E17 Saturday

I've been enjoying being at home. My mum and I went to the Jubilee church prayer meeting this morning, which is always brilliant. I went to a craft fair at St Mary's and then wandered down the market, looking for (and failing to find) some material from which to make pyjamas. It was cold! I love the fact you can buy almost anything on Walthamstow market - fruit, veg, clothes, toys, pots and pans, tvs, dog leads, jewellery, you name it, it's there somewhere. Except, apparently, interestingly striped cotton suitable for Bekki pyjamas. Ah well.

This afternoon I've been knitting and watching Henry V (the Branagh version). If you're interested, there's an old post of mine about the Branagh and Olivier films of Henry V. I'd like to finish the jumper I'm knitting so I can show it off at church tomorrow, but I doubt it's going to happen.

Back to Cambridge tomorrow afternoon, but I'm enjoying this E17* interlude.

*E17 is the postcode for Walthamstow. As made famous (for good or ill) by East17.

locked in the library

Not literally, but I've been here all day, working on the essay that's due in on Monday. I've made pretty good progress today. Nearly at 4000 words, another push tomorrow and it should be done, with a day in hand to tidy it up. At least that's the plan.

I now know more about Bartholomew Fair, William Poel and the Elizabethan stage company and Renaissance lath and plaster than I did this morning. And I have a slightly sore feeling throat which I hope is just the result of too much dry air conditioned air and not the start of something nasty.

My brain is quite tired. Home soon to wind down with knitting or a (non-work) book or just sleep.

wow!

I was trying to think of an apposite quotation, but my brain's too fuzzy. I've just got back from the English department trip to Stratford-upon-Avon after a fantastic couple of days watching plays and talking about them and it was such fun! I feel like I've been living in plays for the last couple of days and it's a real wrench to have to leave the world of kings and civil war and struggle and come home to real life.

We saw part of the cycle of history plays the RSC are doing at the moment: Richard II on Wednesday, and the two parts of Henry IV yesterday. It was amazing, seeing them in order, within a few hours of each other and seeing the big story and the smaller stories unfold in front of our eyes. I'd have loved to do as some others are doing and stay tonight for Henry V. Having seen the same actor (Geoffrey Streatfeild, brilliant) playing Hal and developing across yesterday's plays, it would be amazing to then see him play Henry today. We had a Q&A session with him this morning, really interesting to get an inside perspective on the role of Hal/Henry. But I had to come back and I'm probably a little too tired to appreciate another play tonight. A bunch of us are plotting to go and see it when the Histories come to London next year.

I'll try a more considered post when I'm more awake, but right now I'm just in awe of the plays and the performances and the feeling of being caught up in the sweep of history.

Nothing but curious pleasures

A certain BFC (aka big fat/fine cat aka my uncle Jon) asked about how I found Pericles etc, so here's the promised post.

I did finish reading Pericles. It's a bit like The Winter's Tale with added shipwrecks and no bears. I think I read it a little too fast to appreciate it properly. I'd like to see it performed. The structure's interesting - narration from Gower and dumbshows to show us what's going on. Most of the really dramatic action seems to take place in the dumbshows, except for the storm at sea in which Marina is born.

The main point of looking at Pericles for the seminar was the choices made in editing and we had a go at editing a bit of the beginning of 2.1, which was trickier than I thought, if you're going to worry about the placement of every jot and tittle as well as try to guess whether the apparent mistakes are due to misreadings, mishearings, uncertain spelling, archaic words or something else. I think my attitude would probably be to change as little as possible and work out the details in performance, repunctuating or substituting words as necessary to make sense of it. The way different editors differ over the placement of commas or the interpretation of ellisions sometimes seems a little far away from the text's first incarnation as a performance. But then, punctuation can make a huge difference to meaning, so it's not unimportant.

Yes, I did read all of Titus Andronicus, not just the fly-killing scene. It's a pretty gory piece of work. Again, I feel I need to see a production or two to appreciate it properly. I can't help wondering how things like "Enter the Empress' sons with LAVINIA, her hands cut off and her tongue cut out, and ravished" would be staged. The fly-killing scene (3.2) is a later addition to the play. I saw it as a private family scene, in contrast to the more public scenes that surround it. For some reason it my head it's like a scene from a film, very claustrophic and dark, with the Andronici gathered together, eating, because they need sustenance, comforting each other and gathering strength for their revenge. The camera plans along the table and flicks from face to face as they react to Titus's pouring out of his heart and attempted comfortings of Lavinia. The killing of the fly is like a summary of the entire play - "How if that fly had a father and a mother?" - that's the problem with killing people: their families generally want revenge and in this play that pits a father, Titus, and a mother, Tamora, against one another for revenge for their respective offspring. But of course "it was a black ill-favoured fly/ Like to the empress's Moor" so it had to die. There's the personal element of revenge and the tricky character of Aaron the Moor (also a father, in his own violent way). It's all wrapped up in those few lines. Hmm, perhaps I have more to say about Titus Andronicus than I thought?

And Cymbeline. I love Cymbeline! I really must read it. (And Jon, you MUST let me read your thesis). Yes, there were some bits that cut in the last production we saw that were included this time, notably the doctor with his suddenly remembered details, the comic jailers, Posthumous' family and Jupiter appearing from the heavens (actually appearing swathed in a giant silk parachute, rising out of the box which was the main consituent of the set. People found their costumes in it, props were taken out of and put into it, Iachimo hid in it, obviously. Actually I think it disappeared for a bit in Wales, which missed a few tricks, it could have been the cave, or the grave, or a boat, or cover for the battling armies.) Some other bits got missed out. Imogen's speech to the headless body of her (supposed) husband was even more truncated. It was a fun production, played for (even more) laughs than the Barbican production, with a wonderfully devious and scheming Queen. Although she did seem to go off her head rather too rapidly. Cloten began almost every one of his scenes by hurling his doublet to the ground and lived up to his name (definitely Clot-en).

On to this week. I'm currently supposed to be reading Dr Faustus, Mankind, extracts from Mediaeval morality plays and some scenes from Henry VI 3, King John and Macbeth. And it's pouring with rain and nothing could be nicer than curling up with some books and Radio 3.

ETA: I think part of the problem with the film of As You Like It were all the bits that got cut in the final scene, particularly Hymen (fair enough, no-one knows who Hymen is today anyway and what would she be doing in 19th Centuary Japan?), with some lines reassigned to Rosalind. Unfortunately they cut most of the 'If I were...would you then.." lines that explain how each character then reacts to the revelation of Ganymede's identity as Rosaline, so to have everyone suddenly understanding when she appeared dressed as herself again made very little sense. I don't think As You Like It makes that much sense to start with, but it's a comedy and believing in the character's rather unlikely deceptions is part of the fun.

shakespeare week

That's what it feels like right now. Yesterday I saw As You Like it* tonight I'm going to see Cymbeline. I'm halfway through reading Romeo and Juliet, I've got to finish that and Pericles by Thuirsday evening and have something coherent to say about the fly-killing scene in Titus Andronicus. And I've been reading Making Shakespeare by Tiffany Stern.

I am happy! :-)

* It was OK, the lead actors are good, particularly Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind, but somehow it doesn't sparkle as it should and it doesn't quite make sense to me, at a psychological level, particularly at the end when all the couples are matched up. I'm not sure whether that's the play's fault or the way the film chops it around. I'll have to read it again.

coruscating

It was something Nathan said about "Beatrice and Benedick and how we all want to be them but in real life we often aren't." Last night I watched Becoming Jane and was reminded. It's a fun film, pretty preposterous (my housemate Sophia was amused to learn a new word, she hadn't come across it before) and sentimental, but good for a girls' night out. There's an early scene in which Jane (Anne Hathaway, what is it with getting Americans to play Brits? She did it very well though) and the love interest Tom LeFroy (the very pretty James McAvoy) are dancing and sparring verbal points off each other as they dance. It's fun to watch them, knowing that they're as much fascinated by each other as they are irritated.

What is it that we love about witty pairs of lovers? Historically, Beatrice and Benedick have always been the favourite characters of Much Ado About Nothing. They're so much more interesting and human than the rather sappy Hero, who hardly says anything (I liked the production I saw once in which she was always trying to speak and being cut off by her father or uncle) and the idiotic Claudio. I think it's that we want to be witty, to have clever things to say and win the argument, but also that we want to have relationships that are alive and sparkling, where the other person provokes us, draws us out, makes us more alive.

They're a dangerous pair to emulate. It would be easy to look only at their verbal sparring and build relationships that are nothing but fine words. Perhaps more crucial than their friends' trickery in showing them their true feelings is the moment of testing provided by Claudio's rejection of Hero. In the chilling moment when Beatrice tells Benedick to "Kill Claudio", he must decide whether love for his friend or love for Beatrice is more important. Not that asking your boyfriend to kill his best friend is a good test for whether he loves you, but at the time where it matters, Benedick proves that there is more to their relationship than words and argument.

So why aren't we like Beatice and Benedick? Or Elizabeth and Darcy or any other pair of literary lovers? We aren't scripted by a genius for a start. We live in the real world, where arguments about silly petty things or big ones can hurt and wit can wound more than it means. Love is in the mundane and quotidian as much as in the sparkling and the heat. But it's also in the fizz as much as in the everyday. Either without the other would be incomplete.

this week I have been mostly watching Henry V

That's what it feels like anyway. On Monday night I watched Olivier's 1944 version and last night it was the turn of Branagh's 1989 version. Sunday (23rd April, St George's day and Shakespeare's birthday) would have been a highly appropriate day for watching lots of Shakespeare, but I was otherwise engaged, driving back from Exeter. It's been fun and it counts as work since I've got an essay to write.

Olivier's Henry V is deliberately theatrical. The first few scenes take place on an Elizabethan stage, complete with groundlings, basic scenery and rain. Later scenes expand to take in fleets of model ships sailing to France and landscapes filled with tiny castles and houses. The whole thing has an air of unreality and staginess, which fits with the form of the play. Any piece of action too difficult to stage is narrated by Chorus, reminding the watching audience that they must "Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts" (Act 1, Prologue).

Branagh's version is equally clear about its unreality. Chorus, played by Derek Jacobi, starts on a film set. The first half of the film is almost entirely interior shots, only moving outside with the first battle at Harfleur. The look is cinematically dramatic rather than stagey. At the battle of Agincourt though, the blood and mud and rain look all too real. It's clear that Henry's men are exhausted and outnumbered by the fresher French and their victory is hard won.

There's a difference in tone between the two films. Olivier's version, especially in the theatre scenes, is played for laughs. Branagh's, from the very beginning is more serious and more tense. Olivier's battle scenes are in full daylight with vibrant colours and flashing swords. Branagh's battle scenes are a bloody, muddy mess. Henry begins the battle of Agincourt looking suprising clean, but by the end of it, he's as mired in grime and gore as any of his men.

Both films pack an emotional punch. Olivier's film, made in 1944, was partly a deliberate exercise in morale raising during the war. Henry's rousing speeches are as much for the audience's benefit as for the characters'. It reminds me a little of A Matter of Life and Death and other Powell and Pressburger films of that era. There's a seriousness to it, but it's all a little unreal and disconnected from real blood and suffering. Branagh's version on other hand, almost moved me to tears. At the St Crispin's day speech, I was totally carried along with him. At the end of the battle, the battle worn king and his men carry the bodies to be buried in a gritty and moving scene that would be out of place in Olivier's film.

I could go on and on. I'm glad I watched these films in quick succession. Both are brilliant, in their different ways and true enough to the text to make them useful for someone studying the play. Go and watch some Shakespeare!