WHAT IF
HELEN MIRREN AS VOLUMNIA
CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE HER SPITTING OUT THIS MONOLOGUE:
Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
And state of bodies would bewray what life
We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself
How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither: since that thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow;
Making the mother, wife and child to see
The son, the husband and the father tearing
His country’s bowels out. And to poor we
Thine enmity’s most capital: thou barr’st us
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy; for how can we,
Alas, how can we for our country pray.
Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,
Whereto we are bound? alack, or we must lose
The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,
Our comfort in the country. We must find
An evident calamity, though we had
Our wish, which side should win: for either thou
Must, as a foreign recreant, be led
With manacles thorough our streets, or else
triumphantly tread on thy country’s ruin,
And bear the palm for having bravely shed
Thy wife and children’s blood. For myself, son,
I purpose not to wait on fortune till
These wars determine: if I cannot persuade thee
Rather to show a noble grace to both parts
Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
March to assault thy country than to tread—
Trust to’t, thou shalt not—on thy mother’s womb,
That brought thee to this world.
GET ME THE FUCK TO LONDON
National Theatre Live to broadcast the Donmar Warehouse production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus
We’re delighted to announce that on 30 January 2014 we will broadcast the Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus, directed by Josie Rourke, with Tom Hiddleston in the title role and Mark Gatiss as Menenius, live to cinemas around the world.
Tickets will go on sale from 7 June. Sign up for email updates.
#aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaabaaasdflkajdfl;kjsdf #coriolanus is all about hypermasculine power and performativity #and the limits and failures of that mode of existence #and it’s also all about feminine (specifically maternal) power and performativity #and it’s all about politics #and it’s all about a psychotic death spiral of mutual obsession and love and hatred with aufidius aaaaaaaahwasdlkjfjele #i don’t give a shit about gatiss who’s playing volumnia and aufidius i neeeeed to knoooooooow #why are tom hiddleston’s career choices so fucking good to me
My college Shakespeare teacher said, in our first class: “If you finish this class and don’t love Shakepeare’s plays, you are wrong.” So, I think, when I invariably write my book about Shakespeare, I’m going to call it: “If You Don’t Love Shakespeare, You Are Wrong.”
Gary Taylor (via butilovefire)
#the fact that the academic elite have managed to characterize shakespeare as some kind of high art will never cease to be hilarious to me #(by hilarious i mean blood-boiling) #shakespeare wrote for the common man y’all#shakespeare wrote his plays to be spoken and acted out and put in theaters#and he wrote them in english #(which was mostly because he couldn’t exactly write them in another language because he didn’t exactly go to university but)#okay how do i begin to explain this #imagine if someone wrote what was widely acknowledged as some of the best music ever #imagine if this music was such a part of our culture that almost every single person in a certain country recognized it when it was played #imagine that music was studied constantly at harvard; at oxford; at stanford #imagine that old white straight male professors who haven’t left campus in years called it some of the best music ever written #if they put it up next to mozart; next to beethoven; next to tchaikovsky #and found it just as worthy #okay got that #now imagine that music was hip-hop #shakespeare was written for the people#shakespeare was written BY one of the common people #shakespeare is immensely and emphatically not literature created for the academic elite#shakespeare was written for you #the language was written to be said to you#the stories were invented and adapted and fiddled with to appeal to you#shakespeare wrote plays so you could watch them #shakespeare does not belong to literature professors; it belongs to you #it’s yours #you have inherited it from centuries of english-speaking audiences #you own it #and it’s bullshit that anyone has prevented you from learning that(via swanjolras)
okay yeah well when put like that I agreeWIN!
I really do love that David Tennant Hamlet, though. It’s thrilling, tense, and emotionally gripping: essentially everything you’d want in a Hamlet. But most Hamlets that I’ve seen aren’t like that.
The thing I like best about the David Tennant Hamlet is that it shows what a manchild Hamlet is. Love him or hate him, he certainly is a loose cannon. (I loved that production. It felt really… real?)
Oh totally. It’s extremely intimate and Hamlet needs intimacy. Most Shakespeare plays can live comfortably in both epic and intimate worlds, but Hamlet is really best when it’s an intimate experience.
okay yeah well when put like that I agree
WIN!
I really do love that David Tennant Hamlet, though. It’s thrilling, tense, and emotionally gripping: essentially everything you’d want in a Hamlet. But most Hamlets that I’ve seen aren’t like that.
b b b b b b b but
I know, I know, but those soliloquies weigh down the play like 10 ton concrete bricks. Hamlet’s planning and doing things and then he just stops and ponders life and death. And it doesn’t just happen once. IT HAPPENS FOUR OR FIVE TIMES. There is a distinct reason why there are so many different versions of Hamlet. I don’t think Shakespeare was ever satisfied with the play as we know it. I think he kept coming back and adding things and taking them back out because he was exploring new ideas and dramatic concepts. But he never did fully flesh out those ideas. So the play still feels raw and a bit unformed to me. Compare Hamlet with a play like King Lear. King Lear is still emotional and deeply philosophical, but the ideas come out through the action and what the characters experience instead of a fairly unlikable 20 something graduate student monologuing for far too long. The David Tennant Hamlet is my favorite Hamlet because they cut that play down to a tight two-ish hours. You still get the ideas, but the play moves. And it’s really, really great when it does.
Good LORD, if you hate-direct Hamlet I WANT TO BE IN IT. Like. I actually cannot explain how hard my brain just exploded at this idea.I’ve been thinking about this for five minutes now and I’m thinking that me hate-directing Hamlet might result in a fucking great production. The problem with most Hamlet’s that I’ve seen is that the directors, actors, and crew are so precious and overly reverent with the script because it’s THE GREATEST PIECE OF LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH CANON. And I think that’s bull shit. I don’t think Hamlet even rates in Shakespeare’s top 5 plays. I think someone needs to direct a Hamlet that gives zero fucks about it being a great or important play.
AND YES YOU MUST BE IN IT
NO THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE WITH HAMLET. And I do think it’s fantastic, but you can’t approach it like it’s fantastic if you’re going to stage it, because that is old and tired and overwrought and awful. You can’t fucking afford to be precious with Shakespeare and basically yes we really need to do this.
A-FUCKING-MEN.
COME MAKE THEATRE WITH ME THIS VERY INSTANT
I’ve always wanted to direct a Hamlet without the soliloquies, except I feel like if the actor playing Hamlet didn’t kill me the audience would.
AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM. The audience sits and waits on baited breath for those famous fucking soliloquies instead of actually letting themselves get swept up in the story. The same is true of Romeo and Juliet, but I’ve seen more R&J’s successfully deal with the famous-ness of the play than Hamlet’s. Also, Romeo and Juliet is a far more active play than Hamlet, but that’s besides the point. When I eventually hate-direct Hamlet, I’m just going to cut the crap out of the soliloquies. I don’t care how pretty they are, most of them do nothing to move the story forward.
Good LORD, if you hate-direct Hamlet I WANT TO BE IN IT. Like. I actually cannot explain how hard my brain just exploded at this idea.
I’ve been thinking about this for five minutes now and I’m thinking that me hate-directing Hamlet might result in a fucking great production. The problem with most Hamlet’s that I’ve seen is that the directors, actors, and crew are so precious and overly reverent with the script because it’s THE GREATEST PIECE OF LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH CANON. And I think that’s bull shit. I don’t think Hamlet even rates in Shakespeare’s top 5 plays. I think someone needs to direct a Hamlet that gives zero fucks about it being a great or important play.
AND YES YOU MUST BE IN IT
I’m just going to post this and run the fuck away.
honeytangerine replied to your post: The Winter’s Tale is going to be an extremely hairy show
just tell them about the russian dance in the 100 degree heat.
Eeeheheheheeee, I TOTALLY SHOULD.
About three years ago, I directed Love’s Labors Lost. It went up in a tiny black box theatre with laughable air conditioning during one of the hottest summers Baltimore has ever seen. I made the four boys do the Russian dance (what a GREAT play) in long wool coats, fake beards, and fur hats. It was maybe not the most responsible decision, but it was really, really funny.
I got real bored
- It’s not historically sound. At all. Edward DeVere, 17th Earl of Oxford died in 1604 and Shakespeare wrote at least twelve more plays between 1604 and his death in 1616. What’s more, in Elizabethan England, actors and playwrights were near the bottom of the social food chain, only a few steps above prostitutes and highway robbers. Yes, members of the nobility sponsored playwrights and playing companies, but they would never directly participate in the making of plays. Also, Edward DeVere wrote poetry under his own name and it’s really, fucking, terrible.
- Shakespeare’s plays embraced a kind of egalitarianism that you just don’t see anymore. He wrote plays for everyone, but he never assumed that one’s socio-economic status prevented you from understanding the profundity of the human experience. He didn’t condescend to his audience nor did he dumb himself down for their supposed benefit. Shakespeare gave kings and beggars equal humanity and their struggles equal weight.
- Then the Victorians kind of fucked that up and made Shakespeare something elite and we’ve never quite recovered from that. Playhouses where the majority of seats were cheap seats disappeared. Shakespeare was typically only heard by those who could afford a night at the theatre; people who naturally believed that intelligence and creativity only came from traditional education. That’s where Anti-Stratfordianism generally comes from.
- Sure, Shakespeare never had a university education, but he lived a long, full life. He saw theatre as a child and as a young man. He had a family, lovers, and friends he loved. He did have some exposure to the court and politics, but, for what he lacked in knowledge, he made up for in imagination and an unmatched understanding of the human condition. There simply is no convincing argument as to why he could not have been the primary author of those 37 plays.
- Oxfordianism is symptomatic of a broader attitude. It’s a mix of class and creative snobbery and it’s hurting all art. Art is meant to be a medium through which collective society attempts to understand the mysteries and struggles of life. To say that someone is incapable of participating in that conversation because of their class or education is, frankly, despicable. Great art can come from anywhere and from anyone. Right now, larger institutions (Oscars, Grammys, museums, etc) only celebrate art that’s approved by critics and dismisses and trivializes popular culture. As a result, we get art that is either trying to appeal to “intelligent” classes or pandering to the lowest common denominator. No one is actually challenging themselves to speak to everyone. Oxfordianism does nothing but perpetuate this narrow way of thinking and storytelling.
- And it fills me with righteous fury.
wait wait waitsir derek isn’t really an oxfordian is he
Unfortunately he is. He was heavily involved in making Anonymous and he wrote a bunch of articles. It’s upsetting.
I’M REALLY REALLY UPSET RIGHT NOW
I TRUSTED HIM
HE WAS IN HENRY V
HE WAS IN HAMLET
I TRUSTED HIM
**Sympathetic shoulder pat*
I felt the same way when I found out. It was even worse when I found out Mark Rylance is an Oxfordian.
It probably makes me more angry than it should, but I can’t help but feel like Oxfordianism (fuck I can’t believe I just used that term) is reflective of a kind of class snobbbery that goes against everything Shakespeare’s plays represent. When I find out someone is an Oxfordian, it makes me seriously doubt their judgment and artistic values.
I completely agree
I am so tired of the argument that “He can’t write eloquently! He came from the country.”
UGH I’M REALLY ANGRY AND I DON’T THINK OXFORDIANS ARE GOOD PEOPLE
Essentially.
I think it’s time for me to write another “Why I Hate Oxfordians” post. It’s time.
