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 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 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 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 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 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 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.