Shakespeare – PretenseSoup

Em oi! #451: Technically

B: ...she'll become thy bed, I warrant thee, and bring thee forth brave brood.
E: Wow.

B: What?
E: I mean, you do the speech very well. I just don't much like Caliban.

B: Why not?
E: He's, like, sexist as hell. I guess he's not portrayed as a hero, but...

B: He's literally a monster.
E: Oh yeah.

Back before we had many small children, when he had time for community theater, B used to recite the speeches he was working on while we went running together. That was always fine when he was doing something fun (Twelfth Night) and always a little weird when he was doing a villain (Aaron the Moor from Titus Andronicus has a very good one[1]). Now we’re back to doing this because he has a show next Saturday (9/23, here in Madison)–and he’s learning a scene from The Tempest. Which is a great scene, but also interesting to be doing excerpts from in public. (Also, when we actually had this conversation, we were on dreadmills at the gym, so. But it’s a hell of a scene.)

All right, announcements.

I had a poem in the August/September issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine. The poem is called “Anxiety #243,” and you can buy a copy of the issue here. If you just want to read the poem, you should sign up for my newsletter and then check out the most recent back issue. I have another poem coming out in the next couple of weeks, and you should definitely sign up for my newsletter if you want to be notified!

I will be reading at Rainbow Space Magic Con at the end of September. I will also be appearing on a panel about writing fantasy and historical accuracy w/r/t the middle ages, a topic about which I have many possibly controversial opinions. Registration is free, so go sign up. I’ll send out a newsletter with the actual schedule once I know it.

I also recently came out with a new T-shirt. It looks like this:

Em wearing a turquoise shirt with a black, red, and white design that says DO NOT SUMMON DEMONS IN THE LIBRARY with a little flame-headed demon.

Click here if you want one. There are a few color and size options (also children’s sizes, because my 6yo wanted one), and also stickers and metal signs, in case you want it in your own library.

Finally, for fans of Dionysus in Wisconsin, book two will be available for preorder in October and out in January.

We’ll file this under PR2833.W5 L86 2023, for English literature–English renaissance (1500-1640)–The Tempest–Criticism. (I’m not 100% sure about that W5–I don’t have access to that table anymore, but I used it last time I did a comic about Shakespeare, so I am guessing it means “Criticism.”)

Footnotes:

[1] From act 5, scene 1:

Lucius:
Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?

Aaron:
Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse—
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death;
Ravish a maid or plot the way to do it;
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself;
Set deadly enmity between two friends;
Make poor men’s cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and haystalks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves
And set them upright at their dear friends’ door,
Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carvèd in Roman letters
“Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.”
But I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

It’s an amazing speech! Who doesn’t want to twirl their moustache so heartily? But you can see why we used to quiet down when we passed one of the neighbors…

Em oi! #421: The Scottish Pronunciation

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This particular line has always bothered me. I’m not even sure “Macbeth” and “heath” count as slant rhyme. They’re just something that looks like a rhyme if you see them written.

I don’t usually do two comics in a week, but Madison Shakespeare Company‘s Macbeth opens TONIGHT, so I wanted to get this up. If you are busy tonight, that’s just as well–they’re sold out. But they still have shows tomorrow at 18:30, Saturday at 14:00 and 18:30, and Sunday at 18:30. The shows are at the Edgewood College amphitheater and are bring-your-own-chair. $12 suggested donation. Check it out; there will be swords.

(Aside: Are there any words other than “amphitheater” in English where a “ph” appears but the letters are pronounced separately across a syllable boundary instead of as a pair? How odd.)

Anyway, the witches are Cynthia, Gladys, and Azaelia. Of course.

I was thinking about the appearance of supernatural entities in Macbeth and in Shakespeare’s other works more broadly this morning, specifically the elements that would today probably be referred to as magical realism today, as they appear in otherwise realistic plays. In other words, the witches, the ghosts, and the dagger. In most productions of Macbeth, the show is typically produced with the witches and Banquo’s ghost (played by the actor who played Banquo) on stage, but the dagger speech is done without an actual dagger. There are likely practical reasons for this–it’s relatively easy to slop on some blood and send a glassy-eyed Banquo up to stand among the dinner guests, but it’s a lot harder to get a dagger to appear and look reasonably good just hanging there, especially when a show is being done en plein air, as this one is. But this creates a curious dichotomy–the dagger can be conceived of as being just Macbeth’s hallucination (he is under a lot of stress), while the witches and Banquo’s ghost are there in a more objective way. This brings a consistency to the behavior of the ghosts of Banquo and that of old Hamlet in his eponymous play; both seem to wander as they wish and appear only to whom they wish (for example, Horatio and the other guards see old Hamlet’s ghost, but later Gertrude does not).

We’ll file this under PR2823.W5 L86 2016, for English literature–English renaissance (1500-1640)–The drama–Individual authors–Shakespeare, William–Separate works–Macbeth–Criticism.

Em oi! #382: Make Good Choices

We went and saw the new Hamlet out at American Player’s Theatre in honor of my cousin Keith graduating from his PhD program. It was a pretty good show–the fellow playing Hamlet reminded me of David Tennant’s Hamlet, to some extent, and the guy playing Polonius reminded me of Bill Murry’s turn at that role. Jim DeVita, who played Claudius, was quite good, and I was reminded of the first Hamlet I saw there, with Mr. DeVita in the title role then. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were good and not portrayed as idiots, for once, which was very refreshing.

There were some more interesting things about the casting this time–for example, Horatio, Fortinbras, and a few other parts were played by African American actors; I don’t recall seeing that previously. It does kind of raise some other questions about race in casting (like: Couldn’t you cast a Black Hamlet?). But it’s a step, right?

The costumes were sort of surprisingly loud–the ball gowns and capes were made from some shiny material, maybe taffeta, and there wasn’t any wind, so as the actors went sweeping across the stage, we could hear the silken, sad, uncertain rustling. (And it didn’t thrill me.) But I do like a period dress Hamlet. I’ve been trying to put a finger on why modern-dress Shakespeare kind of bugs me, and I think it has something to do with the fact that when the actors are in modern dress, we have to pretend that the plays themselves are modern. What do I mean? Well, of course the plots are incredibly dynamic and, with a few exceptions, speak to us as much today as they did four hundred years ago. But not every sentiment in them is exactly an upstanding modern sentiment. For example: “Frailty, thy name is woman.” “Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,/If with too credent ear you list his songs,/Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open/To his unmaster’d importunity.” Or how about Ophelia, speaking of the play, “Tis brief, my lord.” Hamlet: “As woman’s love.”

I could keep going, but I think I’ve made my point. I should add that I would rather see a modern dress anything than another “Hamlet wears tights and a dress tunic because that’s kind of like the way people dressed in the 1600s right?”

Interestingly, while I was drawing this comic, two people (neither of whom were aware of my researching J.P. Sartre) sent me the following joke:

Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting at a French cafe, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?”

Why is this funny? Because Sartre focused on the idea of choice. His thing about “authenticity” was that everyone should live the life that they want, so long as they do not negatively affect/exploit others, replacing ego with a “spontaneous selfness” he refers to as “ipsity.” As part of being in the world, we are free; choices represent a problem because they limit our freedom. But in order to really make a choice, you can’t just follow the path of least resistance–you need to actually make a choice. Since there’s no cream, he can’t really choose not to have cream, since he couldn’t choose the opposite (to have cream). (Quote from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Wikipedia also has a nice summary.) Anyway, Hamlet’s choice to either get revenge or spare his father is problematic in Sartre’s terms.

This one is filed under PR2807.A8 L86 2013 for English literature–English renaissance (1500-1640)–The drama–Individual authors–Shakespeare, William–Separate works–Hamlet–Criticism.

The process of choosing titles is a bit troublesome. I almost went with “Authenticity” (after a Harvey Danger song) but only my brother S. would have gotten it, since he and I are the only remaining Harvey Danger fans. As it is, perhaps he will appreciate this one.

Anyway, changing topics, here is the first comic I ever drew with Shakespeare in it:

This one I’ll file under PN56.H83 L86 2013 for Literature (General)–Theory. Philosophy. Esthetics–Relation to and treatment of special elements, problems, and subjects–Other special–Topics A-Z–Humor.

Also you should know that the Library of Congress has reserved the heading BF1311.S5 for Parapsychology–Spiritualism. Communication with discarnate spirits–Mediumship. Psychometry. Channeling–Spirit messages, inspirational records, etc.–Special, A-Z–Shakespeare, William. So. You know. That.