did not fit with the crouchy, semi-crablike physicality he was trying to create. Sometimes he had a voice affectation, sometimes he didn't. I was watching to see if it changed when he felt safer or more powerful, but it was just spotty and inconsistent across the board.

Also, not a single actor could pronounce the word "Milan" correctly. Milan is a real place. It's currently the second-largest city in Italy, and there's a specific way to pronounce it in English. Mihl-ahn. Not Millin. Had no one in the entire cast or crew ever heard of Milan Fashion Week? The La Scala Opera House? The Italian Renaissance? No? Just me? Okay.

People kept laughing at the "jokes," and I don't understand why. Per the title of this post, I feel like I was supposed to have had a few drinks before I entered the theatre. Was this play the Shakespeare equivalent of a crappy comedy club? Was this like seeing the Shakespeare version of Andy Dick standup? Although if I were watching Andy Dick, there would be a decent chance of roller skates and neon hot pants, and that at least would have been visually interesting.

Macbeth, Macbeth!

So, I just got home from watching Macbeth at the Castle Amphitheater, and I wanted to blog about it before I forget all my pertinent thoughts. It was hugely enjoyable, and it turns out that the guy who played Macbeth is one of my husband's old friends. I think he enjoyed the play more than I did, for that reason.

Okay, so, the production: I loved the amount of audience participation. We as the audience were encouraged to be vocal during the performance. I overheard one of the actors saying the less the audience participated, the harder they had to work. I really feel like it added quite a bit to the production, because I wasn't just sitting there watching the actors have fun. I was able to participate in the fun.

There were no set-pieces at all. It was just a blank stage with a couple of ladders and a scrim in the back. The actors were responsible for coming up with their own costumes and props, so it was something of a hodge-podge, but I didn't mind. The whole production had a really organic feel to it, which I really enjoyed. It didn't feel like your average Shakespeare production, where old people stand on stage and slowly recite monologues, because they think that talking slow means talking powerfully. It was just a bunch of young, vibrant people playing around and having fun and allowing the audience to share the fun with them.

Social and Global Networking

As assigned, I discussed The Taming of the Shrew on a local level, with my friends, and on a global level for all the internet to see. This post is kind of a long one, so brace yourselves.

I created a note on Facebook, where I outlined my thoughts about the gender war in The Taming of the Shrew and asked for input. I honestly represented my opinion, such as they are. That being said, I'm well-aware that I often get stuck up on my high horse, ranting and raving about things. As such, I try to get other people to give me some perspective, to see if I'm justified in feeling the way that I do, or if I need to calm down a little bit. I'll post the responses I got (there are only three - most people just clicked the "Like" button), in their unedited entireties:

Questions of Character

Prospero: God-Like Figure or Egomaniacal Dictator?

Caliban: Evil By Nature or Victim of a Crappy Childhood?

Ariel: Holy Spirit or Indentured Servant? 

I'm not 100% sure why Satan is the Predalien.

The answer to all of these is the same, I think. It depends on whether we're viewing the play as a metaphor or whether we're viewing these characters as real people. I would never give an actual human being God-like power and expect him to make the choices that are legitimately best for the masses. I would expect that human being to do things that are best for himself. I would, however, be comfortable with an all-powerful, benevolent God.

Further, I don't believe that anyone is born evil. I think that people are born selfish, and we have to learn how to be honest and selfless, but I don't think that anyone is born purely evil. I have a hard time buying into movies like The Omen or Rosemary's Baby for that reason. For the metaphor in the play to work, however, there needs to be a Satan figure.

I don't know if anyone has read Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. It's one of my favorite books, and it deals with the end of the world. One of the primary characters is called Adam, and he is the antichrist. He was supposed to be raised by Satan's minions, but due to an accidental mix-up at the hospital, he ends up in a completely normal human family. Because of his up-bringing, he ends up as a completely normal twelve year old boy (who happens to have the powers of Hell at his disposal, but he doesn't know that).

My point is that I sincerely doubt that Caliban would have been evil, no matter what his inherent nature, if he had experienced a semi-normal upbringing.

I don't fully understand what's going on with Ariel. I don't fully understand why he's hanging out with Prospero and doing his bidding. Again, if we're looking at the metaphor, it makes perfect sense that the God character would have a Holy Spirit character as a companion. If we're looking it like these are real people, I think it's kind of questionable for Prospero to be keeping Ariel hostage.

This Took a Turn for the Uncomfortably Serious

Per instruction, I've been attempting to have discussions with my peers about the issues within The Taming of the Shrew. Mostly, my peers amount to my husband, but we're having a double-date tonight and maybe I'll try to bring it up then. I expect that it will make the other couple extremely uncomfortable as Nate and I rant and rave about the unequal treatment of women within literature and the media (ever read The Woman in White? Ridiculously misogynistic).

I have a hard time talking about women's issues with people - I tend to come on too strong, and it freaks lots of people out (especially around here, where "feminist" seems to be a dirty word to a lot of people). I've been trying, though. It's hard for me not to get onto my bra-burning high horse when I talk about the treatment of women in popular culture (that, and the MPAA just really get me a-ranting. Seriously, can we talk about how flawed the movie-rating system is in this country? Something else to make the other couple uncomfortable).

Moving on: I did something of a textual analysis last week, but what the hey, I'll do some more. I'm going to analyze the ways that Petruchio can be considered verbally or emotionally abusive toward Kate.

The Importance Of Gender

I know I'm technically supposed to be blogging on Wednesdays and Fridays, but I don't get up early enough on Wednesdays or Fridays to have a post up by nine.

Anyway, I want to talk about the character of Ariel. Ariel is kind of fairy-like, kind of like the little ball of light that follows you around in Legend of Zelda. Ariel's gender has also been the subject of hotly-contested debate for a very long time.

Traditionally, Ariel is viewed as a male character. He's referred to with male pronouns (all of twice in the entire play), but the part is commonly played by women. I've heard people posit that this might be because more male characters = fewer straw wigs, since women weren't allowed to be actors. From my days at the Southwest Shakespeare conservatory, I've heard that women commonly use Ariel's monologues for auditions.  There are so few female parts in most of Shakespeare's plays, so you kind of have to take what you can get.

So, open question: Does the character of Ariel significantly change when his/her gender changes? Does it make a difference? I honestly can't decide. I mean, Ariel is kind of sexless regardless of who plays the character, but water/arial elements tend to have a more feminine quality to them. Also, in our society, Ariel is an exclusively female name. As such, I tend to think of Ariel as a female, but I'm open to other ideas.

I Am Conflicted

I just want to state for the record that I did, in fact, read The Taming of the Shrew and watch Ten Things I Hate About You. The Taming of the Shrew with Elizabeth Taylor is proving more difficult to track down than I anticipated. Netflix has it, but Nate and I only just got around to watching Lars and the Real Girl yesterday (and I heartily recommend it, by the way. Don't be scared off by the way the plot sounds), and it's still sitting on our coffee table, waiting to be mailed. The local Blockbuster doesn't have it, probably because it didn't come out in the past ten years or heavily feature explosions or women in bikinis.

I liked the play, generally. I think. I don't know. I feel like I should like it. Everyone else likes it. I've been trying to find some feminist interpretations, where I can like it and still retain my self-respect. The thing is, it's aggressively anti-woman. 10 Things I Hate About You toned it down and made it about the relationship between the Petruchio character and the Katherina character more about how all human beings, regardless of gender, need emotionally fulfilling relationships in their lives. That's a moral I can get behind, and Kat didn't have to sacrifice her individual identity to get there. She didn't change the way she dressed or the way she talked and she didn't suddenly start putting up with people's crap. She just let her guard down enough to have a legitimate emotional connection with another person, and I would say that the gender of the other person was, in this situation, largely irrelevant.

Further, the father character (an OB-GYN) was motivated by fear that his daughters would get into trouble if they were allowed to date before they were ready, whatever that means. He wasn't on a power trip, the way Baptista was. He was a single father afraid he couldn't protect his children, and I completely respect that.

According to the ever-infallible Wikipedia, there's some controversy regarding the way the play is supposed to be read. Apparently some people think that Shakespeare didn't mean what he was saying (that women should submit themselves to men), and thus did not say it at all. Which...makes no sense. You can't write a book about how great it is to be a white supremacist and then turn around and claim that you didn't mean it, so the theme of the book is the opposite of what you wrote.

I tend to think that the people who hold that theory are probably people who just want to believe that Shakespeare was a great person who believed in social equality and was a paragon of moral goodness (in which case, they probably ignore the rumors that Shakespeare was having an extramarital affair with a teenage boy). The more I'm exposed to Shakespeare, the less I like him.

Rhetoric Is Overrated

I think I've decided why I'm not connecting to Love's Labour's Lost. It's contrived. It is contrived and boring and inauthentic. By inauthentic, I mean that the characters don't seem to be fully fleshed out, they don't tend to have much character development, and their motives are stale. There's nothing real about them.

Contrast these characters with Hamlet. Hamlet had a constant, hugely complex inner monologue through the duration of the play, regardless of the actor's or director's interpretation. The inner monologues for these characters can be summed up as follows:

Men: "I wanna get laid, I wanna get laid, I wanna get laid, I wanna get laid. But I don't want to look stupid."
Women: "I wanna get laid, but I'm playing hard to get."

And that's it, with maybe a couple exceptions. The plot is like a maze, preventing stale, wooden characters from getting laid via artificial obstacles.

It seems to me that this play is just an excuse for Shakespeare to show off how clever he could be. It's not about the characters or the plot or anything that would make a compelling story - it's Shakespeare showing off his intellect.

Let's take the scene in act V between Sir Nathaniel and Holofernes, where they're speaking Latin for no apparent reason. It does nothing to further the plot or develop the characters, it's more like "HEY EVERYBODY I CAN SPEAK LATIN ISN'T THAT COOL DON'T I LOOK SMART BECAUSE I CAN SPEAK LATIN." In this case, Shakespeare is Dwight Shrute, and we the audience are people who don't really care about beet farming or martial arts or paper sales. Only Shakespeare isn't as funny.

A Witty Palaver?

Once again, I want to discuss The Taming of the Shrew. The Taming of the Shrew is famed for its witty conversations, especially between Kate and Petruchio. Some of them are delightful. Others, not so much.

Honestly, there are portions of it that kind of make me mad. Let's take, for example, this portion from Act II:

"Thou must be married to no man but me,
For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates."

Tyler Shields Photography

That's Petruchio speaking, as is probably obvious. Now, the wildcat/wild Kate pun aside, quotes like this make me fume. I know that this play was written before gender equality was invented, but as a modern woman I can't help but be upset by this. Firstly, Petruchio and Kate's father completely remove the issue of consent. Just prior to this, Petruchio basically says "We're getting married whether you like it or not. Your dad already ponied up the dowry, and it's happening regardless of your personal feelings." 


("Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife, your dowry ‘greed on,And will you, nill you, I will marry you.")


 Now, I know that even the United States government didn't recognize marital rape as a crime until the 1990's, but what about that is supposed to make me feel like this is a positive, non-abusive relationship? I'm having a hard time differentiating this sort of forced marriage from sex slavery. 


Secondly, I really resent the idea that women who don't just laugh at men's jokes and want to put out need to be "tamed." I had a boyfriend in high school who told me that I was intimidating because "you're too smart." Women do not exist to feed men's egos and fuel their sex drives. This play has, thus far, completely ignored the validity of women having identities independent from the men in their lives.


Thirdly, I think the idea that a woman needs to be barefoot and pregnant and cooking in the kitchen to fulfill her "womanly duties" is a load of crap. I hate the idea of a woman being compelled to conform to all of the brainless breeders who want nothing more than to pop out babies and make sandwiches for the rest of their lives. Now, if you want to have a bunch of kids, or you want to be a stay at home mother, I think that's a perfectly valid option. I don't think that anyone should be forced into that lifestyle who doesn't actively desire it. 

If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

For my individual play, I'm reading The Taming of the Shrew. I'm pretty excited, if only because it inspired one of my favorite movies of all time.

The Plot: A Paduan lord, Baptista, decrees that his younger, more attractive, more likable, more airheaded daughter Bianca cannot get married to one of her many suitors until her older, angrier, presumably less-attractive, but also less airheaded daughter Katherina gets married. Unfortunately, no one wants to marry her. Some Italian guy named Petruchio comes to town and is immediately recruited by not one, but two of Bianca's suitors to please, for the love of God, take Katherina off the market. Naturally, hilarity and possible gender discrimination ensue.

My question for the duration of the play, and upon which I will be focusing: The Taming of the Shrew is incredibly sexist. True or False?

Now, as of this moment, I think the answer is very obviously and overwhelmingly true. However, I've already had one discussion about it with someone who disagrees (and a female someone, no less), so I will try to consider both sides of the argument.

I'm seriously considering hosting a viewing party for two fantastic film adaptations. One stars the lovely and glamorous Elizabeth Taylor (I still get sad when I remember she's dead), and the other, the somewhat forgettable Julia Stiles. I think that Julia Stiles is so basic, and I don't understand why she was cast in not one, but TWO Shakespearean adaptations. But I digress.

I expect that we'll be dealing with themes of power, namely, who holds the power in a romantic relationship and why it's important, as well as themes of love. Based on what I know at this point, I have a hard time believing that the relationship between Katherina and Petruchio could be legitimate or long-lasting. As I delve deeper into the characters, I hope to find out.

I'm very excited to look at this from a performance perspective as well. I plan on utilizing the book Speak the Speech!, a book of Shakespearean monologues put in context of the events of the play and possible character motivation. I feel I will be able to easily identify with Katherina, but I question how well I'll be able to understand Bianca or most (if not all) of the male characters. 

I See How This Is Going

I'll be honest. I'm having trouble deciding what I want to blog about at this juncture. I confess, I'm not gripped by Love's Labour's Lost quite yet.

We talked about the tradition of monasticism that may have inspired some of the introductory events in Love's Labour's Lost. People sequester themselves away from the world for a period of time and focus on God and learning. My understanding, however, was that joining a monastery was generally optional.

I find myself wondering what motivated Ferdinand to decide that he didn't want any women near his court for a three year period. Like, none at all. No one in his court is even allowed to talk to women. This seems so mind-bogglingly stupid that I can't understand why he would do this. Bad breakup? I've heard that you should take at least fifty percent of the time you were in the relationship to get over it. Maybe he was in a six-year relationship that went south, and he wants to spend the next three years eating ice cream and watching Beaches (that's what guys do after breakups, right?). Maybe he's not sure he likes women and he doesn't want people asking him why he isn't dating. Maybe his ex was super clingy and now he just wants some bro-time, and plans on spending the next three years eating the 16th century equivalent of buffalo wings and watching the 16th century equivalent of Anchorman (Turkey legs and bear baiting?). Who can say?

From Left To Right: Biron, Ferdinand, Longaville, Dumain

Quite frankly, I can't really think of any reason a straight guy would choose to only hang out with dudes.   This may have preceded the era of cross-gender platonic friendships, but it seems like it would get rull lame, rull fast.