Sunday, February 3, 2013

The play's the thing

I have unintentionally found myself immersed in Shakespeare over the past few days.  First, when I tuned into PBS the other evening they were showing something called "Shakespeare Uncovered."  Various of the Bard's plays are being discussed by a famous actor or director who has appeared in or directed the play under discussion.  That first one I stumbled upon was hosted by Derek Jacobi, one of my all-time favorite actors, whom I have actually managed to see live in a total of four plays, one of which was Shakespeare ("Much Ado About Nothing," Broadway, 1984).  However, the play he was taking us on a tour of was "Richard II," which he appeared in for the BBC in 1978 (and which I also saw, on television). Besides clips from that production, we saw bits and pieces of other productions, which made for an interesting comparison.  And we learned about not just the play, but the king whose story was told in the play, who so believed in his divine right to be king, and to do whatever he chose, as king, that ultimately he alienated enough powerful men to have his throne taken from him. 

Jacobi also inserted an interesting note by questioning whether Shakespeare even wrote Richard II, or for that matter any of the plays attributed to him.  There has, of course, been a lot of discussion on this topic for a long time -- a discussion I never really paid much attention to, putting it down to academics in need of a controversy.  But I had to admit that the points made by Jacobi in favor of the real author having been Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, made me at least want to know more.

What was especially interesting on this score was that the following evening, again while essentially channel-surfing, I came upon an episode of Michael Wood's "In Search of Shakespeare," which originally aired in 2004, but you know how PBS recycles programs ad infinitum.  I had actually seen this 4-part series a while back, but now found this particular episode interesting, because Wood was busy explaining what Shakespeare might have been doing -- where he might have been -- between the time he was a teenaged father with an older wife he'd "had" to marry, in Stratford, and his first appearance in London (at least by 1592, and probably by about 1589). The possibilities Wood came up with -- off in Lancashire, which was the seat of much of the Catholic resistance to the Protestant reign of Elizabeth I (Shakespeare's family had been staunchly Catholic, and had been
persecuted as a result) -- seemed a bit far-fetched to me.  What the episode mainly shows is how much about the life of Shakespeare is pure speculation, at best, educated guesses.

Immediately following on the heels of Derek Jacobi's examination of "Richard II" came Jeremy Irons' episode on the Henrys: "Henry IV," Parts I and II, and "Henry V."  Irons appears as Henry IV -- an aging version of the young Henry Bolingbrook who had stolen Richard II's crown -- in Parts I and II, made for the BBC in 2012.  So we saw clips from that telecast, as well as interviews with the young actor (Tom Hiddleston) who played Prince Hal, who eventually becomes Henry V, and goes on to be Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branaugh, in the best-known filmed versions of that particular play.  We got lots of psychological analysis on the importance of the father/son relationship in these plays.

An interesting aside: Irons played Richard II in a production of the Royal Shakespeare Co. that I saw in 1986 in Stratford.  I remember not being particularly impressed by his Richard, who didn't just seem weak, but totally ineffectual.  By contrast Jacobi's Richard was full of energy.  Irons does not go in much for energetic performances, but rather a kind of languid elegance.  But how would someone who was languidly elegant manage to hold people in thrall for as long as Richard did?  Yes, well.  A question for the critics.

So after watching these two programs on Friday night, and catching some of Wood's search for Shakespeare the following day, it seemed only a natural progression to decide to watch my video recording of "Shakespeare in Love," which I saw and loved on the big screen when it came out in 1997.  And which I loved all over again when I watched it late Saturday night.  It really is a perfect movie.  Perfect casting, with everyone turning in superlative performances, perfect looking -- you would just swear that that was exactly what rough and tumble London looked like in the 1590s -- wonderfully funny, and romantic, and absolutely full to the brim with fine renderings of the words of Shakespeare.  A movie that reminds you of the importance of theatre, in the lives of human beings.

Which takes me to the main point of this posting.  All of this -- the watching of these very interesting programs, and then this wonderful movie, as well as, no doubt, the making of these shows, acting in them, directing them, being any part of the various productions -- all of this is so much more enjoyable, so much more satisfying, than almost any aspect of our current reality that you can name (this country's disfunctional Congress, the divisive gun control controversy, not to mention the almost daily shootings taking place in this country, the ever-worsening economic situation in Europe, which besides being very hard on all those out-of-work Europeans, could adversely affect the U.S.'s tentative economic improvement, the ever-worsening political situation in Egypt, the never-ending and seemingly hopeless enmity between Israel and the Palestinians, ones own problems with health/work/lack of money) that one has to wonder: why bother with that reality?  Who needs that stuff?  Let's go to a play.  Or...hey gang, let's put on a show!

1 comment:

Debra Ellen said...

beautiful memorial to a dear friend.He would have loved it!