Berkeley Rep - Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

Didn't I just review Macbeth? Indeed I did, but that was the recent movie version starring Michael Fassbender. I also got to see Berkeley Rep's production yesterday, so here's what I thought about that one.

Overall, I thought it was really good. It's a bit hard for me to evaluate this play, I realized, because I know it so well after having taught it for so many years. I constantly find myself anticipating lines and even thinking which act and scene we happen to be on at any given moment. Still, I found myself getting lost in the story, and this really zipped by. (The entire show was over two hours, which is actually one of Shakespeare's shorter plays.) My wife agreed, and she really liked it a lot. The two ladies sitting next to us seemed to enjoy it too, and I got a chance to talk to them a bit about the play when one of them said to me after the show, "You seem to know a lot about this play." (She overheard some of my comments to my wife during the intermission.) So, I answered some of their questions and got to give a bit of subtext and some of my own interpretation of what's going on.

It was a pretty straightforward telling of the story, keeping the historical setting (anachronisms and all). It made good use of Berkeley Rep's stage and even incorporated some video during the scene where the apparitions deliver their prophecies to Macbeth, but other than that, there was no modern twist. That's neither good nor bad, but I figure worth noting. And while I don't necessarily have the play memorized line-by-line, I know it well enough to know that they really didn't cut out a whole lot. Little bits were trimmed here and there, but it had every scene - minus that one with Hecate that Shakespeare probably didn't even write.

Macduff

One particular wise move that I caught was when Macduff asks Ross to not hold back the truth in the fourth act. The actual line is, "Be not a niggard of your speech." They changed it to "Be not a miser of your speech." That's pretty smart considering that: 1, most people don't know the word "niggard" and don't know that it has no connection to the word "nigger" aside from an unfortunate homophonic coincidence; and 2. both Macduff and Ross were played by black men. Sure, Shakespeare nerds like myself would know that nothing racial was said, but much of the audience would no doubt get distracted by that and taken completely out of a colorblind interpretation where black men can be thanes of Medieval Scotland.

Here's what I thought of the key players in the production:

Conleth Hill as Macbeth - I definitely got to see something here that I haven't seen before. He was actually a pretty jovial guy, which might seem like an odd choice, but Hill was able to also fill him with a nervous sort of energy at the same time. It was like his jolly nature was a cover for the dark thoughts that were constantly percolating deep within him. I did feel like some of his lines toward the end felt more recited than acted, but overall it was a really good performance and he created a believable dramatic arc.

Macbeth, the witches, and an apparition

Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth - She was one of the main reasons why my wife and I wanted to see the show, and I'm pleased to say that she did the entire part in her Fargo accent. Nah, just kidding. She was great, of course. McDormand didn't do anything surprising or risky with the performance, but it was still one of the best parts of the play. The one thing that I did like, which might not have been entirely her but part of a collaboration, was how her madness seemed to stem from the fact that her husband was shutting her out of his plans once the first murder was complete.

Korey Jackson as Macduff - This is an important part to get right. Obviously, Macduff is key to the plot, but you also need to have somebody who contrasts sharply with Macbeth. I don't know if the choice was deliberate, but I love the fact that he wore a red cape throughout the story, which might make a modern audience think of a superhero. Because in many ways, that's what Macduff is. If you ever watch some of those old episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, the story will follow the villain's fall from grace, and then it's up to Batman to come in and stop him (or her). That's Macduff's purpose here as well, and he should carry a certain nobility and sense of decency about him. Jackson was the right choice if that's what they were going for.

Honestly, there wasn't a weak link in the entire production. It was cool seeing a lot of familiar faces from Calshakes as well, and these actors always deliver. Was it cool to see some big-name celebrities? Sure, but everybody else was up to the same level.

Macbeth (2015) movie review

When I first heard about the latest film adaptation of "The Scottish Play" starring Michael Fassbender, I got pretty excited. I like the actor, and I've been hoping that a new version of the film would come along that I could show to my high school senior English class. I currently show them the 1971 version that Roman Polanski directed. While it still holds up, and I am fairly fond of it, I was hoping that one with a more modern sensibility would come along that my students could relate to a bit better. (The 2006 version starring Sam Worthington couldn't quite cut the mustard, and the 2010 PBS production starring Patrick Stewart, while good, didn't quite give me what I wanted either.)

I got even more excited when I saw the trailer. Were we actually going to get the battle scene that the bleeding Captain describes in the first act? It sure looked like it. Perhaps we'd even see poor MacDonwald get "unseamed from the nave to the chops". Other moments got me excited, like the way Fassbender delivers the line about how his mind is "full of scorpions". I've never quite seen it done that way before. Usually he's just lamenting his guilty conscience, but this version carried a "Man, I've really gone and done it THIS time!" vibe.

The big disappointment? It didn't play in any theaters near me. My local theater that would have normally played this sort of a thing closed down a few years ago, and the closest one that was playing it was all the way in San Francisco. (It's about an hour away from me. Not ridiculously far, but a bit inconvenient.) There may or may not have been other means of viewing the film that may or may not have been entirely legal, but those wound up not working out for various quality and/or virus-related issues. 

When I saw that it was coming out on Blu-Ray, I decided to just take a chance and buy the damn thing. (I can provide a receipt!) I figure even if I didn't like it, I'd be voting with my wallet to encourage the film industry to keep making Shakespeare adaptations. I started watching it late last night and finished it this afternoon. In short - I absolutely loved it. I don't want to make a hasty declaration that it's my favorite film adaptation of a Shakespeare play, but I wouldn't be surprised if I list it among my favorites a decade or two from now.

Before I go any further, I should probably point out that there are some SPOILERS. How the heck do you spoil a four hundred year old play? (He dies at the end!) Obviously, I can't spoil the basic story, but the reason why one sees a new version of any of Shakespeare's plays, be it on the stage or on film, is to see how a new director and actors will interpret something that's been done so many times before. Director Justin Kurzel takes a lot of liberties with the text, but I'd be disappointed if he didn't as there are plenty of versions that remain word-for-word the same. (Ever see the 1983 version that PBS did? Holy crap in a bucket but it's more boring than watching an inflatable swimming pool deflate.) Of course, there's always a certain irony in purists complaining about people putting their own spin on Shakespeare's material considering that's what he did with almost every play he wrote. Macbeth may be based in history, but it's even less historical than Mel Gibson's Braveheart. So, I'm going to give away some of the twists and interpretations, and if you want to be surprised, you should stop reading at this point.

I should probably also note that I'm somebody who knows this play backward and forward, and my review is really for people who are already familiar with the play. If you don't know it at all, you'll probably just wind up being confused.

Anyway, here's what I thought about various aspects of it, in no particular order:

The cinematography - Sweet Jeebus, but this is a gorgeous looking film. Watch it on your biggest TV, and be sure to watch it on Blu-Ray. This made me regret not seeing it on the big screen even more, but they really took the time to do what you can only do on film and can't do on the stage. If you're going to translate it to a different medium, then play to that medium's strengths.

Justin Kurzel's vision - I would hope that even people who do not like this version could admit that Kurzel definitely had a vision here and he achieved what he set out to do. It really streamlined what is already a pretty rapidly paced story (for Shakespeare's standards). The focus was sharply on Macbeth and what was going on in his mind, and various political and cultural subtexts are pushed aside.

Marion Cottillard's Lady Macbeth - I have a feeling that this performance will reward repeated viewings. I honestly wasn't thrilled about this piece of casting - not that I think she's a bad actor. Maybe it's just because I was more excited about Fassbender. That said, she and Kurzel created an arc for the character that hadn't ever occurred to me before. Oftentimes Lady Macbeth is portrayed as being totally wicked and just gets in over her head. However, it should be noted that she gets less and less involved with Macbeth's evil plans as the play goes on. I always attributed that to the fact that he shuts her out because of how manipulative and cold she was at the start. With this version, it's not so much that she gets pushed away as she wants less and less to do with him. This ultimately makes everything make even more sense when she completely loses her mind at the end, as she realizes that her initial push merely opened up Pandora's box.

Oh, yeah, what about Fassbender, anyway? - Overall, I think that he did a great job. I'll admit that there were a few parts where it felt like he was reciting lines moreso than performing the part of the character, but the good bits far outweigh the bad, and the REALLY good bits (like the scene with Banquo's ghost) made up for it even more.  I recommend watching the bonus features of the disc, as the actor explains that he was playing the part of a man who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which makes A LOT of sense when you consider how he was out there fighting on the front lines in a time where the battles were up-close and personal and the blood of your enemy would splatter all over you.

The music - Jed Kurzel's score is hard to ignore, and it really adds to the overall mood of the film. I am reluctant to compare this all to a music video, but there are certainly some comparisons that can be made. You can get a pretty good sense of it if you watch the trailer.

The changes - I'm not going to list off every change/interpretation of this film, but let me just make the general statement that a lot of it involves taking bits that were soliloquies directed to the audience and having the characters say them directly to another character. For instance, when Lady Macbeth talks of her husband being "too full of the milk of human kindness" she says it directly TO HIM. And you know what? It works. It even works better than having it just be her thoughts.

Another interesting bit is when Macbeth speaks to Banquo's murderer just before the dinner/Banquo's ghost scene. In the text, it's all an aside so only those two and the audience can hear. In this one, Macbeth says it loud enough for people to hear, as he's already losing touch with reality.

A more significant change involves the circumstances of Malcolm fleeing to England. (Donalbain is completely cut out of this version.) In the play, he leaves after everybody finds out that his dad has been killed. Honestly, I've always found that to be an all-too convenient plot point. With this version, Macbeth gives the line about how his dad is dead right in front of Duncan's murdered body, as if to say, "Yeah, I'm the one who did this. What the hell are you going to do about it? I'll kill you, too."

While there are a lot of other changes, I never felt like any of them were there just for the sake of doing things differently. Each one either raised the stakes or simply provided me with a new way to think about a play that I've read so many times. If you're a purist, you'll no doubt be upset, but I have a hard time empathizing with that point of view in the first place, as I've already pointed out.

So, will I show this one to my class now? Honestly? No. As much as I loved it, I'm afraid that it will just cause too much confusion. I'm already spending a lot of time emphasizing the difference between what Shakespeare wrote and what they see in the Polanski version as it is, and even with that, I still have students write about events in their essays that were merely an interpretation of the director and not what Shakespeare wrote. (They often write about how Lady Macbeth threw herself off a balcony, when the text simply says that she died and it's later revealed that she most likely killed herself.)

With this version, I will have to pause it every ten minutes or so and point out stuff like, "So, in the text, he says this only to the audience." It would get pretty annoying pretty quickly. So, while I won't be showing this, I will definitely recommend it to any of my students who like the play enough to want to explore it further. Perhaps an extra credit review assignment?

Cal Shakes - King Lear

It only took a few minutes into King Lear at Cal Shakes for me (and my wife, as I found out later) to notice that things were a bit different from most other shows. Whether it's Shakespeare's writing, the talents behind this particular production, or a mixture of the two (most likely), it was clear that this was going to be more of an experience than anything else.

Honestly, I didn't have high hopes for this one. I was a bit disappointed with this year's Twelfth Night, and I figured that the main problem was that I was barely familiar with the source material. The other two shows at Cal Shakes this year didn't do too much for me either. I liked Life is a Dream just fine, and it was nice to be introduced to some Spanish drama. However, I didn't have enough to say about it in order to write a blog post. The Mystery of Irma Vep didn't really do it for me though. It's not that I disliked it, and I'm not saying it was bad. I'm just not a very big fan of that type of humor. I'm not quite sure how to describe it other than "schticky".

As for King Lear, I attempted to read it a few years ago and kinda slogged through it. I just couldn't feel any momentum coming from the text. I also tried watching a version that was essentially a filmed stage production, and that wasn't doing it for me either. (Not sure if I even finished it.) I had a bit of a better time with the graphic novel adaptation by Gareth Hinds. Still, I wasn't too enthused about the play itself, even though a friend of mine adores it, and I know that it's considered by many to be Shakespeare's best. With that, I only briefly re-familiarized myself with the play before seeing this performance because I just couldn't drum up the enthusiasm.

By the end of today's performance by Cal Shakes, I can now safely say the following:

I absolutely love King Lear.

Sometimes when I really love something, it's difficult to explain exactly why, and I feel like when I try to explain it, I'm somehow cheapening the experience. I think that I'm going to try anyway, even though I know that I'll never fully get across my feelings.

For those who don't know, the plot of King Lear is pretty simple. An old king prepares to divide up his kingdom among his three daughters, but he winds up disowning one of them. Why? The other two shamelessly exaggerate their love for him, but she tells him like it is. After she leaves, we find out that the other two daughters were all talk, and the one who was plain speaking was the one who actually loved him best (that last bit being mostly clear from the start). There's a subplot involving the Earl of Gloucester, who's also pretty bad at recognizing sincere love, as he trusts his scheming, bastard son over his other, loyal one.

Basically, like all great stories, it touches on universal themes about being human. In this case, it's all about how, when it comes to love, what matters is our actions toward others much more than the words that we say. Ever have somebody tell you that they respect you, yet it's so totally obvious that they don't? I know that I have.

There really wasn't a weak link in this entire production. Anthony Heald, who you might recognize from various TV and movie roles, did the one thing that's probably the most challenging thing for any actor who's doing Shakespeare. He managed to capture the poetry of the language while making it sound like something somebody would actually say. I have to imagine that this is toughest during the play's more emotional moments. Nobody speaks iambic pentameter when they grieve, yet you'd be convinced  that they do when you see this play.

Another standout was Aldo Billingslea, who played Lear's advisor, Kent. There is a moment in the play where he unloads a string of insults, and his delivery was nothing short of brilliant. I don't think that anybody could have done a better job, as it was totally in-character, yet his love for the language couldn't have come across any clearer. It was funny and beautiful at the same time. Lucky for me, I got a chance to talk to the man for a few moments after the play was over, and I got to tell him just how much I loved it.

As I said, I'm not as familiar with this play as I am with others by Shakespeare. Alter a line or two in Macbeth, and I'm going to catch it. With this, you can turn things all around, and unless it totally alters the story, I won't notice. However, the one thing that I caught was that they had Kjerstine Rose Anderson play the role of both Cordelia, Lear's youngest daughter (and the one who got disowned) and Lear's clown. In fact, it's not so much that it was the same actor, as this production had the clown BE Cordelia. How could such a thing be? Well, the clown was totally in Lear's head. After speaking with Aldo Billinslea after the show, I learned that the text had to be altered in order to make it seem like the clown was completely in Lear's head. I found that to be an interesting move, as it provides a really clear reason why the clown is the only one who can speak so plainly to Lear and get away with it.

I almost feel bad singling out a few actors in this play, because as I said, there wasn't a weak link in the bunch. Nobody's performance took me out of the reality that was being created on stage. Also, by the time it was all said and done, my wife and I had to just sit while everybody exited the theater, as we felt like we were still absorbing it all. (We were two of just a few people who gave a standing ovation. What the hell was up with that? Did these people not recognize brilliance when they saw it.)

I've seen a lot of plays at Cal Shakes. Some I've loved, some I've liked, and a few I've been a bit "blah" about. (Never flat-out hated anything though.) I think that this one might be my favorite, and I don't remember any other play stirring my emotions nearly as much as this one. Let's just say that I had to wipe my eyes a few times during the production. No! I wasn't crying! YOU WERE CRYING!

Another good indicator as to how brilliant this was is how my wife felt. While I don't consider myself a Shakespeare scholar, I am somewhat immersed in his work as I've taught five of his plays. I'm also pretty familiar with quite a few more, and I've been known to read one here and there just to increase my familiarity with the canon. My wife, however, likes his stuff, and goes to all of these shows with me. She's usually the one who takes the time to make sure that we have our tickets, and she's always more than willing to see a movie adaptation. So, she definitely likes him, but she doesn't know any of his plays backward and forward like I do with some of them.

What was her reaction to this play then? Exactly the same as mine. She told me that she felt like telling me within the first five minutes, "Damn. This is really good!" She didn't though, but we both looked at each other during intermission and concurred that we were witnessing something really special.

The thing is with Shakespeare is that it doesn't just belong to just the playwright. It also doesn't just belong to him and the fans. It's a collaborative effort, and it lives on with each new production, constantly shifting and adapting over the years. With Cal Shakes's production of King Lear, it once again proves what Ben Jonson said so long ago about the man: "He was not of an age but for all time!"

Or Shakes - Antony and Cleopatra

Yeah, I don't think anybody calls the Oregon Shakespeare Festival "Or Shakes" but I'm starting it here. Usually I attend plays put on by the California Shakespeare Festival, but this year my wife and I made a special trip up to Ashland, Oregon to see Antony and Cleopatra. It's a play that I had never read before, although I was familiar with the principle characters from history, HBO's Rome, and even Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

As usual, I read about two-thirds of the play before seeing it, just to familiarize myself with the basic story before viewing the play. I didn't feel compelled to read the whole thing for the simple fact that Shakespeare was not a novelist, and he wrote his plays with the intention of having them be performed. Personally, I don't think that I ever really enjoy reading one of his plays on the first go-round. I usually wind up liking it after seeing it on stage (or a good movie adaptation). Teaching his works also brings about a deep appreciation for me.

So, here are some things that struck me about the play in general and this production in particular:

1. Oregon must have a larger budget than Cal Shakes. With my local Shakespeare festival, actors often double, even triple, up on parts, as they don't cast a different person for each role. This is usually not a problem, but I've been confused a couple of times when viewing a play that I didn't know that well. Up in Oregon, I'm pretty sure each actor only played one part. This was especially helpful when it came to some of the important characters who aren't the well-known figures of history. I was having a hard time keeping track of the soldiers and servants while doing my crash-course in the play, but it wasn't an issue when I knew them by the way they looked.

Octavian Caesar and his sister, Octavia

2. This tragedy doesn't follow the same pattern as the ones that I know well - Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. While Antony certainly has a fatal flaw while retaining some honor, it doesn't lead to a progressive bodycount the way those other plays do. In fact, it didn't seem like that many people died at all. (Not a complaint - just an observation.)

3. Mark Antony is an interesting character, and Derek Lee Weedon was just the guy to portray him.
He's a guy torn between two worlds, and even though he's a military genius who commands the respect of his soldiers, he'd probably rather have a good time and party. The man probably could have been the first official Roman Emperor if not for his passions. I also really liked the fact that in this production he was noticeably older than the other two members of the Second Triumvirate - Octavian Caesar and Lepidus. I felt as though if he were a younger man, he would have easily been the one to come out on top among the three, but being older he was lacking the proper ambition and liked the idea of settling down.  Like I said, Weedon did a great job, and I could really feel the inner turmoil of the man.

4. I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Cleopatra in all of this. I'm not sure that I have anything original to say about her, but both in Shakespeare's text and the performance of Miriam A. Laube, there's never a moment where you'd doubt why she'd be so alluring for Mark Antony. Yeah, the guy could rule what was essentially the known world, but it's easy to see why she's more appealing - especially to a guy like Antony. And don't get me wrong, she's not just a plot device to distract him. She's a fully-realized character who owns every scene she's in, and one wonders what she could have accomplished if she didn't live in such a patriarchal system.

That just about covers it. Overall, I'm really glad that I went, and while I have no intention of abandoning Cal Shakes, I think that making the effort to go up to Oregon more often will be well worth it.

Cal Shakes - Twelfth Night

I enjoyed yesterday's performance of Twelfth Night at Cal Shakes. The performances were solid, the staging was effective, the costumes were traditional yet creative. I also liked how they took some creative liberties (having the characters dressed in Renaissance attire while pulling out their cell phones for various reasons). I think that if I knew this play backward and forward like I do some of Shakespeare's other works (Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice) I'd really love it.

Unfortunately, I don't know this one that well, and I didn't take the time to really familiarize myself with it like I usually do when I see a performance of a play that I don't know. I basically did a quick crash-course an hour before I left, reading a summary of the first two acts and an analysis of the major characters. I figured that I'd be in good shape even though I knew that things could potentially get confusing because like a lot of the other comedies, this one involves mistaken identities. I figured there was a good chance that at least one actor would play multiple roles, and I was probably going to have to pay close attention to know when the actor was one character versus another. I also figured that since this was a comedy, I'd have an easier time figuring out what's going on, as they tend to be filled with more prose than poetry as opposed to his tragedies.

I don't want to say that I was totally confused throughout the whole thing, but I did find myself probably exhausting more mental energy trying to discern who was who than I was just simply sitting back and letting myself enjoy it. One other thing, and I'm not sure if this had anything to do with it one way or the other, was that all of the parts (minus the jester) were performed by women. With some of them, their attire and makeup made it transparent that they were men. With a few others, I might not have known if I hadn't read that character analysis.

Don't get me wrong. The whole play deals with issues of gender swapping, and it's definitely an appropriate casting choice, especially considering that in Shakespeare's time, it would have been all men (and boys) playing the parts. I just might have appreciated that particular decision more if I was more familiar with this play.

I really found myself feeling good as the story was being resolved, and I found Malvolio's ominous line about wanting to get revenge to be a pretty dark way to end a silly comedy. (But that's Shakespeare for you. Even Much Ado About Nothing has a bit of a sad note for Don Pedro, as he's a main character left without a mate.)

I probably won't get to see this particular group of actors do this play again, but I will eagerly see other stagings (and film versions?) of this play.

Macbeth in Comics

I've written about the comics adaptations of The Odyssey and Romeo and Juliet by Gareth Hinds on this blog, so I was looking forward to picking up his rendition of Macbeth when it came out this week. In a fun bit of coincidence, I picked it up on the very same day that I finished reading the play with my seniors. Or maybe it was fate. It's hard to know for sure what you have control of in your life after reading this play.

I was expecting to like this one, and I wasn't disappointed. While glancing through it at first, I was a bit disappointed that it lacked the vibrant colors of his Romeo and Juliet, but when I sat down to read it, it occurred to me that darker colors and grays are a bit more appropriate for this sort of a thing, and Hinds puts that to good use.

One bit that stands out is how he handled my favorite scene in the play, which is where Banquo's ghost makes an appearance. I remember that really capturing my imagination when I was in high school and talking about it with my dad, which was my first realization that when it comes to Shakespeare, there's a whole lot of stuff to talk about. Anyway, Hinds has the ghost look like what you'd imagine a generic ghost to look like (no, not the kind with a sheet - just all white) and as Macbeth proceeds to freak out, Banquo looks gorier and gorier, reducing down to a bloody skeleton.

Another great touch was when Macbeth speaks the line "I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, returning were was tedious as go o'er." He's sitting there in his dining hall with his wife, and at their feet is a pool of blood. That's one of those nice things about comics; the artist can literally draw the metaphor and it doesn't lose its impact.

I also appreciate how Hinds lets the reader in on his creative process in the end notes. I found myself learning some new things that I'll have to incorporate in my lesson plans. I already knew that the play was historically inaccurate (although I only recently learned that Banquo probably didn't even exist!) I didn't know that they didn't even have proper castles back in 11th Century. And to think that people get all up in arms about the inaccurate history in Braveheart! It's got nothing on this one, I think. But who cares? A good story is a good story, and if it's really good, it can inspire you to learn the truth.

I should probably note that for the most part, Hinds retains the original language. He doesn't format it into iambic pentameter, which actually makes it a bit easier to read, as it causes the reader to pay more attention to punctuation. Of course, like all adaptations, some scenes are cut, but nothing that I think anybody would consider a favorite scene.

I hope that we'll see more comics adaptations of Shakespeare, as it seems like a real no brainer. When it comes to comics, the artist is doing a job that's similar to the director, only he's completely in control of all the actors. Just as it would be worth it to see more than one stage production or more than one movie version of the same play, it would be great to see even more artists take a turn at this material.

Cal Shakes - A Midsummer Night's Dream review

If there is one thing that I figured out while watching the last play of this year's season at the California Shakespeare Theater, it's that my wife and I need to start going to evening showings. Pretty much every time we went this year, it was really hot for the first hour, and then it cooled down a bit after that. With this play, it was practically unbearable, as I was gushing with sweat. Normally I sweat more than the average person, but I saw a lot of folks with shiny faces and wet shirts. Sure, it can get pretty cold on the evening performances, but bundling up with sweaters and blankets is much more pleasurable than feeling like Helios is punching you into submission.

That said, even the sweltering heat wasn't enough to ruin my enjoyment of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I first read the play in high school, then again in college. I remember pretty much enjoying the movie version with Kevin Kline, but I hadn't given it much thought since. I was worried that I might be a bit confused as to what was happening, but it all started to come back to me. My wife, who's less well-versed in Shakespeare than me, had no problem following the basic storyline - which is a testament to both the writing and the performance, as it's not the most straightforward narrative there is, as there is both the human and the fairy world at work here.

This was probably my second favorite show of the season, but that's only because A Raisin in the Sun was so ridiculously excellent. Aside from that, it's up there with some of my favorite performances that I've seen over the years, including Julius Caesar, Richard III, and Spunk. It was good to see some returning favorite actors, especially Danny Scheie, my wife's favorite, as Puck. I should also note that he scared the crap out of me (and the look on his face acknowledged that he was aware of it) when he entered his scene, yelling at the top of his lungs in that distinct voice of his. He came in through the audience, and I was right at the entrance. I jumped a bit in my seat - totally unprepared for his entrance. It's all good though - it was funny.

I also really dug Margo Hall as Bottom. I saw her in the aforementioned "Raisin" along with Spunk and always thought that she did a good job, but it was really cool to see this Shakespearean-trained actress take on some actual Shakespeare. Even though Bottom is a male part, she really made it her own, and I hope to see her do some more in the years to come.

I don't feel like there's as much to say about Shakespeare's comedies as there is with his comedies. I have to wonder if his work would have the broad appeal that it currently enjoys if he only had his comedies to his name. Don't get me wrong - I like them, and I think that there is a lot of good stuff one can say about pretty much all of them. However, there's just never going to be as much to ponder as there is with the tragedies - the possible exception being The Merchant of Venice, I guess.

Cal Shakes - The Comedy of Errors

I had resigned myself to the fact that the reading that I would do this summer would consist primarily of comic books and audio books, and I wasn't going to feel guilty about it. (I like to do a lot of reading over the summer.) I realized that I should probably read William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors though before I went to see it at Cal Shakes since I was completely unfamiliar with it, and I don't like to watch Shakespeare without having at least a decent understanding of the story beforehand.

Lucky for me, it's an awfully short play. I didn't even bother picking up a version of the play with a plain English translation this time, figuring that since comedies tend to be easier to comprehend, I'd get along just fine without it. I turned out to be correct, although I read summaries of the first two acts just to get everybody squared away in my head first, and then I was able to pretty much just breeze through the rest of it, using my Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Obviously, it's one of Shakespeare's comedies, and one of his earlier ones at that. It doesn't delve into any deeper subject matter like The Merchant of Venice, and it doesn't have as much sincere heartfelt joy as Much Ado About Nothing. It's basically just a big ridiculous situation involving two sets of twins and a lot of cases of mistaken identity. From what I read, Shakespeare lifted the plot from an Ancient Greek comedy and added a few extra layers to it (as he pretty much always does when he adapts something) and, of course, his own clever wordplay.

I was worried that it might be a bit confusing, as the plot involves not only two sets of twins, but each set shares the same first name. In other words, there's Antipholus from Ephesus and his twin brother, Antipholus from Syracuse. Neither one of them knows of the existence of the other, and when the one from Syracuse visits Ephesus, many people confuse him for his brother (including his brother's wife). On top of that, Antipholus of Syracuse has a servant named Dromio, who has a twin brother with the same first name who serves Antipholus of Ephesus. Confused yet? Well, it was harder to keep track of who's who when I was reading it than when I was watching it. (Which confirms that Shakespeare's works are meant to be seen in a performance, not necessarily read as a book.) This is especially impressive considering that one actor played the Antipholus from Syracuse and the one from Ephesus. Same situation for the Dromio of Syracuse and the one from Ephesus.

All in all, it was a fun show, and the actors all did a nice job of breathing life into the text. My wife and I have seen a few of these actors before, like Danny Scheie, Nemuna Ceesay, and Liam Vincent (the latter two were both in this summer's excellent production of A Raisin in the Sun). I'm fairly certain that I've seen Ron Campbell before in past productions as well, and I'll be darned if he wasn't channeling a little bit of the Marx Brothers in his performance as Angelo, the merchant. It was also pretty cool how the actors would go out into the audience and sometimes even interact with the crowd a bit. Comedies tend to lend themselves to that kind of silliness.

If all you know of Shakespeare are his tragedies that you likely learned in school, then you ought to check out his comedies. It wasn't all deep introspection followed by doom for the man. He knew how to write stuff that was silly and fun, and sometimes that's just what we need. I especially recommend checking out this particular play if you're familiar with a lot of his others, as you can see that while this probably wouldn't have survived the centuries had it been the only play the man wrote, it's interesting to see some of his more interesting ideas begin their germination in this early work.

Next up? Pygmalion, followed by A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Thoughts on Macbeth

A couple of months back, I wrote my thoughts on the play Hamlet after having taught it for ten years. I've also written my thoughts on Romeo and Juliet. I figured that there's one more play where I have a bit to say about it, and that's Macbeth. I've taught that one for as long as I've taught Hamlet, but I've also taught it a few times during summer school (to mixed results). Here's some stuff that stands out to me:

Macbeth is difficult to know - Scholars and armchair Shakespeare enthusiasts are known for pondering what's going on in Hamlet's head, but I find the Thane of Glamis to be even more impenetrable than the Prince of Denmark. With Hamlet, you at least have all those analytical soliloquies to pour over. With Macbeth, you have soliloquies, but I'm still not entirely sure what to make of this guy. When I teach the play, I always state that his fatal flaw is that he's ambitious, but that never completely satisfies me as to why he does what he does. It seems to me that if that was solely what was motivating him, he'd have some satisfaction in being the king, but he doesn't seem to enjoy it even for an instant.

There's some implied backstory - You can't tell me that when Macbeth and Lady Macbeth decide to kill King Duncan that it's a brand new idea to them. Macbeth gets some prophecies from the witches, he writes his wife a letter about it, and when he gets back to tell her that Duncan's going to be spending the night in the castle, she starts going on about how he needs to look like "the innocent flower but be the serpent under it". He then responds with "We will speak further."

If this was some new idea, he would have said, "What'choo talking about, Willis?" (Or something like that.) But oh no, he knows exactly what she has in mind. That's because this is a conversation that they've had before.

Age matters - From my understanding, the Macbeths are usually an older couple or middle-aged at the very least. In Roman Polanski's version, he casts a younger couple. I think you're almost telling a different story depending on which you choose. If it's an older couple, they've seen life pass them by and other, less worthy, individuals rise to the top. This becomes their chance to get what should have been theirs. If they're younger, they're maybe a bit less sympathetic. as they see their chance for greatness and have little desire to wait for it. (Although Macbeth does toy with the idea when he thinks for a moment that maybe chance will crown him "without (his) stir".

There ain't much that's funny - Maybe some people will argue the point that there's some black comedy in the play, but from my understanding, this play really takes you down the darkest passages of the human experience. Even the one bit of comic relief, featuring the Porter, is macabre humor. I think that this is why some folks have a hard time engaging in this play. Hamlet jokes around, and you've got plenty of fun word play in Romeo and Juliet. With this one? Man, it's kind of a bummer.

I must point out the following - I thought this would be a short entry. I'm tempted to quit here, but instead I shall gratuitously use the following quote:

I am in bloodStepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,Returning were as tedious as go o'er...

It's really quite awesome what Shakespeare is saying - One of the big lessons that I try to convey when I teach tragedies is that it's not good to think of them as simply being sad. There are many reasons for this, but in the case of Macbeth, Shakespeare is reminding us of something that saves us human beings from being completely depraved, and that is the human conscience. Yes, Macbeth commits horrific acts and even gets away with it for some time. But even if the united Scottish/English army didn't come marching (tree branches in hand) on Dunsinane Hill, he'd still have to live with what he did. By far the worse punishment on him was dealing with his own guilty feelings for what he did. He'd "sleep no more" and his mind was "full of scorpions". The guy would probably never see a moment of happiness again.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

Macbeth even tries to get around his guilty conscience when he has Banquo killed. Instead of doing the bloody deed himself, he hires some murderers. However, the playwright isn't going to let him off the hook that way, as Banquo's ghost makes an appearance at dinner.

This is easily my favorite part of the entire play. The first words out of his mouth to the ghost are, "Thou canst not say I did it! Never shake thy gory locks at me!" It's so great because it's such a psychologically realistic reaction. Yeah, it technically wasn't HIM who did it - but he knows damn well that it's his fault. And then Macbeth completely freaks out. Here's a guy who carves his way through Irish mercenaries and for dessert kicks some Viking ass, but he's completely transformed into a whimpering coward. The man can handle anything...except his guilty conscience.

What man dare, I dare:Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;Take any shape but that, and my firm nervesShall never tremble: or be alive again,And dare me to the desert with thy sword;If trembling I inhabit then, protest meThe baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!

And what Shakespeare does with Lady Macbeth drives that message home even further. She puts on a brave face throughout the entire ordeal, but eventually she succumbs to madness due to her bottling up all of her guilty feelings.

What kind of a world would this be if we (well, except sociopaths anyway) never felt bad about the things we did?

Macbeth's not a villain - Well, he's not a villain in the sense that Richard III is a villain. Richard III is almost mustache-twirling in his maliciousness, but you never see that in Macbeth. Not only that, but he's aware that what he's doing is horrible, and he doesn't try to make justifications for it and insist that he's a good guy. The audience is forced to contemplate the consequences of horrific acts because we're given a character who feels empathy just like you and I do. Too bad he just didn't think ahead about those consequences. I bet that Hamlet would have though.

As the play goes on, he becomes colder and more ruthless. His first murder was to get ahead. His second (Banquo) was to secure his position as King. His third, the killing of Macduff's family, is brutal and senseless. By that point, yes, he's a villain.

However, we see a glimmer of the human inside of him before the play wraps up. He tells Macduff, "My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already." (Keep in mind that this is before he learns of Macduff's C-section birth.) He doesn't want to fight the guy - not because he's scared. (After all, he fights him even when he learns that Macduff fits the prophecy of one who can defeat him.) He doesn't want to fight him because he's realized the horror that he's committed against the man, and he doesn't want to do any more.

Of course, by this point, it's all too late, and Macbeth absolutely must meet his fate. But still, he's an honorable man who mad the worst choices a person can make.

He comes full circle - At the start of the play, we know Macbeth for being a brave warrior. He then progresses into being a sneaky murderer. At the end, even though he's not fighting for a good cause, he armors up and is willing to take on two armies all by himself. (Pretty much everybody has deserted him by that point.)

Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.

Macduff, the ultimate character foil - Wanna know why it's not Malcolm who gets to kill Macbeth? (It happened that way in history, ya know!) It's because it's Macduff's prerogative. In every way that Macbeth goes wrong, Macduff does the right thing. He's brave and loves Scotland, but he's not willing to stab anybody in the back, and he's loyal to the rightful king. Plus, he knows that being a man means having feelings, as he weeps for his murdered family, saying that he must feel his loss "as a man".

I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.

Mabeth and Lady Macbeth seemed to be under the impression that being a man means being ruthless and willing to kill without feeling. Considering that Macduff is the victor, I guess we can tell what Shakespeare thought what being a man was really all about.

Scotland's a better place in the end - Sure, history will tell you otherwise, but Shakespeare played really fast and loose with historical details when it came to this play. (The real Macbeth was actually known for being a pretty good king.) The bottom line is that Malcolm is a better king than his dad for two very important reasons.

1. He leads from the front. The rightful king is right there in the thick of things during the last battle. His dad had to have some bloody captain tell him what the hell was going on while Macbeth and Banquo were kicking ass on his behalf.

2. He's a better judge of character. Duncan trusted Cawdor, and when he lamented that there's "no art" to telling what's going on in a guy's head, he turned around and praised Macbeth, who just earlier had been toying with the thought of regicide. Malcolm? He does an elaborate series of lies just to make sure that Macduff is on the up and up.

Final thoughts - I recently listened to the audiobook of A.J. Hartley's novelization of Macbeth. (Alan Cumming, who has a terrific and authentic Scottish accent, did the audio.) Anybody who's a fan of the play should check out either the book or the audiobook. It's not a dumbed-down version of the play, nor is it a straight-ahead adaptation of the play. It's a retelling of the story, making use of the strengths of a novel. It opens up the story quite a bit and delves deeper into the characters, providing some motivation that the play leaves somewhat ambiguous.

Man, I thought this blog would be short! Go figure there's lots to say about one of Shakespeare's plays.

10 years of teaching Hamlet

I've been meaning to write a blog about Hamlet for a while now, and I was hoping to get to it during my Spring Break (where I have had more "me" time than I've had in a long time). I suppose the ghost of Hamlet's dad must have been trying to send me a sign, as my uncle sent me this link from NPR about Shakespeare's 450th birthday and how the Globe Theater is planning on bringing Hamlet on a world tour. What finally clinched it is that while out on a bike ride this morning, I passed a "Hamlet Drive". The signs (are everywhere. (Shakespeare would appreciate that pun, no doubt.) Plus, I just finished up teaching the play with my seniors right before Spring Break, so it's pretty fresh on my mind.

I've written about the play before, or more specifically, the movie adaptations. You can check that out at this link here and that link there. Plus, here's a write-up about a live performance that I saw. I have a lot of things to say, obviously, and for this one I think that I will hit on a variety of topics and observations that I've had after teaching it for ten years. The best part about the play is that it continues to surprise me, and every year I feel like I'm pointing out stuff that hadn't occurred to me before. Here's what I have to say about the play now. (Warning: I'm writing this with the assumption that anybody reading it is already pretty familiar with the play.)

Claudius kinda sucks, and he might be a bit of a drunk as well.

I was once at a comic book convention and attended a panel for the creators of Kill Shakespeare, a comic book series that brought together many of the playwright's characters in a huge meta-adventure. Hamlet is the main character, so he was a central focus of the discussion at the panel. With the creators was a college professor who taught Shakespeare and offered some expert advice. For the most part, I found her comments to be enlightening, but one of them has really stuck in my craw. She said, in so many words, that the text hints that Claudius, while an evil bastard for killing his brother, may have been a pretty decent ruler.

Say what now?

First of all, I have no idea where one would get that. The character traits that I get from Claudius is that he's a schemer, perhaps a bit of a drunk, and not really engaged with the affairs of state. Hopefully the bit about him being a schemer is self-evident to anybody who reads the play, but where do I get the bit about him being a drunk?

For starters, after trying to console Hamlet in the second scene of the play, he drinks a toast to Hamlet's decision to stay at Elsinore. He's not just enjoying a glass, as his toast-making will echo in the very heavens:

in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder.

Okay, so the guy's getting his drink on since he just got married. That doesn't make him a drunk necessarily. I guess what makes me believe this is that I take Prince Hamlet as a reliable source when it comes to describing his uncle, and he makes several suggestions that indicate Claudius's rummy disposition. He tells Horatio that "We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart" and when Rosencrantz (or is it Guildenstern?) tells him that his uncle is "distempered", Hamlet immediately assumes that it's "With drink, sir?" Plus, there's a whole bit where Hamlet bemoans the drinking game that the king is engaged in. According to him, this tradition makes all of Denmark look bad.

This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements...

Maybe one can be a drunkard and still be a good king, but Claudius doesn't strike me as though he's got his act together. First of all, when told that Fortinbras is going to march his army through Denmark in order to attack Poland, the King's only response is: "It likes us well!" Seriously, dude? Fortinbras originally raised that army to invade Denmark, and now you just trust him to just pass through your country? I think that Kenneth Branagh really improved upon the text when he made Fortinbras's entrance a full-scale invasion, unless there's something about medieval Scandinavian political strategy that I just don't understand.

The guy also doesn't seem to have the people on his side. The whole reason why he doesn't just punish Hamlet directly is because the prince is "loved of the distracted multitude" And then what happens when Laertes comes to town to find out what happened to his father? He's able to storm right into the palace, a huge crowd behind him, all of them chanting  that they want Laertes to be king. Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound like Claudius has the loyalty of his constituents if the son of the adviser can rally the people to his side like that.

Claudius is motivated by an obsessive love for Gertrude

The fact that Claudius doesn't seem to be too engaged in the running of his kingdom indicates that his motivation for killing his brother had more to do with his wanting Gertrude than wanting the kingdom. Sure, becoming king is a nice bonus prize, but it's all about Gertrude, as it's pretty much directly suggested that their "overhasty marriage" within "less than a month" was due to the fact that the "adulterate beast" and the Queen were boinking each other on the side before King Hamlet was "stung by a serpent".

The guy may be a villain and an "arrant knave", but he does love Gertrude with all his black heart. Another reason he gave for not punishing Hamlet directly was that:

...The queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself--
My virtue or my plague, be it either which--
She's so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her...

So, he's not going to do anything to upset her. Having her is one thing though, but having to share her love? Oh no. He's not going to have that. The fact is that he was scheming to kill Prince Hamlet all along. One might make the mistake of thinking that Claudius was only planning on killing Hamlet after the death of Polonius. The plan, for those who don't quite remember, was to have Hamlet's companions deliver a sealed letter to the King of England. The contents of the letter ordered the King to have Hamlet's head cut off.

Now we know that Claudius was planning on sending Hamlet to England before Polonius's death because he revealed that much to Polonius himself during the scene where the two of them spied on Hamlet and Ophelia's "get thee to a nunnery" scene. Also, immediately after the death of Polonius, Hamlet explains to his mother that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were going to be bringing "sealed letters". Unless Claudius wrote up a new letter between finding out that Polonius was dead and sending Hamlet packing, which is unlikely considering the rapid pace from those two points, he was planning on getting rid of his nephew all along.

Some folks might argue that he only schemed Hamlet's death after Hamlet started acting all crazy, but we know from the beginning that he wanted to keep Hamlet close by.

...For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Is it really such a stretch to think that he wanted to keep him close so he could have him killed? This is the guy who killed his own brother, isn't it? Claudius is a guy who had to have the Gertrude all to himself, and he wasn't willing to share it in any sense of the word.

That ghost is a ghost.

When it comes to some of Shakespeare's other ghosts, one could make the argument that we're only supposed to take them as a figment of the character's imagination. In the case of Banquo's ghost in Macbeth or Caesar's in Julius Caesar, they could be the product of Macbeth's and Brutus's (respectively) fevered imaginations, and it would serve the same purpose if it was a literal ghost. In the case of Hamlet though, Shakespeare wants us to take that ghost for exactly what it appears to be.

The first indicator is that the ghost's appearance is confirmed by Horatio, a "scholar" and a skeptic who thinks that it will not appear, but when it comes along again, Horatio declares:

Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

We also can trust Horatio because Hamlet praises him to his face:

 ...Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

This, coupled with the fact that what the ghost reveals bears itself out, is Shakespeare's way of letting us know that we should just go with the flow. Sure, it's only Hamlet who sees his father's spirit in that scene in his mother's bedroom, but why would it be a real ghost throughout and just in his head that one time?

Hamlet is an introvert

He gives long speeches, which in a Shakespeare play indicates that he's got a lot of thoughts in his head. Plus, he can't stand nosy, intruding people like Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. As Shakespeare used to say: "'Nuff said."

Hamlet's character arc is about accepting life and finding the will to live

When we first meet him, he wishes that his "solid flesh would thaw, melt, and resolve itself into a dew" or that God hadn't made a "no killing yourself" rule. When he gets the mission to avenge his father, he is given a purpose, and even though he doesn't act, he is moved to question himself and explore the deepest questions that remain with humankind to this day: How can you know when it's time to stop thinking and time to start acting? Why do we keep ourselves alive when we can so easily end it all? What is the meaning of it all when we're all just going to wind up as a pile of bones?

Hamlet wants to die at the beginning of the play, and by the end, he's fighting to live. More importantly, his journey has enabled him to accept that end with dignity and heroism.

It gets better with age.

At 30, I was able to understand it in a way that I couldn't when I was first introduced to it at 20 while in college. Now that I'm 40, I feel that I get it in a way that my 30-year-old self missed. Here's hoping that I'll be able to write an addendum when I'm 50. Also, if you think that I'm totally off-base with any of this, please share your thoughts.

It's boring.

Hella boring.

Romeo and Juliet in comics

I'm a fan of Gareth Hinds, a comic book illustrator who's probably best known for adapting classic works of literature like King Lear, The Merchant of Venice, Beowulf, and The Odyssey. I wrote a review of The Odyssey on my blog, and I also got to have a short email exchange with him about dogs and his interpretation of the death of Odysseus' dog, Argos. Naturally, I was intrigued when I saw that he adapted Romeo and Juliet, a work with which I am quite familiar as I've been teaching it for over a decade now. I was even more impressed when I saw that it was only thirteen bucks.

I think that artistically, Hinds has outdone himself with this one. The characters all have their own distinct features and body language, the backgrounds are detailed, and the colors create a warm, lifelike contrast to a story that ends in tragedy.

Hinds makes a lot of interesting artistic choices, all of which he explains at the end. He based much of the architecture on the actual Verona, Italy, while borrowing from other parts of Italy as well. He also gave them different ethnicities, with the Montagues being of African descent and the Capulets being of Indian descent. I suppose that some folks might scoff at that, as it's obviously not even remotely historically accurate, but neither is Italians speaking English in iambic pentameter, so why not give us a rendition of the two young lovers that we haven't already seen a million times? (And speaking of historically accurate, did you know that you can visit the homes of Romeo and Juliet when you travel to Verona? You know, the homes of people who probably didn't even exist?)

As for the text, it's probably 95% Shakespeare with just a few tweaks here and there for clarity. He also cuts out a bit, but that's what you would expect if you were to see a movie or stage production. Unfortunately, the Nurse's part gets cut down the most, but I suppose that's a part that works better on the stage than it does on the page.

There might be some people who look down on the graphic novel format, and they would consider this to somehow be a "dumbing down" of Shakespeare's work. (Just realized that this is the first time I mentioned Shakespeare. You all know that the play was originally written by this William Shakespeare fella, right?) Obviously, I would take issue with that, as the man wasn't writing a novel for people to just sit down and read in their living rooms. The text was intended to be adapted by a director and actors. In this case, the artist takes on the role of all of them, and gives us a halfway point between the original and what you'd see on the stage. Personally, I'd like to see more artists adapt his plays.

Like any good adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, this one got me to thinking about the story and what it's all about. I wrote my thoughts on the play some time ago, and all of those came rushing back to me, and probably a few new ones as well. As I've said before many times, I get a bit annoyed when it's simply thought of as a "love story" considering how young they are and how little they even know each other. Shakespeare has bigger ideas going on than just making you sad that two lovebirds die. There's so much negligence going on when it comes to the adults, and maybe it's because I'm a dad now, but I can't help but place a lot of blame on the parents - not so much because they perpetuated the feud between the two families but because they clearly don't even care that much about it, yet they don't take the necessary steps to end it until it's too late. The Prince also shares much of the blame, letting us know at the beginning that the riot that takes place is the third time that's happened. Why didn't he lay down the law the first time?

If you're mostly familiar with the play, and you need a solid refresher with a fresh visual perspective, I definitely recommend that you check this one out.

Hell is empty and the devils are here!

Betcha thought I was going to do a rant on religion when you read that title, eh?  Well, I hate to disappoint, but that's a line from William Shakespeare's The Tempest.  You know Shakespeare, right?  He also wrote such famous works as Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and a bunch of sonnets that some people think proves that he was gay.

Turns out this Shakespeare fella still has a bit of a following, and there are Shakespeare festivals all around the world.  The closest one to me is CalShakes.  For our 10th anniversary, my wife bought us season tickets.  The plays are The Tempest, Spunk, Blithe Spirit, and Hamlet.  No, the middle two aren't Shakespeare plays.  I'm fairly certain that it's pretty common for these things to have some non-Shakespeare works as part of the program.

I'm most excited about Hamlet since that's probably in my top five favorite things ever written, along with the facts that I've taught it for several years and seen many movie versions of it.  The two non-Shakespeare plays I don't know, but after reading about them, they certainly seem interesting, and I'm sure that I'll be entertained.  As for The Tempest?  That's one with which I am mostly unfamiliar.  I knew that there was a guy named Prospero and he was some kind of magician, and I also knew that it involved an island and some sort of tempest.  Beyond that, it was a new one for me.

I decided that I wanted to read it first, since sometimes that Shakespeare fella's language can be a bit confusing; however, if I go in with some familiarity, then I'm able to follow along pretty well.  I'll be honest though - for as much as I like Shakespeare, I don't know if I can say that I enjoy sitting down and reading his plays all by myself.  Ideally, I'd have a bunch of my friends with me, and we'd all pick parts and read it together.  I don't think that this is so strange, as the man wasn't trying to write novels.  He was writing for the stage, and it was meant to be heard out loud.

Basically what I'm saying is that I only got through about 1/4 of it.  I brought it with me to the play though, and since we arrived early, I was able to get through about the 2/3 point.  I figured that would be good enough for me to follow along and know who's who and what's what.

So, what did I think?  I loved it.  While the characters seemed interesting enough on the page, seeing some good actors bring them to life really did the trick for me.  This was especially true in the scene where Ariel, a fairy, pleaded with Prospero to free her from his service.  Erika Chong Shuch was able to create a character that was believable as a fairy-tale creature but still had some genuine emotions that made me empathize with her.

I've been to a few performances at CalShakes before, and I haven't always liked all the actors.  This one though?  I don't think that there was a weak link in the bunch.  Everybody did their parts rather well - which is really saying something considering that many of them played multiple roles (and I'm not just talking minor characters here - they'd jump from one major part to the next, and sometimes they'd do their costume changes right there on the stage, but the director did a good job of keeping the audience focused on something else as that would happen, then BOOM, the actor would be a different character!)

As is usual, a lot was cut out of the text.  I usually don't mind that, but I was looking forward to seeing the part of Gonzalo, as he was rather amusing; however, his part was completely cut.  Also, they tossed in a few lines and modern references.  That sort of a thing can get tedious, but the director reigned it in and saved it for the comedic bits, which is where it works best.  (I suppose I could check the text, but I have a feeling that Shakespeare didn't make a reference to tilapia in the original.)

For those who don't know the play, I'm not going to get into a plot summary, but let's just say that the play is neither a comedy nor is it a tragedy.  It's considered to be one of Shakespeare's romance plays.  If you're only familiar with the first two though, then it definitely leans heavier toward what you find in the comedies.  There are a lot of laughs and everything gets wrapped up rather nicely instead of a bloodbath.  The main theme that I picked up on dealt with forgiveness being preferable to revenge, as Prospero starts off rather bitter and angry at the beginning, but witnessing his daughter fall in love tends to soften his heart a bit.

There's also a nice bit where Prospero addresses the audience directly, and from the reading I've done, this has been taken as Shakespeare's way of inserting his own thoughts rather directly into it.  The director added a nice bit to all that as Prospero tries to turn on a light bulb using magic.  However, since he has given up his magical powers, it obviously doesn't work for him.  So, what does he do?  He walks up to it and flips the switch.  It was a pretty powerful statement on how theater is like magic in a sense, and when it's all over, we have to go back to playing by the rules of the real world.

We are such stuffAs dreams are made on; and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.