Photo By Jim Dalglish

By Melora B. North

Fri Jul 04, 2008, 08:54 AM EDT

Yesterday's Independence Day celebration party ended our first week of the program and also Dr. Tiffany Stern's work with our group.  A preiminent scholar in theater history at Oxford University with several important publications that have shaped how we understand the original practices on Shakespeare's stage and particularly how theater is done at the Blackfriars theater here in Staunton, it was amazing to have had the opportunity to work with such an amazingly smart and important thinker.  What we noticed just as much, though, as her scholarship, was how friendly and truly compassionate she was with all of the participants in the program.  I feel as though I learned and grew as much in her three morning lectures as I could have in an entire semester.  And I certainly hope to have the opportunity to see more of her work in the future.

Fray Juan le dice a fray Lorenzo que no pudo llevarle la carta a Romeo pues la guardia lo encerró creyendo que estaba enfermo. Fray Lorenzo, temeroso de las consecuencias le pide un azadón y se prepara para rescatar a Julieta.

Escena III

Celda de fray Lorenzo

(Fray Juan y fray Lorenzo)

FRAY JUAN. ¡Hermano mío!

FRAY LORENZO. Bienvenido de Mantua; ¿qué noticias traes de Romeo? Dame su carta, si es que te dio una.

FRAY JUAN. Antes de partir a Mantua, busque a un fraile para que me acompañe. Lo encontré atendiendo a unos enfermos. Pero la ronda nocturna, al vernos salir de una casa de enfermos, temió que tuviéramos la peste, así que sellaron las puertas y no nos dejaron salir. Por eso no pude ir a Mantua.

FRAY LORENZO. ¿Y quién llevó la carta a Romeo?

FRAY JUAN. Nadie: aquí la tengo. No pude encontrar siquiera quien te la devuelva.

FRAY LORENZO. ¡Qué desgracia! ¡Por San Francisco! Y no era una carta inútil, sino de importancia vital. Este atraso puede ser funesto. Fray Juan, búscame en seguida un azadón.

FRAY JUAN. En seguida, hermano.

(sale fray Juan)

FRAY LORENZO. Tengo que ir al cementerio. Dentro de tres horas despertará Julieta y se enojará mucho conmigo porque no llegaré a tiempo con Romeo. Volveré a escribir a Mantua, y entre tanto la tendré en mi celda esperando a Romeo. ¡Pobre cadáver vivo encerrado en la cárcel de un muerto!

Álvaro Felipe

Where is the man who can clamber to heaven? Only the gods live for ever with glorious Shamash, but as for us men, our days are numbered, our occupations are a breath of wind.

In other words, human life is impermanent and what we work to build is impermanent.

So what should we do with ourselves?

Gilgamesh takes a stab at an answer: In spite of impermanence, live life with a large, ambitious goal, such as fighting the forest monster Humbaba. Take risks, and if you fail, at least for awhile your name will endure on the lips of others:

[I]f I fail I leave behind me a name that endures; men will say of me, 'Gilgamesh has fallen in fight with ferocious Humbaba.'

Gilgamesh's answer recalls the philosopher Hanna Arendt's observation, in her book The Human Condition (1958), that the pre-socratic Greeks too saw immortality in these terms:

The task and potential greatness of mortals lie in their ability to produce things---works and deeds and words---which would deserve to be and, at least to a degree, are at home in everlastingness, so that through them mortals could find their place in a cosmos where everything is immortal except themselves. (19)

In short, one solution to the problem of mortality is to plug oneself into the divine, or the eternal circle of nature, by building a pyramid or writing lasting sonnets, as Shakespeare has done, or conquering an archetypal monster, such as Humbaba, as Gilgamesh and Enkidu set out to do. 

Arendt continues:

The distinction between man and animal runs right through the human species itself: only the best (aristoi), who constantly prove themselves to be the best (aristeuein, a verb for which there is no equivelent in any other language) and who 'prefer immortal fame to mortal things,' are really human; the others, content with whatever pleasures nature will yield them, live and die like animals. (19)

I hear in this position, apparently shared by Gilgamesh and the pre-socratic Greeks, Nietzsche's Apollonian Ubermensch ("Superman"), who embraces eternal recurrence because he has actually done something with his time on earth---he has been a creator, taken risks, and has no regrets, and would live life the same way over again. Here's Nietzsche (quoted in Pessimism, 2006, pg. 188 by Joshua Dienstag):

My new way to 'yes.' My new version of pessimism as a voluntary quest for fearful and questionable aspects of beings. . . . A pessimist such as that could in that way lead to a Dionysian yes-saying to the world as it is; as a wish for its absolute return and eternity . . .

I also hear in Gilgamesh's call for quest in the face of human impermanence the restlessness of Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses, who is not content to sit around his palace, even in old age, but is determined to launch forth into new adventures:

It little profits an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

 

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees . . .

 

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

Like Gilgamesh, who is not content to hang around the city of Uruk with Enkidu, but must seek out a risky new adventure that will test the extremities of his being, so Tennyson's Ulysses must move.

I also think of Charles Darwin, whose father discouraged his world travel. But Darwin did not heed his father's safe and sensible advice, but took great risks with his life out on the edge of discovery, and brought something new, and apparently permanent, into the world: his great book, The Origin of Species.

In this sense, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are also Nietzschean heroes initiating, as it were, the beginnings of World Literature with a quest after Humbaba, and having a kind of immortality by the preservation of their names and story.

But they still died.

Dit en andere interessante theorieën rond deze kwestie worden op deze wiki besproken:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question 

NORTH TRURO — There's magic in Shakespeare on the Cape's production of "The Tempest" that goes well beyond what comes from conjurer Prospero's staff.

The troupe has created a fantasy that is light as air, a low-tech version of the Shakespearean comedy that is romantic, silly and fun, with only a few threatening overtones. The show is full of mischief and enchantment as magician Prospero and his servant spirits guide the doings of shipwreck survivors on their island.

Director Eric Powell Holm's artful direction of the shipwreck itself grabs the imagination immediately as the full cast convincingly creates a ship plowing through the sea with only a few props and pieces of cloth. Providing the music and sound effects of the storm themselves, they create beautiful tableaux as the crew and passengers struggle on deck, then plunge into the ocean amid roiling waves.

That tempest was created by Prospero, former Duke of Milan, to bring brother Anthonio (Amanda Fuller, in nontraditional casting); Alonso, King of Naples (Powell Holm doing double duty); and Alonso's brother Sebastian (Daniel Jimenez) onto the island they marooned him on a dozen years before. After the ship's survivors arrive, they are separated three ways — the three conspirators; Ferdinand (Jake Ford), son of Alonso; and the amusing, not-so-bright servants Trinculo (Tessa K. Bry) and Stephano (Jimenez again).

Deep in voice and regal and kind in manner, Whitney Hudson portrays a commanding, imperious yet benevolent Prospero in another of the troupe's gender-bending casting choices. Prospero is father to Miranda (Ariel Dumas) a sheltered, naive teenager who falls immediately, and mutually, in love with Ferdinand. Resentful servant Caliban — played with twisted body and face, guttural voice and a Gollum-like scuttle by Elliot Eustis — falls in with the servants, who get drunk and plot, not very dangerously or convincingly, against Prospero.

The magician sends servant spirit Ariel to threaten the conspirators, and Ben Griessmeyer — in a white-feathered cap, fishnet shirt and sparkles — is a delight in this role, gracefully and ethereally taking on his appointed tasks. His menacing entrance in black in the second act is a visual highlight of the show, and many of the cast members cleverly become the attending spirits for his machinations.

One audience member was heard to remark that "there are so many ways to do Shakespeare," and this production is a case in point. Using a few key props and strips of cloth to create the island setting is due in part to portability, as the troupe will take this show around the Cape area as the summer progresses. The actors are all barefoot throughout, and most have white tank tops as the base for simple costumes, so they can quickly change into spirits or switch between characters. Interestingly, what distinguishes the noblemen are suit jackets or vests — certainly a quick visual cue for the upper class of today.

This version of "The Tempest" is worth the trip to Payomet Performing Arts Center; its tent is an excellent venue for it. The troupe also offers a weekly one-hour "Kiddieshakes" adaptation at Payomet (as well as other Cape venues), but its full version is streamlined, fast-paced and clocks in at less than two hours with intermission.

On stage

What: "The Tempest"

• When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays through Sept. 4 (with one-hour Kiddieshakes versions at 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays)
• Where: Payomet Performing Arts Center, Highlands Center at Cape Cod National Seashore, Old Dewline Road, North Truro
• Tickets: $25 ($9 for Kiddieshakes)
• Reservations: 508-487-5400 or www.ppactruro.org
• Additional performances: July 18-19 on Nantucket; Aug. 1 at Mashpee Commons and Aug. 29 at the Colony Club at Sagamore Beach (all with accompanying Kiddieshakes), with Kiddieshakes also July 15, 22 and 29 at Cotuit Center for the Arts
• More information on group: www.shakespeareonthecape.com

This past week focused on the history of Shakespeare's theater - with an emphasis, of course, on Shakespeare's Blackfriars theater, of which they have built a replica here in Staunton.  That theater is housed in a very modern building, with an industrialized architecture throughout the inside, that is, until you enter the theater.  The theater itself is like stepping back in time; its playing space is absolutely gorgeous.  The theater, though, exists not just as a monument to Shakespearean theater, but a laboratory for exploring Shakespeare in the contexts of how it was originally performed four hundred years ago.  Much of their practices are based upon the work of theater historians.

The most interesting and obvious feature of the theater is that they perform in the light.  Their motto is "We do it with the lights on".  Original Shakespeare was performed in candlelight, and here they use electric candlelight - which better adheres to local fire code I am sure - to illuminate the entire theater evenly throughout the play.  The effect can be dissettling.  Not only can you see the players on the stage, but they can see you as well, and even more significantly, you are able to see the other members of the audience.  This results in a very different experience for the audience, one in which they become much part of the show itself than in typical modern theater.  Actors regularly point out audience members as they speak addressing them directly.  Those members sitting on stools upon the stage - another Early Modern stage practice - are drawn most deeply into the action, holding props and even being invited to dance along with the players from time to time.

In addition to the academic side, I've been to two shows thus far - Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure - and am excited at just how different this theater company is.  This is an exciting place for me right now, to be in a city that lives and breathes Shakespeare and so excitedly embraces the history of the theater so many have grown to love.

I'll strive to write more regularly - daily if I can - over the next few weeks to keep my friends abreast of my work thus far.

Tonight are the fourth of July celebrations here.  I'm looking forward to a fun Friday night!  I hope your celebrations are happy too!  Peace out everybody!

Die Open-Air-Sommersaison der Tempelhofer ufa-fabrik in Berlin wird von Bernd Lafrenz eröffnet, der insgesamt schon sechsmal erfolgreich mit seiner ganz besonders unterhaltsamen Art Shakespeare auf die Bühne zu bringen, an diesem Ort gastiert hat.

Eingestimmt mit Klängen höfischer Musik schafft es Lafrenz als französisch sprechender Clochard, die Herzen des Publikums von der ersten Minute an zu gewinnen und ein Lachen auf alle Gesichter zu zaubern. Der Freiburger Künstler schlüpft mit Leichtigkeit und mit einem minimalen Kostümaufwand in die verschiedenen weiblichen und männlichen Rollen. Ein wichtiges Requisit sind dabei immer die verschiedenen Masken.

Das Publikum wird auf eine sehr angenehme und entspannende Art in die Gestaltung der Hintergrundgeräusche eingebunden. Lafrenz ist ein wundervoller Schauspieler und Pantomime. Er kann stimmgewaltige Rollen und weinenden Geliebte in seinem Ein-Mann-Stück gleich gut Gehör verschaffen.

Bei den Lafrenz Interpretationen kann man nicht wie bei Hamlet sagen „Etwas ist faul im Staate Dänemark.“ Ganz im Gegenteil! „Sein oder Nichtsein“ ist hier auch nicht die Frage. Diese fesselnde Unterhaltung mit Niveau und Humor unter dem Freiluftzelt der ufa-fabrik muss man aber einfach gesehen haben!

Die Chance für diesen Hochgenuss ist noch da! Eine Empfehlung der besonderen Art!

Auszüge aus dem Interview mit dem Künstler Bernd Lafrenz:

Hamlet ist mein Jungbrunnen! Hamlet war mein erstes Stück. In den Anfangszeiten habe ich Maskentheater in Florenz auf Straßen und Plätzen gespielt. Das ist aus einem Traum entstanden, dass ich mit Masken auf einem Platz spiele. Dann habe ich mir meinen Traum realisiert.

Im Winter wollte ich das Straßentheater mit Mitmachaktionen in den Saal holen. Es war die Sorge da, dass sich dann aber auch der Zauber verlieren könnte. Dann ist der Traum entstanden, der bei jedem Schauspieler entsteht, Shakespeare und Hamlet zu spielen.

Jetzt spiele ich mit Hamlet den Oldie. Aber ich habe immer noch Freude ihn zu spielen. Daraus ist die ganze Shakespeare-Serie geworden, weil Shakespeare der größte Theaterautor und Klassiker ist der auch am Besten gepasst hat für meine Art Maskentheater, Körpertheater, Pantomime, Clownerie, Humor und Parodie.

Die wunderbaren Rosinen von Shakespeare picke ich mir raus und gebe sie dann verpackt mit Humor an das Publikum weiter.

Ich komme gerne wieder nach Berlin und in die ufa-fabrik, um noch Othello oder mein Jubiläumsprogramm „Liebe, Lust und Leidenschaft“ zu präsentieren. Konkrete Absprachen gibt es noch nicht... (Anmerkung von TM: Da muss doch etwas zu machen sein!)

Welche Botschaft würdest Du gerne weitergeben wollen?

Wenn man wirklich innerlich ein Gespür hat oder eine Leidenschaft oder eine Flamme brennt für ein Thema, was man im Leben realisieren möchte, das man diese Flamme dann in sich hört und dann den Weg auch geht. Der kleine Satz: “You can get it, if you realy want“ ist für mich sehr wichtig. Du kannst alles erreichen, wenn du wirklich willst! Das ist für mich das gelebte Leben und was ich dem Publikum immer wieder mitgeben möchte.

Danke für das Interview!

Thomas Moser -BerLi-Press (www.berli-press.de) für www.lichtenrade-berlin.de

Website von Bernd Lafrenz: http://www.lafrenz.de/

Ausschnitt von Hamlet in „YouTube“: Link: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=i9DuFCy8DWc&feature=related

Spieltermine:Mi-Sa, 2.7. - 12.7.2008 20:30Uhr
Eintritt, Euro: Mi, Fr, Sa,16,-, erm. 14,- Do, Theatertag, 14,-Euro
Open-Air der ufaFabrik
Viktoriastr. 10-18, 12105 Berlin
Direkt am Tempelhofer Damm, 1 Minute von der U6-Ullsteinstraße,
Bus: 170, N6 und N 84
Zuschauer- & Ticket-Telefon
030 • 75 50 30 www.ufafabrik.de

The father of the gods has given you kingship, such is your destiny, everlasting life is not your destiny.

In other words, Enkidu is telling Gilgamesh: You are a being unto death. What are you going to make of your powers and your impermanent existence?

In general, Enkidu has two suggestions for Gilgamesh, and that is, as king, he should not abuse his power, and he should deal justly with those under him:

[The father of the gods] has given you power to bind and to loose . . . But do not abuse this power, deal justly with your servants in the palace, deal justly before Shamash.

This is all well and good as general advice, but what, exactly and specifically, should Gilgamesh do as an impermanent being unto death?

This is where, I think, the Epic of Gilgamesh should be more broadly recognized as a marker to humanity's first existentialist musings, for it is here, at the beginning of Part 2 of the Epic, that we get some of the first really sustained reflection on the human problems of idleness, boredom, emptiness, vanity, and nihilism.

Typically, when we think of the literary precursors to 19th and 20th century Existentialism with a capital "E", from Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard to Sartre and Camus, we reach back to the Bible, and the mooning about of the author of Ecclesiastes:

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (1.2)

But the author of the Gilgamesh Epic is equally saavy as to what, ultimately, bedevils Enkidu and Gilgamesh, and drives their quests: the problems of human emptiness and purpose.

Take Enkidu. Enkidu was, at one time, an unreflective animal-like being, innocent, and living in wild Nature. But by Part 2 of the Epic, slowly, gradually, he has become a being of experience. He is reflective, civilized, and now dwells in the city of Uruk with Gilgamesh. In short, his growing consciousness and contact with civilization has both enfeebled his body and set him into an existential crisis of purpose:

The eyes of Enkidu were full of tears and his heart was sick. He sighed bitterly and Gilgamesh met his eye and said, 'My friend, why do you sigh so bitterly?' But Enkidu opened his mouth and said, 'I am weak, my arms have lost their strength, the cry of sorrow sticks in my throat, I am oppressed by idleness.'

Long before there was Shakespeare's Hamlet mooning about his father's castle, there was Enkidu mooning about Gilgamesh's Uruk.

For Enkidu, as for all overconscious, Hamlet-like humans, idleness and the dilemmas of choice threaten to open a vacuum of purposelessness, and a recognition of one's ultimate mortality and nothingness. Enkidu, made too comfortable in Gilgamesh's Apollonian city of Uruk, is, like the author of Ecclesiastes, wasting away. Gilgamesh, observing this, has a revelation. Human life, if it is not to fall into despair, needs purpose and action:

It was then that the lord Gilgamesh turned his thought to . . . the Land of Cedars . . . He said to his servant Enkidu, 'I have not established my name stamped on bricks as my destiny decreed; therefore I will go the the country where the cedar is felled. . . . [W]here no man's name is written yet I will raise a monument to the gods. Because of the evil that is in the land, we will go to the forest and destroy the evil; for in the forest lives Humbaba whose name is 'Hugeness,' a ferocious giant.'

Enkidu and Gilgamesh cutting down and taming a forested land, imperially building a new city with Gilgamesh's name stamped on every brick, raising a monument to the gods, and fighting the evils and terrors that lie outside the new city's walls---this is enough purpose and activity for any two mortals seeking to fill up their time as beings moving towards death.

But are all these renewed Apollonian ambitions enough? Do they, ultimately, satisfy? The Epic seems to answer in the negative. When Enkidu dies, for example, Gilgamesh perceives the ultimate vanity of the trappings of success:

This way and that he paced around the [death] bed, he tore out his hair and strewed it around. He dragged off his splendid robes and flung them down as though they were abominations. (from Part 3)

Perhaps the most haunting scene in all of the Epic is in Part 2, where Gilgamesh cries out to the father of the gods, Shamash:

O Shamash, hear me, hear me, Shamash, let my voice be heard. Here in the city man dies oppressed at heart, man perishes with despair in his heart. I have looked over the wall and I see the bodies floating on the river, and that will be my lot also. Indeed I know it is so , for whoever is tallest among men cannot reach the heavens, and the greatest cannot encompass the earth.

Like the Buddha, who, as a young prince, leaves his parent's palace and sees, for the first time, an old man, a sick man, and a dead man, so Gilgamesh must have his encounter with the dead bodies floating in the river, and think about that.

Those dead bodies floating past in the river of time are what haunts, and drives, Gilgamesh.

Anfangen ist leicht, beharren eine Kunst.

Here's an excerpt of the word:

somewhenotodayoundressomecologicalinenumerousexyeslowillingnesshotstr-angereactioneglectabulationumberightonightomorrowidoweremembersufficien-togethernessobviousoomphilariousayourselforeasonablexplorerideseriouservan-twinklechoingoosevenowomeneedoorbellikelectricalamplantingoverockslightly-ellowelluminousportuitionevereoccupiesilentouringadderoastsalmonearlyowlec-habitationationalizespecialegornamentitartanomineejectwolivesubjectwentiet-hypertextransformereappearstaticrazyoungsterunearbyachtoo...eddingown

Cover image of The Blah Story, Volume 19:

The word was coined using simple algorithm:

Apparently Tomm's neological method (or is it madness?) is to string together words where the last letter of one word is the same as the first letter of another. So "somewhennotoday" comes from "somewhen", "not", and "today" (with the common first and last letters reduced to one character). (read more)

Moreover, the word contains all previously known longest words (page numbers where these words can be found in The Blah Story, Volume 19 book are given):

• lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphio-paraomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryo-noptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon (4 page);
• taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu (53 page);
• pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (103 page);
• pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (153 page);
• floccinaucinihilipilification (203 page);
• antidisestablishmentarianism (253 page);
• honorificabilitudinitatibus (303 page);
• aldiborontiphoscophornio (353 page);
• chrononhotonthologos (353 page);
• bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonn-thunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk (503 page);
• supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (803 page).

Want to hear this 3.6 million letters word live? Then listen to the robot: 

P.S. All The Blah Story, Volume 19 can be downloaded for free from Nigel Tomm's Amazon page.

Longest Words in English Top 14:

• Longest Word in English No. 1
• Longest Word in English No. 2
• Longest Word in English No. 3
• Longest Word in English No. 4
• Longest Word in English No. 5
• Longest Word in English No. 6
• Longest Word in English No. 7
• Longest Word in English No. 8
• Longest Word in English No. 9
• Longest Word in English No. 10
• Longest Word in English No. 11
• Longest Word in English No. 12
• Longest Word in English No. 13
• Longest Word in English No. 14

¿Recuerdas la primera vez que nos vimos? Un abrazo selló nuestro saludo, un beso en la mejilla marcó una posibilidad un tanto descabellada… pero por la fe que le conferí a tus manos, pensé que era oportuno soñar otra vez… ese calor se me escapa ahora que escribo, y es que tu ausencia imprime en mi alma vivísimas cicatrices que iluminan mi obscuridad…

En la incertidumbre estuve sumido durante mucho tiempo, en esos días de soledad descubrí la verdad de muchas cosas… esos días marcaron mi futuro, me hicieron ser lo que ahora soy… y es que de verdad no guardo rencor alguno contra tu persona, es más, me hallo grandemente agradecido, porque gracias a ti cambié ciertas actitudes nocivas.

Antes evocaba tu imagen a cada instante, tal vez hasta jugábamos a Romeo y Julieta en algún sueño… pero te confieso que poco a poco, desde la última vez que nos vimos, las únicas veces que logro encontrarte, es al tomar café. Tu silueta se dibuja en la superficie vaporosa de esa bebida deliciosa, ese aroma a misterio lo llevo impreso en mi memoria, todo un universo se halla contenido en una simple taza de café…

A los días perdidos aún trato de encontrarlos, no sé la razón de su abandono, ¿dónde estarán? En los estáticos textos de mis prosas, escritos pretextos a mis actitudes, creí poseer miles de cosas, pero sólo eran polvo en ataúdes… y pedí perdón por errores que nunca cometí, todo fuera a salud de tu persona… quise hacer el mundo a tu medida, eso no se consigue en media vida…

Un poco de llanto adornará este triste documento, que sea testigo de un breve tormento. Siete pares de iris presenciaron el desempeño de dos individuos en una obra titulada “Amor”, resultó ser una tragicomedia con largas horas de sopor… ¿qué hacer si se juntan una femme fatale y un casanova?

Me está doliendo un corazón que no precisamente poseo, estoy sintiendo todos sus vuelcos y acelerones… ¿dónde quedó el mío? Meditabundo vago por unas calles viejísimas, tomando el café que te comentaba, en mi taza flotas dibujada, como tímida alma en madrugada…

Esos días de amor están ausentes de las páginas de la vida, las que siempre fueron un cúmulo de posibilidades, sabrá Dios si serán realidades… los caminos que tomamos son muy distintos, pero recordemos que siempre existen las encrucijadas… ¿nos volveremos a encontrar?

Mientras el hilo de ese futuro se teje en el manto del presente y aunque mis manos se congelen de frío por soltar las tuyas… te mando el abrazo que nos quedó de la primera vez que nos vimos, y el sentimiento del beso que nunca nos dimos... y valientemente y de todo corazón te digo: “Adiós amor mío”…

Intendo dire che è davvero una bella storia, una delle più belle che abbia letto da tempo. Che invidia: possibile che non l’abbia scritta io?

Uno dei miei giochi preferiti è costruire delle frasi e poi spacciarle per versi di Shakespeare. In fondo chi ne conosce così a fondo l’opera da potermi contraddire? Mi scuso con te, mio aedo, non volermene. “Il sogno di una notte di mezza estate” incanterà sempre chi lo legge trascinandolo nelle atmosfere oniriche così ben dipinte dai tuoi versi.

Comunque che invidia, per questa storia che non ho scritto io.

C’è un uomo che possiede un pappagallino. Ci tiene tanto. Anche perché è la sua compagnia, per così dire. Un giorno, mentre gli parla, gli salta in mente di dire: “Ehi, Bob, bella la vita, eh? Sai che ti voglio proprio tanto bene?” e nel frattempo rimugina sorridendo la sua grande idea. Gli si avvicina e gli sussurra: “ok, sono pronto ad esaudire tre dei tuoi più grandi desideri”.

Quindi con gesto solenne gli apre la porta della gabbietta.

Bob non crede ai propri occhi ed esce svolazzando per la casa, tutto contento. Dopo un paio di giri larghi finisce per atterrare sul davanzale della finestra, chiusa. Fra lui e la libertà c’è solo un vetro.

L’uomo lo guarda, sorride e apre la finestra. Ecco che Bob ha realizzato il suo desiderio numero due: Bob è libero.

Però Bob sta fermo un attimo, ci pensa su e infine torna felice dentro la gabbietta.

L’uomo non si perde d’animo e per nulla deluso lo guarda e infine osserva: “bravo Bob, questo è il miglior modo che abbia mai visto di esprimere tre desideri. Il terzo è avere sempre qualcosa da desiderare ancora”.

A me piace, che volete che vi dica?

Naturalmente le letture sono due, e non casualmente, si contraddicono negli esiti. La prima è quella  ovvia e che ha colpito anche me: in effetti guai a chi si dovesse mettere nella posizione di non poter avere nulla più da desiderare. Occorre tenersi stretti, ma proprio stretti ai propri sogni.

L’altra è il converso: l’uccellino non riesce a pensare cosa significa essere libero, libero completamente. Libero, in questo caso, anche dai propri sogni.

Ci sono sogni di cui occorre liberarsi, per quanto belli, perché sono sogni che si sono sognati in una gabbia e di essa hanno la forma.

Grazie, mio aedo.

“Seguirei la tua ombra, se tu la gettassi, mio amore”

Shakespeare

                                 -- oscar wilde, the importance of being earnest

my dear, i agree with wilde's sweet cecily

that hopelessly is rather not the right word

shall i be like othello, loving not wisely but

too well?  or like the duke of orsino, so sick

of olivia's rejections that he desired excess

of melody in order to kill the thing, his love?

high literature and music hold scores of

star-crossed lovers up for public adoration --

but ill-fated tragedy is not my style.  on the

day you take my hands for eternity, kissing

my fingers with the glittering, infinite band,

my heart shall at last sing its song for you:

i love you wisely and also well -- sanely,

passionately, devotedly, hopefully, my love

growing with each note of harmony swelling

in my heart, the reasons for loving you more

inexplicable and mysterious than the stars

this is not a question of giving back double

what i was given and then separating at trouble

but instead a union so complete as to make

removal or dissolution impossible beyond death

this is how i will love you, not in the words of

the greatest poets and playwrights our world has

known, but in simple, straightforward truths.

Check this quote out:

The problem is that popular culture gets all the newspaper column inches, all the radio and television time, all the psychic energy. I have nothing against pop culture, but I do have a problem with the level of "high culture" illiteracy and ignorance and indifference I see all around me. It's OK to listen to a lot of pop music. It's OK to read manga. It's OK to be able to quote The Simpsons or Desperate Housewives (well, maybe that's not really OK!!!), but it's a tragedy never to have listened to (I mean intensely devotedly humbly immersed yourself in) Bach's D-minor Chaconne, Mozart's Symphony number 40, Hadyn's middle string quartets, or Beethoven's late quartets, If we took one tenth of the time and energy that we spend surfing the Internet and simply spent it reading Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida or Antony and Cleopatra, or Joyce Carol Oates's Will You Always Love Me?, we would learn so much more. We would grow new brain cells and grow them in directions we never will in any other way. Three things stand in the way of this path of growth: First, our natural laziness and slacker attitudes towards life (what the church used to call "original sin"). Second, the thing I mentioned at the start: the propaganda machine of the mass media, which screens out and blocks the view of these more complex and more demanding forms of experience so that they can sell, sell, sell (never forget it's always about the money in our culture) you something: movie tickets to a junky Zohan movie, a product pitched by the advertising on the television shows, an ad link on an Internet site, or something else. Those two things are out of my control, but the third thing that keeps people away from Bach or Oates or Shakespeare is not: It is a wholesale failure of the educational system to educate and inspire a generation of students with a vision of the possibilities of art. When colleges and universities show movies "students want to see" or organize courses around popular TV shows or incorporate the trash of the Internet into the curriculum, they are denying students their legacy. It takes a lot of knowledge and effort and learning to be able to grapple with Shakespeare or Mozart -- or Cassavetes or Bresson! The students are being denied the opportunity to obtain that learning. The universities are conspiring with the culture of sales and hucksterdom rather than offering a way out of it. That is the story of American education in the arts and humanities. And it's a tragedy. If the students understood how they are being cheated, they would be picketing in the streets.

RC

Still, there are different kinds of dystopia. Forced to choose between the societies of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, the latter is unequivocally preferable: it's certainly warped, but compared to the inescapable brutality of Orwell's London, Huxley's alternative of sex, clones and soma looks like a candyland. In books like Scatterlings and Obernewtyn, Isobelle Carmody's dystopia hinges on a struggling, semi-agrarian, post-nuclear holocaust world, where technology is elevated to the level of magic (and where actual magic makes an appearance, too). Unsurprisingly, the most popular dystopia is also the kindest, stretching to the borderlands of straight sci-fi. To paraphrase Joss Whedon's summary of his comic, Fray, this version of the future is much like everyone else's: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there's flying cars. These four variations more or less encapsulate the different subgenres of dystopia: political warning (Orwell),  what if (Huxley), neo-feudalism (Carmody) and same-but-worse (Whedon). Creatively and imaginatively, it's the latter two which hold the most sway; and with examples like The Fifth Element and Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, it's easy to see why. 

Because for all it hinges on distruction, dystopia can be devilishly joyful. We savour it, not sadistically, but because it represents the ultimate escapism: seeing the rules and restrictions of our own society wrecked, inverted and removed. Just as children fantasise about blowing up their school, adults fantasise about society crumbling - not out of anger or a desire to hurt, but simply because they, like their younger counterparts, don't always want to attend. On this base level, dystopia is the glee of impractical opportunism: without actually having to live through a cataclysm, we thrill to imagine what role we'll take in the new order of things, or wonder how that order might arise. Although the characters struggle, the audience doesn't: instead, we live vicariously through survivors of a world which would most likely break us.

We're funny like that.

Since Huxley's novel, brave new world has become synonymous with an ironic, stunted dystopia, drained of hope: we hear the phrase, and any laughter is mocking. But Huxley was quoting Shakespeare, as his book makes clear: Miranda's lines from The Tempest. A naive girl raised on an unknown island, Miranda has never encountered villany or vice; and when finally confronted with the prospect of other people - schemers, drunkards, sages and politicians all - she is overjoyed.  'Oh, brave new world/that has such people in't!'  Here, then, is the ultimate source of Huxley's cynical title, and a perfect metaphor for dystopia: beautiful youth embracing a more treacherous future than it can possibly realise.

Which is why, in another dystopian in-joke, the Reaver-world in Joss Whedon's film Serenity is called Miranda. Meta-cathartic, ne?

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

There to meet with Macbeth.

I don't imagine there's anything all that weird about the three of us.  It's a canny, if not predictable parallel to draw, when looking at the triad of wild, witty, winsomely withered crones, that we might well grow old, as these, and wise and waft with wind and water in the world with the winks of every 3 girls in time who've ever sat around with a cup of something hot, or a glass of something cold, smiled slyly, looked at each other, and said nothing.

We meet when the storm's a brewing, and thundering and pouring, and we meet when the hustle-and-bustle dies down and we meet in places where, if only in metaphor, warm fires cackle and smoke of home.

We know. And that's where the spooky connection is. It is weird.  Or maybe it isn't, when you contemplate that we've known each other for a collected total of about 35 years, that every time the stars align, and we are in the same place, at the same time, there is very little catching up, and things always begin again exactly where they paused before.

And we pause. And it's okay. We disappear, we fuck off on each other, we don't call, we don't write, we forget, we miss each other for months and weeks and years, and miss each other's big days, don't meet new loves, forget about old ones. We're awful. We've drunk dialed, prank-called, turned up, avoided, tracked down, saved and endangered each other, moved in, moved away, grown up, grown apart, stuck together, and have everything, and nothing in common at all. Maybe we'll peek into each other's lives, this way. We'll mundanely exchange recipes. Virtually cry on shoulders. Catch bouquets a distance and learn about where we've been and what we're thinking.

There once was a time when N and C would sit down, about once a year or so, and plot out our lives so far, our hopes at the time, our history, our favorite silly gossip, and save the snips in a file marked timecapsule. The files may or may not be on a floppy disc at the bottom of N's toolbox, which no one has the technology to access. Floppy Drives. Is it too soon to date ourselves? There was also a time when K ran away to Acadia to study and she and C maintained a snail-mail correspondence in a journal which has perhaps been lost to time.  Call this a combination of both efforts, and hope that it's more effortless.

Some of the other children I remember being in this class were: Billy Wootton who was quite a big lad and the only boy in the class who wore long trousers, a sign in those days of an "older boy". Girls, of course, never wore trousers. There were also:  Jean Vaisey, Beryl Doe, Kenny Rice, John Harris, Dennis Virgin and two girls, whose surnames I forget, but were called Mavis and Myra. I'd love to hear from any of these, or any of their relatives.

It was the ambition of a lot of boys to go to West Mon and, each year, about 400 hopefuls would turn up at the school in fear and trembling to sit the three exam papers: English, maths and general intelligence. The girls, who wanted to attend the Girls' County School at Penygarn sat a similar exam. The results of these exams, in order of merit, were always published in The Free Press. Approximately the top 90 boys would be accepted to enter the school and there were scholarships awarded to the five top boys in the exam; this meant that they did not have to pay fees. The rest of us had to pay fees, but they were reasonably small. After I had been at West Mon for a couple of years, all fees were done away with, I presume as a result of the 1944 Education Act.

The teacher in charge of the top class at Town School was Mr Petty (I think his name was Frank) who lived in Griffithstown. He was a slim, tall, angular man, with a very business-like stride and was a good disciplinarian. He was a member of St Hilda's Church, Griffithstown. I recall some parents saying that, when the new head had been appointed, they thought Mr Petty would have had the job. In the event, J.P. Lewis was appointed.

Mr Petty was the finest and most effective teacher I had in the whole of my school days and I owe him a deep debt of gratitude. I marvelled at all he knew; no matter what the subject was, he seemed to know all about it. I was rather like the "rustics" in Oliver Goldsmith's poem "The Village Schoolmaster" when he says of them:

"And still they gaz'd and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew."

Mr Petty gave me a real love of the English language and literature which has grown throughout my life. Some of the lessons he taught were quite advanced for children of ten and eleven. For instance, we read Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", parts of Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" and "John Halifax, Gentleman" by Dinah Craik. He also taught us the parts of speech and the structure of the English language and how to parse sections of the books we read. We spent hours sorting out the  subject, predicate and object of sentences and learning when and how to use relative pronouns etc. We also had a small class library where we could choose a book to read on our own when we had silent reading. I remember I chose H.Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines". Punctuation was also taught and I remember him reading a passage from "The Pickwick Papers" to illustrate how Dickens wrote really long sentences by using semi-colons. I was fascinated. Spelling of course featured very strongly in our lessons and Mr Petty would often organize a spelling B, which I loved.

Not only did we read a lot of poems, we had to learn some of them off by heart also. Mr Petty patiently explained how a poem was constructed and he would give us exercises in splitting the lines into feet with accented and non-accented syllables; he also explained about rhyming patterns. He then encouraged us to try to write our own poems. On 1st March each year we celebrated St David's Day with a sort of mini-eisteddfod. We looked forward to that as we always had the afternoon off. One year he organized a competition to write a poem about Pontypool Park Lake. I remember spending hours trying to get the right meter and rhyming but, eventually, I managed to write two verses and was thrilled when Mr Petty awarded me first prize. It was a little paperback book about a mouse family. I remember the words of my first poem still:

I took this photograph in 1947, my last year in Pontypool

"It nestles in a leafy glade
Which nature in her wisdom made.
Upon its banks stand gnarled old trees
Whose branches tower amid the breeze.

Like sentinels they stand on guard                                 
As if most jealous of their ward,
And on its silvery waters cast
Their cool refreshing shade."

That's it! It's not Wordsworth is it? But, I suppose, it's not too bad for a ten-year-old.

Maths was the other important subject, although we called it "arithmetic". Those were the days of "The three Rs". It was a much more difficult subject then because nothing had been decimalised. There were 4 farthings in a penny, 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. In length there were 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 22 yards in a chain, (where we get the cricket pitch length from), 10 chains in a furlong and 8 furlongs in a mile. Consequently long multiplication and division were a real nightmare. We also did mental arithmetic using short methods, many of which I still use today.

Lessons on general intelligence we had once a week and these were taught by the headmaster himself, Mr J.P. Lewis, who devised a set of rules which we had to learn and chant. These showed us how to answer some of the questions.

For our English lessons we used a few times a week a blue book containing exercises in English comprehension. Each chapter contained a section of a book, or perhaps a poem, followed by questions about it. Mr Petty was so keen on us doing well at this that he wrote out his own book by hand on wax stencils, ran them off on a Lion Menucator, bound them in brown paper and fastened them together by punching all the sheets with holes and threading string through. He must have spent hours doing this. He produced over 30 books with something like 50 pages each. As we approached the exam time, I remember he arranged for those of us entering the exam, to go to school at 8.30 instead of the usual 9.00a.m. to have an extra lesson. Now that's what I call dedication.

PROVINCETOWN — When Molière's "The School for Wives" premiered in Paris on Christmas 1662, it was found "wanting in sound morality and undermining the principles of religion."

Whatever — it remains a funny story, and Shakespeare on the Cape tells it well. This is a highly professional troupe founded by former students from the University of Minnesota's Guthrie Theater program. Molière's players toured the French provinces for 11 years before becoming a smash hit at the court of Louis XIV. Shakespeare on the Cape, in its fourth year here, is, happily, on a much faster track.

On opening night, the company actually took advantage of the in-your-lap tight quarters of the Schoolhouse Gallery to show us a triumph of stage presence. In comedy, it's especially tempting fate to work close up. But here the company's training and stage discipline carry it off.

Elliot Eustis plays the scheming husband, Arnolphe. He's on stage just about constantly, a near-impossible demand for comedy lead, but Eustis has the talent and stamina to manage it. Not only has he mastered pace and sets it for the cast, he's been well directed by Eric Powell Holm, co-founder of the company.

The Schoolhouse performance space is a bare room with about 60 chairs arranged along three sides. Acting broad and bumptious farce, from lapel-gripping distance at eye level in a small room, is working the high wire without a net. Only scarier. But this young rep company carries it off with sheer energy in body language and voice along with what was obviously meticulous rehearsal.

Explosive performances are turned in by Daniel Jimenez as the lover and Ariel Dumas as the servant girl. You'll want to remember those names so someday you can say, "Why, I saw him/her before ..."

The bride-to-be is played in drag with a comic touch that nearly breaks up the show by Ben Griessmeyer. He is joined with smoothly professional performances by Jake Ford, Amanda Fuller and Whitney Hudson.

Even if you're neither a comedy buff nor married you'll want to go see what a professional company can do when it masters the art. The company has 11 more performances scheduled for the Schoolhouse Gallery and three performances slated for August at Cotuit Center for the Arts.

ON STAGE

What: "The School for Wives"

• Written by: Molière
• Presented by: Shakespeare on the Cape
• When: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Tuesday and July 26; Aug. 2, 9, 12, 16, 23 and 30; Sept. 6 and 13
• Where: WOMR/Schoolhouse Gallery, 494 Commercial St., Provincetown
• Tickets: $28 adult, $23 students with ID
• Reservations: 508-487-7377
• When: 8 p.m. July 15, 22 and 29
• Where: Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Route 28
• Tickets: $20 adults, $10 students with ID
• Reservations: 508-428-0669

Shakespeare reverses the thought process of loosing someone, gradually introducing the death and then the shock of what happened, rather than the shock of loosing someone and the gradual striving to justify keeping memories. Horatio embodies these memories by recounting the story of the valiant ghosts (previous King Hamlet) life, "At least the whisper goes so." This narrative technique is typical of Shakespeare, allowing the audience to meet the characters and then delving into their back story, much like how Prospero retells the story of how he and Miranda came to the Island in The Tempest. This retrospective approach recurs when the truth of the matter being retold becomes twisted, either deliberately or innocently by the characters memory. This creates a sense of foreboding; the ambiguity of their recollection places your trust into question and rotten becomes more like a state of mind implying that something is very wrong, or to the degree's of rotten, not quite right. Thankfully, this vacillating is validated by Barnardo who isn't even entirely sure the ghost is the King, "I think it be no other but e'en so."

Interestingly, the intensity of feeling that something is missing, or more so, that something is "like a guilty thing upon summons" is confirmed by the most awkward situation in the early parts of the play. This is of course referring to the sudden marriage between Cladius, the now King of Denmark, and Hamlet’s Mother, Gertrude; this, as certain people point out, is not incestuous by any literal means, however most English Literature students agree that the holy matrimony between the two characters is not, for all intensive purposes, of a proper disposition, “A little more than kin, and less than kind.” At this point, there is no longer a sense of foreboding, the issues of rotten memories and traumatic experiences dissipate with a “Flourish” as Cladius commands and dominates the court room with little remorse, instantly launching into respite from the memories of the past, contrasting the woe with the joyful, “The memory be green…In equal scale weighing delight and dole.” Shakespeare teases the scene with similar distaste, contrasting the pace with which the Kings speech is delivered to the tones of silence and besides the point responses, the unexpectedness of this sudden transition feels twitchy and constructed, as if the whole incident had been expected itself.

The audiences suspicions are obviously not unfounded as they become personified through young Hamlet, who besides being the most relatable character, also happens to be the most fluently eloquent. Hamlet’s retrospective speech in Act 1 Scene 2 is the single most important speech in the early parts of the play, possibly the entire play. The first thing that is striking about his language is its ability to erode away at the surface of the scene, to resonate so deeply with feelings of despair and isolation as the speech decomposes in front of you, “sallied flesh would melt… ‘gainst self-slaughter.” The words gradually begin to embody the mood of the scene, gradually and monotonously rotting away at the underlying thoughts in your head about each and every character, “How weary, flat, stale and unprofitable,” punctuated by the exclamations of “O God” and “fie!” that fracture Hamlets sentences into sharp splinters, each one pronouncing something different, but combined as a whole to condemn not only the unrighteous, but himself, “I must hold my tongue.”

This is taken a step further, creating very potent and literal imagery about the decline of a garden, doomed even from its conception, “’tis an un-weeded garden… Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.” This metaphorically is typically seen as social disorder, but on a larger scale it could indicate Hamlet’s infuriated state of mind that his fathers’ death is being treated with so little respect, and this is therefore the wrong social order of things. However, with the inclusion of the line “That grows to seed,” it could mean he has a greater hatred towards “such dexterity to incestuous sheets”, possibly a marriage that was contrived, and as much as we like to believe the most relatable character is noble, the initial presumptive age difference suggests his emotions get the better of him, “O most wicked speed!” and this becomes even more poignant as your realize that Hamlet has established his roots as a older man.

What solidifies Hamlet’s speech as an embodiment of rotting society, besides its emphatic passion, is his willingness to condemn his own mother, “a beast that wants discourse of reason”. Later on in the passage, he references his father to Hercules, the son of a god renowned for slaying beasts with his almighty strength, possibly indicative of either the future plot of the play, killing her before she killed him, or merely an expression of his anger. From the entrance and conversation with Horatio, it appears that the first speculation would be true as the conversation is abrupt and questioning, “Armed, say you? ... What looked he – frowningly?” meaning even as anger, humility and pride blind him, Hamlets is either desperate, or looking for answers, “I will watch tonight.” However, this collected tone contradicts his passion, making the audience question Hamlet’s motives; the speed of which his replies spill from his mouth reflect the “wicked speed” of his mother, which simultaneously implies something rotten.

Rotten is a provocative word to use to describe part of a play, especially when its such a diverse adjective, however Shakespeare, possibly through experience, embraces it.