Day 103: Cymbeline, by William Shakespeare (BBC 1982 film adaptation)

I'm revisiting Cymbeline as the date for my Shakespeare Certificate exam approaches, since my monologue is one of Imogen's speeches. I was hoping to see if someone else's approach to the lines might help me get over the block I've been experiencing - Sod's Law being all-knowing, the entire speech was omitted from this particular version. It did give me an interesting perspective on the character though (played by a very young Helen Mirrin) as almost entirely opposite to how I initially read her. I suspect part of the difference comes from the style of the production - the whole thing felt very melodramatically Shakespeare, rather than the naturalistic approach that seems to be more common in recent play adaptations. But more specifically, Imogen looked a lot less like the wayward heir type on screen as on paper, less angry and stubborn and more hurt and broken.

This has led me to think more about the character type I see in Imogen based on my reading, and I think possibly looking up the "Kate/Bob" episodes of Blackadder might be closer to what I had been hoping to do. It's all valuable research though - seeing it done in a way I hadn't considered and that doesn't feel right for me still means engaging and understanding why it doesn't fit. (I should add, I'm not saying it's a bad performance or even the wrong decision for the production, it's just different and not how I want to do it, and I'm in a position to make that decision for myself.)

Day 88: A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare

Right at the start of the project, I promised myself that my favorite Shakespeare play from my school days would be my birthday treat to myself. I have read the play before (though not since starting the project), seen several different versions performed including at least one film adaptation, and performed in it twice: once at school as a generic extra fairy (I don't remember exactly but I think we were given a few of Puck/Oberon's lines, since we were in his train) and again at university where I played Peaseblossom and also was dresser and costume design assistant to the fairies. I won't go into details but if most actors are superstitious of the Scottish Play, I feel like this is my particular cursed script. Something has gone dramatically wrong backstage both times, and I have been involved in sorting out both, and each time the audience were none the wiser (as it should be!). All that said, it remains my favourite play. I've made no secret of the fact I am drawn to fantasy when it comes to stories, books and films. It's rarer, it seems, to find a play that isn't a musical and has a fantasy setting. I did try to focus more on the lovers and court scenes this time, since most of my love for the play comes from the fairies plotlines, and the play-within-a-play. Part of that comes from how seperate the three groups of characters are through the play. To some extent they all interact with one another, but they feel more like three stories which could each exist almost entirely alone (if not for Puck, they basically would). Minor fairies don't share a stage with any of the courtiers (except perhaps right at the end, depending on how the wedding blessing is staged) and of the mechanicals only interact with Bottom. The courtiers encounter Puck, but no other fairies. The mechanicals perform at court, so that link is stronger.

I have been considering whether any monologues might be suitable for adding to my repetoire. I used Puck's last two speeches, cobbled together, as a monologue for a speech and drama exam at school, but for most drama school auditions character choice is limited to gender-appropriate (and some actively ban Shakespeare's more androgynous fantasty roles like Puck and Ariel) so I'm not holding much hope for that to come in handy, though I might use something along those lines for one of the RADA certificates later this year. My alternatives seem to be Titania or Hippolyta, since I'm probably somewhat older than might be suggested for Helena or Hermia.

Day 87: DOUBLE FEATURE! Romeo and Juliet (film adaptation based on Shakespeare's play) and Kindertransport, by Diane Samuels

Today was mostly spent travelling, including a ten-hour flight from London to Miami. I managed to pull myself away from several hours of re-watching old favorites (yay, on-demand videos! Makes a change from last time I flew to the US and they didn't have individual screens at all) to check out the most recent incarnation of Romeo and Juliet, as well as reading my chosen play for the day, Kindertransport.

I'll start with Romeo and Juliet. The film is billed as being based on Shakespeare's play since some of the language has been updated a bit, mostly when the people speaking are meant to be teenagers - the older generation tend to stick more faithfully to the original text. I've always shied away from modernisations, but the last time this play was brought to film in Baz Luhrman's version the setting was modernised leaving the script almost entirely intact and I really found it uncomfortable to watch. This was a complete joy, in contrast. The younger generation characters were played by actors much closer to those in the script than is usually the case, possibly combined with the slightly easier text this may have been intended to draw a younger audience into the story. There was also an unusual twist to the ending - the first kiss that Romeo gives the comatose Juliet actually wakes her up, so in his final moments of life, having already taken the poison, he not only sees that she is alive, but they very much share their final kiss goodbye and she watched him die in her arms. Utterly heartbreaking and a fresh take on the scene - most of the renditions I've come across she only wakes after he dies. That scene aside, the whole unfolding tragedy seems so much sadder with the characters played so young, the deaths that come from the various duels feel far more accidental in the hands of angry children who might just as well be playing at swordfighting, only happen to have live blades. Perhaps my being a little bit older has something to do with that feeling too, though.

Moving on, Kindertransport tells the story of a jewish girl sent out of Germany as a refugee in the late 1930s, and tracks her gradual but total naturalisation in England, leaving behind her entire heritage to such an extent that her husband and daughter don't know about it. The play is split between following the young Eva in her journey out of Germany to Manchester from the age of 9 through her teenage years, and the much older Evelyn, preparing her own daughter for university and leaving home and coming across books and letters from a past and now denied childhood. I read The Diary of Anne Frank (in original German) at A-level, which covers what the girl in this play was getting away from, and Goodnight Mr Tom much earlier, which gives some idea of (domestic) refugee children. The combination of the two was really something I hadn't thought much about before. I think I had it in my head that the German refugees fled to nearer continental countries like Austria, rather than winding up in the UK, so this is yet another play I feel like I've learned from (and also come away not entirely sure if I sympathise with any particular side of the arguments presented).

Day 75: Coriolanus (NT/Donmar Warehouse Live Simulcast)

Where to start? I'll leave aside the obvious (slightly fan-related) comments on the casting, and focus on the staging and delivery and how it was different to my initial reading. I'm certainly glad for having read it first and formed my own opinion and viewpoint for the play before seeing it done live, as it certainly would have coloured the reading of it had I gone about this the other way round. Adding a female Tribune rather than them both be male was an interesting twist which worked very well. I'm not entirely convinced that making them a couple was necessary, but it did lend an explanation as to why the characters are left somewhat indistinct from one another in the script. (I wonder how a similar change in say, the characters of Rozencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet might affect their dynamic.)

The minimal set and neutral, mostly-modern costumes allow the focus to be firmly on the actors and lines, and allow the audience's "imaginary forces" to join in. The intimate setting of the Donmar Warehouse seemed to lend itself to the cameras, and certain timely closeups certainly blurred the usually clear difference between stage and screen performances. It helps that at least half the cast are well-established screen actors, but I came to the realisation that simulcasts have really become a regular occurrance now, and that where last time I was a hopeful drama school applicant I made it clear I had no aspirations for film whatsoever, in five years that has become an almost obsolete ambition since landing a role with the National Theatre, RSC and several other companies comes with an understanding that you almost certainly will appear on the big screen at least once as part of a broadcast performance. I have also come to understand that smaller, more intimate theatres like the Donmar or the Traverse place actors close enough to their audience that those minute gestures and expressions which I'd previously considered only really useful to screen acting can still come across, and indeed are necessary elements when the stage show is being filmed.

The entire action was set at a much higher emotional pitch than I initially read into the script. That sense of manipulation that I mentioned in my previous post was still there, but Coriolanus sparking the fire that eventually killed him was played up much more, and the breakdown that comes with his family's pleading for mercy is a much faster effect than I originally saw. The finale was also a lot more gruesome, and fantastically well done. I will close with full encouragement to anyone who hasn't seen this production who has the opportunity (for the re-screening in a few weeks time, or if at all possible live) to go and enjoy. It's an allstar cast with excellent acting (and yet another check for the northern accent sounding SO much more native to Shakespeare) lots of blood, sweat and tears and unexpected dubstep music for the scene changes which worked far better than it sounds like it should.

Day 71: King Lear, by William Shakespeare (RSC 2008 film adaptation)

Between staying out later than intended on Saturday and not really having a handle on my sleep pattern post-caffeine yet, I wasn't entirely feeling up to the level of attention reading the play would have required. I found this online with the sort of cast I've come to expect from the RSC, and thus have something to show for the day. I'll admit I found the parallel plots a little bit hard to follow even in the synopsis, but the characters and their interactions put me in mind of a sort of veiled dry-run for Hamlet. The players are somewhat shuffled but the themes of madness, vengeance and family friction, ending in a very similar pile of bodies killed variously by poison, duel and suicide (and in this case, heartbreak).

In stark contrast to the other Shakespeare adaptations I've watched for this project so far, the set and staging for this one is minimal almost to the point of being replicable on a stage. The outdoor scenes are actually outside, but that aside, court scenes are laid out so that there is never a back turned to to the camera and we watch from a very theatrical-audience-like perspective with closeups being used very sparingly in the early scenes of the play. From the available interviews it seems this was a deliberate and specific decision, with the intention of placing emphasis on the script to carry the story and give the audience the same opportunity for imagination as a scantly-dressed stage production would.

I do intend on reading the script at some point, probably in the not-too distant future since I have it out from the library at the moment. There's certainly a good mix of female characters to choose from, and while none of them are leaping out as perfect for me the way Imogen did, Goneril seems to offer a lot of scope and challenge as a more mature and calculating character while still having a place in the younger generation of her family.

Day 60: Rehearsal Day for EAS audition

Under the new plan of five days of play-reading a week, taking the day before my audition "off" to focus on refining my speech seemed like a good idea. It took rather a lot of focus and coaxing to really get started, a slightly worrying trend I recognise all too well from my school and university days: I have a tendency to start new projects at a run, hit a lull where I'm ahead of the game and think I can relax, and then all but grid to a halt until I can see the looming deadline, and then cram whatever's left into the smallest possible amount of time. Mercifully I have an understanding friend willing to sit patiently providing tea and a sounding board to get all the other things on my mind out until I can actually start working, and then put me up for the night when we suddenly realise it's well after 11 and my outdoor gear is still wet from walking over in the rain.

There's a game we used to play as a warm up in my drama group at university which we called Directors from Hell (after the Hollywood Director sketches from Who's Line Is It Anyway) and after establishing that I knew the lines but was still playing very close to my chest, this was the obvious fix. I'd commented that I felt like I was working in a milk-crate (my friend has a VERY small lounge, and various clutter was giving me an unnecessarily small amount of floor space) which led to the first suggestion of doing the scene as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. As I tend to use my hands a lot in normal speech, anything that restricts my arm motion tends to very noticeably affect my recall. (Friends have occasionally found it hilarious to watch me, sitting on my hands and attempting any themed variation on "A is for Apple"... generally if I get further than C someone puts a stop to the "cruel torture", and I'm usually tapping a foot or similar just to get that far). This was followed up with Care Bears, which proved that I was aware of the moments of change of pace and emotion and got very silly and overdone rather quickly, and finally as Loki, which really didn't fit the script all that well but helped with finding some conviction and fire in what is very easy to read as a nervy and internalised speech.

I certainly still have a little bit of work to do in the morning once I've slept on it, but I feel like I've got a bit more control over what I'm doing, and have found my way back to some of the little tricks and instincts I had started to gather through school and uni performances.

Day 59: Coriolanus, by Willam Shakespeare.

Back to reading Shakespeare after a bit of a break and several film adaptations. Speaking of which, the plan is to see the National Theatre cinema broadcast version of this on the 31st, though Thursday's audition, if it goes well might come with the slight drawback that one of the early classes will clash with that. We'll see how things go.

The play seems to me to be almost more about how literally everyone is trying to manipulate a man who is basically famous for being a formidable soldier and not much else. His army let him charge the gates on his own, his friends talk the consulate into putting him in power, the Tribunes rouse the general public to call him out for treason before he's even accepted the seat, once exiled (very much with an air of "well if you can't make your damn minds up who needs you lot anyway") he forms an apparent aliance with an old enemy who OF COURSE plots against him behind his back, and when he comes back to invade Rome his family come to him to try to convince him not to burn down the city. Because putting a child (his son) who is just about old enough to know to "run away and then come back to fight when I'm bigger" in front of a hardened warrior who's just about had it with everyone is a really good idea. As it turns out, it works... to distract Coriolanus long enough from his fight for the conspirators in his new band to find him and kill him. If the character were particularly cocky about what he'd achieved in the wars, I'd think maybe that was the moral here... but he's not. He never really wanted the government position - he walked out of the meeting because he was embarrassed by his friend trying to "sell" him as a candidate and they chose him anyway. He did everything he could to throw the election day with the public and THEY chose him anyway (a point which was used as the spark for the rebellion pretty much as soon as he was out of earshot). I can't help but feel that the real tragedy here is that this was a man who was doing just great for himself until everyone around him started meddling, the whole thing spiralled and the final actual sword thrusts becomes pretty much lost in the general backstabbing that's been going on for most of the play.

This was not a quick read, and as much as I find myself getting distracted and feeling like it's a bit of a slog when a play takes the best part of the day to get through, I did enjoy the story. It feels a bit drawn out in places, but that only adds to the detail of just how many different groups and individuals seem to want a piece of the man over the course of the action.

Day 50: Henry V, by William Shakespeare (BBC Hollow Crown adaptation)

It's a surprisingly rare treat to see one actor play the character of Harry through all three plays, and the shift in character from Prince to King might be easily chalked up to a change in actor in other circumstances. On film, small expressions that might be lost on stage show up the spark of Hal that's still very much alive behind the toughened mask of suddenly-acquired leadership. It also allows flashbacks from moments in Henry IV which would lose impact if played by someone else. The famous speeches as well become much more intimate and personal (something explored in the Hamlet adaptation I reviewed early in this project).

I'm glad I kept this one in reserve a while and let myself explore a little more Shakespeare before coming back to cover it properly for the blog. There is so much to appreciate that might have been lost on me a month ago. Henry V was originally one of the first plays written for the newly-built Globe, and there are references to that in the introduction from Chorus. Having just finished working through The Age of Shakespeare by Frank Kermode, there's mention in there that Will Kempe, who had played roles like Dogberry and Bottom, left the company when the Globe opened, and I've found comment elsewhere that Falstaff's offstage death at the start of this play seems a little abrupt after the promise at the end of IV part ii that he would return. It doesn't seem much of a leap to wonder if he was written out of the work-in-progress for reasons of continuity.

While there are several famous speeches, mostly delivered by Henry himself, I find I'm drawn rather strongly to the opening Chorus of "O, for a muse of fire". On the surface it's pretty poetry, but the whole speech has enormous depth to it which I didn't fully appreciate the first couple of times I watched this, without the subtitled script turned on. It's certainly something to go back to. One of the things I'm looking into doing this year is the RADA Shakespeare certificates, which have the bonus of not requiring sticking to gender, which school auditions at the end of the year will. I'd thought to try something from Midsummer Night's Dream (especially Puck) but I'm certainly considering this one now.

Day 49: Saturday is Skills Day is BACK!

..and this time, it's rehearsing a monologue. Oh yes.

I have finally got some information out of Edinburgh Acting School as to what would be required to audition for the adult Performance class, and was told "a monologue of your choice". No indication of length, period etc but I figured it should be something I can refine and reuse for degree course auditions next year. Since I had already started looking through Cymbeline for material, I've chosen one of Imogen's speeches and started working on it.

I was sent a set of ten questions by an actor friend which act as a starting point to get into the head of the character, particularly for single speech/scene settings. I've gone through the list and found that as much as I felt that I liked Imogen as a character to start with, I have a lot more in common than I first thought, or at least have found a way to interpret how she's got to where she is in a way that's familiar (albeit on a different scale) to my own experience. I've also started to realise that there's a huge amount of conflicting emotion going on, and a lot of head-chatter, for Imogen during this particular section, and it's also the only time during the entire play that she doesn't directly have somoene looking out for her. That's a pretty scary position and one she clearly doesn't really want to admit scares her. She comments at one point in the speech that "Plenty and Peace breeds cowards: hardness ever of hardiness is mother"... as a way to psych herself up to explore a potentially scary and/or dangerous cave, but her demeanour and actions through the whole play show the reverse of this. She fancies herself as independent, even a little rebellious, but always with a safety net knowing she'll never really have to face "hardness". Her self-assured "hardiness", which is there from the outset, starts to crack just a little in the absence of that "peace and plenty". She complains about the conditions she's now found herself in, blames everyone she can think of for being lost and alone, and eventually spends 10 lines trying to get up the courage to explore the cave.

Day 38/39 - (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!) The Winter's Tale, by William Shakespeare

I'm not sure if it was the distractions of the season or something about the play itself, but I found it hard to follow the story in any detail as I was reading this. I definitely remember "doing" this one in English class at school, but don't recall much of the story from then either. A cursory scan of the notes (Arden Shakespeare edition) point to the play being a retelling, in some parts almost verbatim, of a romance story available in print at the time of writing called Pandosto.

Being so aware as I was reading that I wasn't really following the plot isn't necessarily a bad thing - as with every Shakespeare play I will revisit it later, hopefully at least once on stage, and what bits of the notes I read have me interested in learning more. As for what I did follow, There's a complicated story of a family split apart by jealousy, forbidden love, episodes of "rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated" and an eventual scene of reconciliation where everyone gets their happy ending. The plot skeleton isn't all that far removed from that of Cymbeline when broken down like that, and I've seen multiple references to many of his latter plays having a certain flavour.

I think I'd probably be remiss in writing a review of The Winter's Tale without mentioning that infamous stage direction involving a man rather suddenly (and conveniently, to the plot), being chased down and eaten by a bear. I suspect that the original story might have provided a little more explanation, or at least may have established that the area might be populated by bears. There's also the point that in Shakespeare's time bear baiting was a public spectacle almost as popular as the theatre, at least when he was starting out. There were several venues that actually hosted both, so it's not entirely impossible that they may have been able to get a real bear on stage.

Day 25: no play... but lots of information! (In Search of Shakespeare, and The Adventure of English)

Today for various reasons I failed to do any reading. However, I did find a few documentaries - one set was a series about the life of Shakespeare and the other a series about the development of the English language.

Firstly, I need to correct myself on some earlier comments. I talked about how I'd heard that Shakespeare was writing plays voicing concerns about succession and thought maybe that the "wayward heir" character he seems to often return to might have been in itself sending up a certain potential heir. Now that I've had a bit of a refresher course in English history that's probably not the case, since Queen Elizabeth didn't actually HAVE any direct heirs and the crown passed to a once or twice removed cousin when she died.

There's a really interesting story that the Earl of Essex in 1601 decided to try to lead a revolt, and to get the message out to the general populus of London persueded (through bribery, apparently) Shakespeare's troupe to perform Richard II including the deposition scene which until then had never been published or played thanks to the censors. As it turned out the revolt failed to take hold and the conspirators were caught and tried for treason... and in general the actors were let off after explaining they'd been paid rather a lot to do it. It's a pretty powerful anecdote of how much you can get away with on stage.

Shakespeare also seems to have had a bit of a double life as he had to keep his family religion largely secret, something which links many of his friends, sponsors and advocates through most of his career. His intelligence as an actor as well as a writer shows through in his survival through a huge range of atmospheres, from changes in national religion, through wars, cultural highs and lows, plague and the Great Fire, and an uneasy succession. I get the distinct feeling I'd oversimplified the time he lived through in my mind. Partly I didn't have a concrete idea of the time his career spanned, and I think when I last really looked at these things, in my early teens and uninspired by my teacher, I didn't really have a personal experience of how much a world can change in 30 years. I was 19 and packing to go to university in the week of the attacks of 9/11. I really didn't understand the events that had led up to that point, but I remember writing at the time that I knew history was being made.

I'll draw in something from The Adventure of English here - that several times throughout our history various people have made the assertion that getting everyone speaking the same language will bring peace, whether that's referred to homogenising the language across England, or teaching colonists, or natives. I think it's true that a common language allows for better communication, so we can ask questions first and shoot later. However, it does also mean we're more immediately understood in insults and differences. While there might be a lot of English speakers in the world, we're all still followers of a huge variety of religions, with a variety of allegiances and histories. To coin an ironic phrase, the cliché of the English hating the French becomes a little more understandable when you realise that they spent a lot of the 300 years or so of being rulers over here trying to abolish the English language.

Day 24: Richard II, by William Shakespeare (BBC Hollow Crown adaptation)

The first time watching this one, I really didn't get it. Now with a few more viewings (including the subtitles for today's attempt) I have a better feel for the play. My first observation is a rather petty one - Richard being dressed in a nearly skin-toned suit for most of the film was a little bit off-putting. That said though, it does add to the uneasiness about the character in general, certainly by the end everyone around him seems to be sick of the melodramatics. It's difficult to feel any sympathy for him - he seems determined to give up and flake out of almost every situation he finds himself, including apparently (if the script is taken at face value) deciding he's been deposed at the first sign that his decisions have been challenged. It's a fair conclusion to draw, as it turns out, but technically Bollingbroke only asked for his lands back, not the crown - that was offered in a rather defeatist act that Richard keeps up for the rest of the play. I get the feeling maybe he didn't really want to be king in the first place, it just sort of happened that way.

Interestingly, when Bollingbroke gets banished, Richard says of him that he basically tips his hat to everyone no matter how low-class, and seems to imply that he himself wouldn't do such a thing. Later in Henry IV part i, the King Bollingbroke is to become pretty much says the same thing about Richard, and claims to have kept himself rarely seen and shrouded in mystery. I may be picking on a tiny thing here, but I can't help but feel there's a rather large chapter missing in the middle.

Once again I find myself wondering how much I really missed at school with my developing blind spot for History and English. When I was in primary school I loved to read, got stuck into every project we were given and usually chose ancient civilisations whether or not the subject matter was limited to historical themes, developed an interest in other languages that stuck with me all the way through to A-levels and already had a blossoming interest in not only Shakespeare but Chaucer. I won a school prize at the end of primary school for general improvement and was allowed to choose a book as a prize - that year we'd been introduced to the Canterbury Tales and I asked for a copy, which came in the form of a beautifully illustrated modern translation. The deeper I get into rediscovering Shakespeare, as well as discovering the wealth of modern work out there, it's a little bit like stepping back a lot further than I realised I needed to go to find that I didn't always shy away from all this. It's overgrown and sleeping, but there was at one point a real spark for everything I'm working to reclaim.

Day 20: Henry IV, part ii, by William Shakespeare (BBC Hollow Crown adaptation)

Wrapping up the week where it started, with part two of Henry IV. As a play, the second installment feels rather more disjointed than the first, in particular Falstaff's thread of the story seems to get a lot of airtime when it's clear from the start Hal is already distancing himself from him. That does set up the final scene to be all the more heartbreaking, which is presumably the point. Prince John being given some very public authority seems to pass almost entirely unremarked by anyone involved - though in the interviews it's been hinted that some lines were cut in the name of timing for these adaptations and I wonder if that particular battlefield scene is explained any more deeply in the complete text. I certainly intend to come back and read these plays later in the year.

After yesterday's revalation of Imogen as a female role I can relate to, and now watching this, I realise I've been unfair in my assessment. The histories (particularly those covered by the Hollow Crown series) are of necessity "manly" plays, dealing with succession and war and suitably dutiful women (and occasional whores). In the same way, the romantic comedy plays are stories specifically about falling in and out of love and the female roles are mostly going to be primarily written for someone else to spurn, fall for or whatever. Anything we see of those women is probably going to be related to those storylines (though, I still maintain he's inherantly distrusting of women and is convinced we're all plotting to kill at least one person at any given time).

The deeper into this project I get, the more I wonder at how much I hated English classes at school. I'm finding myself totally drawn in to the language, remembering experiences, and seeing the world a little differently every day. And maybe that's why - most of the voices in Shakespeare are adults, with the experience of all those deep and complicated feelings like grief, pride, duty, honour - of which, when I was a kid, I had no real understanding. Even romantic love was something I didn't really experience myself until my mid teens. (That last was one of the many sticking points with the much-maligned English Teacher - she seemed to think everything in literature pretty much ever written was about sex - something that made me very uncomfortable when it was discussed in class when I was 12). And it's not just Shakespeare - pretty much every play draws on that experience and emotional maturity that can only really be understood by someone who's at least peripherally experienced something similar. Next week there will be one or two plays apparently written for children, and I'm interested now to see how that lack of emotional language and understanding is adressed.

Day 19: Cymbeline, by William Shakespeare.

As the one apparently often cited as the most overlooked for forgotten of Shakespeare's works, this was high on my list of plays to come to early in the year. I really enjoyed the story, and it's a refreshing change to have a happy ending and comparatively few deaths (though as I've half-joked about before, they are of course by duel and suicide respectively). The sudden divine cameo was a bit of a surprise, and thanks to my affinity for nerdy films I can only imagine Jupiter being played by Patrick Stewart or Anthony Hopkins (probably actually in the Odin costume).

I also find myself needing to re-evaluate my theory that Shakespeare doesn't write women I like. Imogen seems to very much know what she wants, and is willing to go to any length to get it. This is, as usual, in persuit of a man - and that has been part of my complaint, that Shakespeare's women tend to only be defined in relation to their suitors - but in this case she is also for most of the play in that misbehaving-heir position. The difference is in this case, brothers thought lost or dead are revealed right at the end thus freeing her up to go back to the man she loves and not be bound to the throne, something which would be almost impossible to explore as a storyline for a male counterpart. Imogen has some wonderful lines (and plenty of chunky speeches) making this a good play to earmark for further study and possible monologue selection.

A brief online search showed up a film adaptation due out in the new year sometime with Cymbeline (apparently in the original text/language) set as a gangland thriller. Not my usual fare in cinema (and I remember really disliking Romeo + Juliet taken in a similar vein) but I will probably see it once purely for being a Shakespeare adaptation. I'm not entirely convinced by hyper-modern settings of Shakespeare's plays when the language isn't accordingly updated. There is a happy medium - the sort of timelessly-modern setting such as Tennant's Hamlet (reviewed in an earlier post here) seems to work without the need for guns and car chases. Perhaps the deeply interwoven threads of story and layers of deception and revenge present in this one will stand up to the treatment better than Romeo + Juliet did. I can but hope.

Day 15: Henry IV, part i, by William Shakespeare (BBC Hollow Crown adaptation)

This is technically not a first viewing... in fact, it's the one that got me to start thinking about getting back into drama again. While in recovery from surgery, I came across the Hollow Crown series and I'll admit, approached them with mixed feelings. There's a lot of names I know and love in the cast of all 4 of these films, but I had never read or seen any of the plays before and had actively avoided engaging with any of the histories as a kid. I think that was mostly to do with not really liking History as a subject (I didn't like English as a subject much either but that was more to do with a teacher I've mentioned before, and my love of the theatre and performing pretty much got me through that).

What I found, as a first taste of these plays (I think I'd seen some clips of the more famous Henry V speeches and such, but not the whole thing) was nothing short of captivating. I can't really compare the adaptations to anything else, but from what I've found with various interviews and reviews I've watched over the last few weeks (and some of them again today) it seems that my impression of the reputation of those plays when I was at school and avoiding them for it still exists... or at least did until these films were made.

So, leaving aside the general comments about the series, I'll turn to the specifics of this play. I've talked about the "wayward son" character before and this is pretty much the showcase for that. Prince Hal does a lot of growing up through the course of this play, but it's actually pretty early that the first inkling that he plans to change his ways eventually shows itself - in this version it's a voiceover but he's talking about having fun and playing while he can knowing that the change will be noticed, and suggesting that being royal when the time comes will be all the more celebrated when his youth is there to compare to. Naturally that's precisely the opposite to what his father thinks as we later find out in a spectacular fight between two very talented actors. But they reconcile their differences over the idea of going to war against Hotspur and those first hints that Hal's starting to leave his old life behind creep into the way he talks to Fallstaff before, during and after the fight. We also get a glimpse of the old King's failing health which sets up part two.

As far as female roles go, there's not many long speeches and probably the most likable woman is Quickly. I'm not really old enough to play her, but the performance here is some of the most naturally spoken (female) Shakespeare I've heard. Again, the allstar casting here helps immensely, but it's also the fact that when the lines come from a character who isn't meant to be courtly, or lovesick or otherwise waxing poetic, I think they tend to read as easier to speak naturally. That's true in any case though, not just Shakespeare... it's just a bit more obvious when the whole thing is in older language than it would be in a modern play. Watching politicians or similar today they still use a lot of long-winded addresses and titles and forms which you wouldn't use among friends in a pub...and Shakespeare doesn't really populate his taverns with many women.

Day 10: Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare

I think I've found my gender-appropriate Shakespeare role. I really feel like I could get my teeth into playing Beatrice. Shame she seems to lack any sufficiently lengthy speeches for audition.

Moving on to a more general feeling of the play though. This is a familiar piece, and I know as a kid I engaged most with the comedies when it came to Shakespeare - well, I enjoyed them the most anyway. I don't think it was so much an issue of "boring Shakespeare" with the rest, so much as having grown up on cartoons and fantasy books, I had no interest in politics or complicated relationships... but this one has at least on the surface a funny story and reasonably easy to follow plots that are laid out pretty clearly. I found I remembered the Beatrice and Benedict thread to the play from previous readings/viewings, (according to the notes in the Cambridge Schools version which I've been working with today, the "original" part of the story, where the Claudio/Hero thread was a much older device which featured a lot in various older works) but not so readily the rest. I think that's likely to do with not really understanding the darker, more underhand and involved plotline when I was younger, or just ignoring it in favour of the funnier, lighter parts which seemed to be leading inexorably to a happy ending.

Reading with a more grownup eye, it's interesting to see how all of the different threads come together at the end, including the initially seemingly unconnected inept guard scene. (Clearly put in so that someone outside of the court actually gets to witness what's happened, and be unbound by conscience to any specific party and so be able to go and tell the "elders" involved what was going on.)

I think what keeps me focussed on the Beatrice and Benedict thread now is having been through a similar thing myself on a couple of occasions - friends, or in one case an apparently sworn enemy, have become boyfriends (the latter really stumped everyone who knew us... of course it didn't last and I'm not convinced at any point either of us would have called it love, but there was a certain amount of heel-snapping that went on before and afterwards). My current relationship certainly involved friends getting involved and trying to make us realise that we were pretty much the only ones who didn't "see it" and it was a shock to exactly nobody when the penny finally dropped. Bringing all those experiences into the character of Beatrice might make for a bit of a heady ride, but I don't think it's so close as to be one of those I'd have trouble getting out of, or dealing with the emotions.

Day 5: Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (RSC film adaptation starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart)

In order to get the most out of a film adaptation, it's worth taking into account everything the DVD has to offer - in this case, I watched the film through once in it's entirety, then watched the production documentary, and finally rewatched with the director ocmmentary turned on.

While there are some big names in the lead roles, I found myself drawn to the character of Rosencrantz, though I'll admit I'm not sure if that's because the actor looks rather disarmingly like someone I know. Naturally being an RSC production the entire cast is necessarily comfortable with making the language feel natural - the setting was modernised and I noticed some extra not quite verbal vocalisations which I'm not sure were in the script but serve to help the flow of the lines feel more up to date.

My thoughts yesterday about the wayward heir as a trope or archetype in Shakespeare was somewhat vindicated in the commentary - it was mentioned that a lot of these plays were being written during a time when the succession to the throne out in the real world was in question, along with the effect certain options might have. So that tells me perhaps one of the options was a young prince, treated as any normal youth of the day by his friends and openly out in the world rather than shut up at court, and the potential death of the king by various means was being used as a testing ground in a lot of these plays.

Not just the death of the king though - in this play once again the death toll is at least half the main players, and suicide used as a way out of awkward situations. In light of these being commentary on the day, using suicide as a sort of excuse for those in court not outwardly taking responsibility for their mistakes - Oh, I'm sure inside they are wracked with guilt and literally dying of it... except these are not comedies. If someone today staged a play where some of the major world leaders who've recently been seen to fuck up in all kinds of interesting ways suddenly being remorseful behind closed doors and sucking a bullet for it... they'd get a standing ovation, or arrested for treason. Or both. It'd be nice to think that the advice I was given by an older girl at school would hold here - I'd come into rehearsals one day, aged about 12 and close to tears from a day of relentless teasing over whatever it was that day... and she didn't know me that well, we were maybe a week into rehearsing and she'd not seen me before that. But she sat me down in the wings and told me, "you're safe here. On stage, no-one can touch you". And perhaps it's true of playwrites too - and maybe that's what he's getting at by (several times) including a daring, plot-revealing, accusatory and life-reflecting play within a play. I never thought of it that way before, but it could be taken as sort of dick-waving for his own audacity in dealing with thinly-veiled issues of the day.

Day 4: Anthony and Cleopatra, by William Shakespeare

This ended up being a late night (as I start to write this, it's 12:40am) but as tired as I was from having been out most of the afternoon, ploughed on and finished what I'd set myself to do. It's far too early in the project to let things slide, and this did turn into something of a battle of wits at the end. However, brief thoughts on my first reading:

There are a lot of characters introduced at various stages in the play, and it got a bit tricky to keep track of them all while tired... but the title characters I found myself quite drawn to (even if EVERYBODY did commit suicide - seriously, what's the obsession with that? Anyone would be forgiven for being absolutely certain that nobody of note died in Shakespeare's day that wasn't in a duel, or by suicide) and I will certainly be revisiting this, since Cleopatra interests me as a character. She is one of the stronger women I've come across in Shakespeare's work, and has some interesting conversations with her entourage. The love between her and Anthony is one that I think could be played in several ways - genuine on both parts, feigned on either... I think his for her is genuine, though he's clearly a bit of a womaniser (a trait Shakespeare really doesn't shy from, wonder why that could be...) he does seem to hold Cleopatra in higher regard than his other conquests (and wives). That could just be an act though, to keep sweet the mother of his heirs, for all the good that does either of them in the end, depending on how certain lines are read and directed.

I've started to observe a certain archetype (which I don't think is technically a traditional one, but it crops up a lot in Shakespeare's plays, and elsewhere) which is the childish/hedonistic heir, who has the threat or promise of power and responsibility but has not come into it yet - and when he does, generally is destined to get talked about either for a sudden change in ways, or for the lack of it. Anthony seems to fit into the aftermath of this, he's referred to by Caesar as a bit of a party animal, and later follows Cleopatra away from a fight and then gets into a bit of a strop over the whole thing - he seems to be a rather complicated mix of respected leader (under Cleopatra's shoe, to varying extents through the play) and so much still driven by the conviction that feasting and marrying are the best ways to solve problems. Sounds like a fun way to run a kingdom, but rather a lousy way to win a war... and when both women and war threaten his position, he does the only sane thing and tops himself. Of course. So all in all, I'm left not entirely sure who we're meant to like, feel sorry for, and so on. I kind of want to side with Cleopatra on the whole affair, but she's taking great joy tying him up in knots just as much as he's bringing it upon himself. I'm pretty sure this isn't meant to be a comedy, but it wouldn't be a stretch to turn it into a farce just to bring a little levity to the fact there's at least 5 suicides. And at least 2 more deaths.