symbolismwillbethedeathofme

[symbolismwillbethedeathofme]

Self-Reflection

The most populous tags are “performance” and “women”.

I am very unsurprised by this list. I think that, as a woman interested in theatre and live performance, the two aspects of Elizabethan plays--and especially their intersection--are what I’m drawn to most.

I am still a bit shocked at the new way we looked at Romeo and Juliet this semester. I am not a fan of the play, and I have never tried to hide that, but there was one concept that really stuck with me, and I was surprised about how much it affected me: that the Capulets had to mourn Juliet twice. That’s a way I have never looked at the play, and though I have little sympathy for anyone in the play, this made Lord and Lady Capulet a little more sympathetic in my eyes.

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Index

List of tags:

shakeslondon

r+j

rant

faustus

performance

humblebrag

women

tis pity

acting

hamlet

hal

[symbolismwillbethedeathofme]

Henry IV, part 1

Shakespeare gets more creative in his misogyny. By placing Lady Mortimer on stage, with no understandable or written words, but still speaking, sends the audience a message: a woman’s words are not worth listening to.

Lady Mortimer does have lines, but they aren’t written. Instead, she is signalled to speak Welsh in the stage directions. This puts her at the mercy of the director and the choices they make for that scene and her character. For example, she could not speak Welsh, and just make random, Welsh-like sounds. She could also speak real Welsh, as modern productions choose to do. Either way, the majority of the audience will not understand her in a stage production unless they find some way to translate her words in real time. It is her physical acting--her facial expressions, her movements, and the tone of her voice--that indicates what she is saying.

[symbolismwillbethedeathofme]

Henry IV, part 1

There’s a way to read the Hal/Hotspur dichotomy as a retelling of the Prodigal Son. On the one hand, you have Hal, the prodigal son, who ignores his father’s wishes and wastes his life on hedonistic pursuits. He is a disappointment to his father, and strays completely from his path. On the other hand is Hotspur. While from a different father, he is everything Henry IV wanted Hal to be. In the eyes of Henry IV, Hotspur is the heir he needs. 

Just like the prodigal, Hotspur falls out of favor just as Hal comes back, and Hal reclaims his rightful position as heir in his father’s eyes, and Hotspur is tossed out, in no one’s favor.

[symbolismwillbethedeathofme]

Henry IV, part 1

Hamlet and Hal begin their journey as two princes in very similar situations: not ready to take the throne. But, while circumstances inspire Hal to step up to the role of heir, Hamlet is unable to do so.

Both of these young princes begin their respective plays very similarly: not ready to take the throne. Hamlet never expected his father to die so early, and Hal was not originally in the direct line of inheritance. But, with the death of Hamlet Sr. and the rise of Bolingbroke as Henry IV, both princes had to align themselves with their father and become the ruler they never wanted to be.

Hamlet, as we know, only manages to follow his father’s wishes for vengeance at the last possible minute, and dies because of it. But Hal manages to rally all seriousness within him, and becomes the heir his father needed.

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Tis Pity She’s a Whore

The difference in the ways the characters die in Tis Pity is much more subtle, prop-wise, than the way they do in R+J. In both plays, one major character dies of poison, but, in Tis Pity, the death is more focused on the words and acting of the character than on the weapon.

The effect of Hippolita’s death in IV.i relies entirely on her acting and words. Lines like “heat above hell-fire!” and “O my heart, My flame’s intolerable” and is a stronger depiction of death by poisoning than Romeo’s, where the entire effect is based on the bottle of poison he holds.

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Doctor Faustus

Why is Marlowe so terrible at pacing?

He spends the first two acts building up to this great moment: when Faustus is inspired by the Sins to perform devilish magic on earth. And then Act 3 is, in Text A, quite underwhelming. He goes all the way to Rome just to steal some wine and food from the Pope. At least in Text B, he sees the terrible Pope in action, and then begins his tricks. And there’s more than one trick, too. But it’s still not quite there. Act 4 is less great, still. He brings Alexander (Paris?) to the Emperor, but for no purpose but to delight him. He enjoys showing off his magic, but doesn’t do much with it. He gets nothing out of the deal. And then Act 5 begins with Wagner startling the audience with “I think my master means to die shortly,” with absolutely nothing indicating that in the previous scenes. Without those lines from Wagner, there would be nothing preparing the audience for the ending.

It seems that, for Faustus, the high point of play is the Latin summoning speech. That is when his intentions seem most direct, and the action is most captivating. All Faustus wanted was to summon demons, and practice necromancy, but he never planned what he wanted to do with such power. And it shows through in Marlowe’s writing, that maybe all Marlowe wanted to do was perform a summoning on stage, and then realized that he needed to fill four more acts.

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Doctor Faustus (kind of?)

Shakespeare’s earlier comedies, like Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, and Titus Andronicus, are very problematic when concerning their female characters. Silvia is almost raped, and then her assailant is forgiven by Valentine, her lover; Kate’s spirit is essentially broken through abusive and torturous behaviors by her husband, Petruchio, and his efforts are applauded at the end of the play; and Lavinia is brutally raped and tortured, but almost turns into a punchline by the end. The gender politics of these plays are terrifying and horrifying.

But, on the other end of the spectrum, Marlowe has one female character. Helen. She has no lines, and appears in one scene to be ogled at by four or five men, and then assaulted (and probably raped) as Faustus attempts to turn his soul fully to the Devil.

Shakespeare’s comedies have a balance of female characters, though, to balance out his mistreatment of the protagonists. While we have Silvia, there is also Julia, who, through cleverness and resourcefulness, disguises herself as a boy to get information about Proteus; and while Kate is terribly abused, Bianca outsmarts Tranio, and manages to marry Lucentio; and even though Lavinia’s agency is completely taken away by the middle of the play, Tamora is a worthy villain for the play, and extremely clever. And even the mistreated women, before their mistreatment began, did fall outside the norms for Elizabethan women.

Not to say this excuses Shakespeare of anything. His treatment of his female characters is still abhorrent, and whom he chooses to abuse in his plays speaks tons about his thoughts on “divergent” women.

I guess the question is: is it better to write women poorly, or not write them at all?

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Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus is a very sensory play. It toys with sights, sounds, and emotions in a way that Shakespeare often does not. But it also puts the entire play in the hands of the stagecraft.

The opening scene begins with Faustus shifting through books, signalling his academic prowess, and his acting would signal his ennui. But his words go on for days. His first monologue spans 65 lines, none of which are particularly grasping. It seems like a strange way to open a play, with one of the slowest moving sequences in Faustus. There seems almost nothing in it to draw the audience, except the acting, and the tone of voice. 

His second monologue, opening 1.3, is 35 lines, and, once again, begins very technical. It seems to carry over the feeling of the first scene, which is heavily academic and verbose, even after the arrival of Valdes and Cornelius. But it’s the way in which the stage is set, how the circle is drawn, how well the Latin is spoken, and how the effects for the arrival of Mephistopheles is announced, that draws the audience in. The entire effect of the play thus far relies entirely on the competence of the actor playing Faustus. If he has a weak voice, or a poor grasp of language and tone, the audience could lose interest entirely by the time the devils come onstage.

2.1, too, is entirely visual. While it is no longer dominated by Faustus’s lengthy monologues, he and Mephistopheles go back and forth on religious theory and legal documents. The truly interesting part is the visuals: the blood, the writing, the devils that enter with crowns and riches, and, once more, the acting. How the actor playing Mephistopheles delivers his speech on Hell (”Within the bowels of these elements…”), how Faustus worries that his body repels the contract (”Is it unwilling I should write this bill…”), how he reacts to Homo Fuge appearing on his arm… these are what draws the audience to this play. And, while an Elizabethan audience would have been more attuned to the language and style that Marlowe writes in, it is clear that it’s the performance of it that makes this play.

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Doctor Faustus - performance

Neither version of Marlowe’s play is cleanly cut and ready for performance, the way that Shakespeare tends to be. Which is where the dumb shows came into play.

As Asst. Director, I wrote in three dumbshows: one before II.i, which shows Faustus and Valdes (we cut Cornelius and merged him with Valdes) drawing the pentagram with chalk; one after II.i, which has Wagner erase the pentagram from the floor; and one between the end of IV.iii and V.i, which shows Faustus’s decline into death.

The third one is the one I’m most proud of, and the one that most affected the pacing of the play.

There’s a very shocking shift between the end of IV.iii and V.i (in the B text). The final scene of Act IV is very comedic, and, though it turns somewhat dark near the end, still ends on a positive note. And then, with no transition, Wagner enters with lines: “I think my master means to die shortly.” To make matters worse, up until that point, Faustus never really shows signs of decline, either mental or physical, which makes Wagner’s comment even more jolting.

This was the dumbshow:

It was designed to really show how Faustus retreats into his books and headspace since we last saw him in the Vatican (All of Act IV but the Vintner scene was cut). The scene, which lasted about 5 minutes, gave both the audience and the actor playing Faustus a chance to get used to the dark and angsty final act, and reminded the audience of the contract and the concept of time running out.

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Romeo and Juliet

There’s a feminism test for films called the Sexy Lamp Test. 

The test is, in the words of its creator: “If you can remove a female character from your plot and replace her with a sexy lamp and your story still works, you’re a hack.”

Paris is that sexy lamp.

His character appears in three scenes, and could easily be cut out of two of those scenes. And, if not, those scenes could be cut altogether. In the one scene where his presence is somewhat important, he could very easily be replaced by a well-dressed coat rack whose lines have been prerecorded.

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Romeo and Juliet: concept

Romeo and Juliet, but in the modern day. Romeo is a girl from a liberal family who don’t really care about her sexuality. However, she is recovering from a long standing crush on Rosaline, a straight girl. Romeo was devastated, and her friends take her to crash the 18th birthday party of Juliet, whose family is much more conservative and actively anti-LGBT.

This is the only way I can think of making Romeo’s whiny “friend zone” complaints reasonable. If Rosaline was a straight girl who led her on.

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Self-Reflection

The most populous tags are “what is madness” and “women and madness”.

I was very surprised to realize that some of my favorite books in this class were the more modern ones. I was expecting to prefer the classics like James or Poe over the more modern (or very modern) works. And I think the reason why is reflected in these two tags.

The more modern works we read were heavily focused on different types of madness. psychological disorders, cultural madness, and rational madness, far more than the older works did. And the focus on gendered madness within this discussion is even more fascinating. It offered such a different perspective into madness than the books that I’d read before this class.

[symbolismwillbethedeathofme]

Index

List of tags:

what is madness

metaphors

depression

angst

madness and intelligence

mood disorder

rant

classic

visions

hallucinations

art

artist

madness and creativity

bipolar

graphic novel

women and madness

hamlet

question

is hamlet mad

theatre

casual misogyny

protect ophelia

trauma

decisions

madness vs perception

reaction

schizophrenia

abuse of authority

obsession

archive of madness

van gogh

poetry

colors

death

abuse

freud

dreams

children

alice in wonderland

[symbolismwillbethedeathofme]

Fun Home

The books that Allison mentions her father reading probably aren’t too symbolic, literarily. If she only wrote him reading the books he actually read, then they shift in function from symbols to modes of therapy, a way that Bruce could see himself represented in art. But the repeated mentions of Camus and other existentialists reminded me of the scene in Six Degrees of Separation, where Paul says that most high profile murderers love reading Catcher in the Rye, or an interview with the director of Fight Club, where he says to never date a guy whose favorite movie is Fight Club. So, if the books that Bruce is shown reading the books he actually read, do our preferences in books and movies say something about ourselves, or our own potential madness?

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Alice in Wonderland

The final paragraphs of Alice in Wonderland are written from the mind of Alice’s sister, who is past this vividly imaginative state of childhood. She dreams of Wonderland, but sees Alice there instead of herself. 

This is almost pitiable, as she is no longer able to have that childlike imagination. But, if she were able to dream of Wonderland, would that be considered madness? If Alice’s sister had the same imagination as Alice did, would she be considered as having a connection to her childhood that many grieve over being lost, or would she be called mad, as not having grown up?

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Alice in Wonderland

“she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.”

The Queen of Hearts and Alice are two sides of the same coin. And this is best exhibited in the croquet scene. The Cheating Alice in the quote above becomes the Queen of Hearts, the woman Alice is afraid of growing up to be. And the Queen definitely does not  play fair. From ordering the soldiers around to be the arches and giving Alice a problematic flamingo, the Queen is setting herself up for a win (and she is extremely angry when she loses). These are behaviors that Alice sees in herself, and placing them in a distant, more aggressive character helps her see that.