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| Two, not 3 or 1, Gentlemen |
Author:
akfarrar ::
Posted:
Tue May 13, 2008 11:26 pm
From my blog:
Some insights flash upon one as in the Road to Damascus - others have a slow dawning... this is an example of the latter.
Twoiness (or two-i-ness, or two-y-ness?) is quite noticeable in
The Two Gentleman of Verona.
Let me make it plain from the start - not just obvious (i.e. you see it) but noticeable ... in performance.
(some things you get when you read over the text - very un-Shakespeare-idea-ian
- and for a development of that I refer you to Brook, not me).
When watching the BBC production - Spaniels hit me twice ... and Chameleons. I thought it odd at the time, was Shakey being a bit 'shakey'? Was he repeating himself like a school child who gets an idea and can't let go? Then I realised, a couple of days later - I noticed those words and ended up posting on them ... erm, interesting.
Then another dawning - I mentioned Speed's 'swinging' when I reviewed the production - and he actually gets two of them in the play.
Walking to work through the park another development of the two-y-ness (settle for that I think - pun on the 'y') : Two men, two women to go with the men, two servants, two suitors, too many twos to be accidental?
And that led on to thinking about the idea of pairs and two-ness (don't want it to sound like chewiness this time).
What first popped out of the cogitation was, of course, the 'famous' pair play - The Comedy of Errors. And what struck me was the difference.
There the pairs are twins - here they are not. You get the pair of a master and a servant, a man and a woman, a man and a dog ... united in a difference.
In fact it is the differences that make the two 'individuals'. So what unites them as a pair?
Love and duty.
'To love, honour and obey'
Is this a play about the break needed for marriage - a play about sorting out the difference between the play friend and the partner for life?
If so, there is a very strong religious vein running through the play which, although treated lightly by the text, is implicit - and obvious to an Elizabethan audience in a way it isn't to us.
Take the two servants - Speed is a boy - an intelligent, lively, beer drinking boy who gets treated like a boy. He is the model of youth who stays just that throughout the play.
Lance is on a threshold - he is contemplating marriage - and a move out of one type of service into another? His 'lament' over leaving the family, and the excessive emotions, reflect not just the parting of a servant to go with his master - they suggest a ritualised weeping: Was this typical of Elizabethan marriages? I have seen weddings where the leaving of the girl from the mother's home is in fact linked to such wailing.
I am not suggesting this as fact - it is speculation ... and that is what thinking about the play after viewing does - makes one think and speculate.
Which brings me to the final scene - and A Midsummer Nights Dream has the quotes that help ...
"Begin these wood birds but to couple now?"
The first word is begin ... Two Gentlemen shows the ending of one phase, and the beginning of the next - but there is a touch of reality here ( in what can be seen as a very unreal play):
"The course of true love never did run smooth."
None of the participants in this scene is going to 'happy-ever-after-dom' ... it is marriage they head for.
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| Puddings |
Author:
akfarrar ::
Posted:
Sat May 10, 2008 9:59 pm
and proof thereof.
It never ceases to amaze me how some people judge plays.
I mentioned that I enjoyed 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' more than I've enjoyed 'Hamlet' for a long time - and someone suggested my wits were crumbling.
Then I remembered me - of course, his is a judgement based on the book, not the performance.
How many people actually sit through a performance of Hamlet and come out of it able to say, 'I enjoyed that'?
As an imaginary percentage, if one were to compare the 'enjoyment' in a a performance of 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' to 'Hamlet', which would win?
Puddings are judged in the mouth, not the recipe book - plays should be judged in the theatre, not the script.
(After all - some very odd looking recipes work remarkably well - try a little fresh ground pepper on you strawberries.)
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| Protean Pre-echoes? |
Author:
akfarrar ::
Posted:
Fri May 09, 2008 7:32 am
(Been Blogging Again)
Look at this:
O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
(I, 2)
And ‘compare’ it to this, Summer’s Day:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,
(Sonnet 18 )
I bet you know the second, but the first?
Both Shakespeare, both written in his early career – one a sonnet, the other from The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
I’m reminded of what Brook said about how Shakespeare had a memory – and used everything that came his way. My only question is which came first – the play or the sonnet?
A couple more:
O, but I love his lady too too much,
And that's the reason I love him so little.
How shall I dote on her with more advice,
(II, 4)
And, Friar Laurence to Romeo:
And art thou chang'd? Pronounce this sentence then:
Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.
ROM.
Thou chidst me oft for loving Rosaline.
FRI. L.
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
(Romeo and Juliet, II, 3)
And –
Yet (Spaniel like) the more she spurnes my loue,
The more it growes, and fawneth on her still;
(IV, 2)
with -
And even for that do I love you the more;
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Use me but as your spaniel; spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love
(And yet a place of high respect with me)
Than to be used as you use your dog?
( A Midsummer Nights Dream, II, 1)
What is it that is going on here? Is Shakespeare just recycling a good idea – like the costumes and props of the Theatre Company? Or is it something else?
One thing I think worth mentioning at this point is that I ‘heard’ these connections when watching the BBC production – they are not the product of reading the play closely or searching – although I have since ‘confirmed’ by digging them out (and am in the process of a read through).
They are memorable images in terms of sound.
Shakespeare’s audience, much more tuned than I am to listening, must also have picked out connections – maybe not for the Sonnet, which circulated in writing privately, but for the other plays – and several other instances I could quote.
What Shakespeare seems to be doing here is ‘hyper-texting’ – downright naughty of him so early in the history of the internet. These links do precisely what the little under-linings in this blog do – make you leap across a world of experiences to a specific point.
However, if ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ is the first play, then this implies something very interesting: It is a foundation other plays build on. The other plays are referencing this play.
Even if it isn’t the actual ‘first’, it is certainly early, so part of the foundations of the whole Shakespeare Experience.
This is recognized in the Oxford Shakespeare, where the play is printed first – and therein lies a problem: We read linear … first suggests earlier, suggests less mature, suggests less good.
I’ll say it again – I enjoyed watching this play last week – I enjoyed it more than I’ve enjoyed a Hamlet in many a year. For me, at this time, this is better than Hamlet.
Now, maybe I’m just stupid. And maybe not (chorus of assembled acolytes, “No, Enlightener of the World, never!”).
The fact that Shakespeare has deliberately linked to this play would suggest he had a degree of respect for it – and that the audience of his time would have seen enough performances to be able to make the connections. This is not saying the play is a prototype – something tried and discarded, but that is an active ingredient in the repertory.
Of course, strange things happen with hyperlinks – you can go back and change a text to add an extra reference or delete one (it’s called editing) – so, did Shakespeare – or anyone else, like Middleton – interfere with the text and add a link here, swap a link there?
Most likely: The text we have is from the first folio of 1623 – which Wells suggests is a snapshot of the version actually last performed. And that would suggest Shakespeare could and would have changed anything he didn’t like – and also that the other company members would have thrown in their three penny worth …
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| Problematic issues in Two Gents |
Author:
shakespeare ::
Posted:
Thu May 08, 2008 1:46 pm
There are a number of problematic issues in this play, not the least of which is how easily all is forgiven after was is basically an attempted rape. What are some of the other issues people have encountered? And, more importantly, how were those issues overcome in performance?
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| Janus |
Author:
akfarrar ::
Posted:
Tue May 06, 2008 10:31 pm
Janus is the God of doorways - and if Wells et al are right,
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
is the first play He wrote - in other words, my entrance into the Complete Works.
It is certainly a play which looks forward - there are countless points when reading and watching when you go - ah, that's in Romeo and Juliet, that's in A Midsummer Nights Dream, didn't that happen in The Merchant of Venice, or Othello ... that reminds me a little of the scene in Twelfth Night, or, surely that is a little like Hamlet's ....
But it's more than just action and incident, word and phrase - there is a usage of language and a usage of theatre that makes this a very Shakespearean play.
This is already Shakespeare the poet (in "http://bookreflect.blogspot.com/2008/04/nuclear-shakespeare.html"Brook</a>'s sense) - the resonance and reference looking back into experience and encounters.
This is Shakespeare digging into the works of other stage professionals - there is a strong link, I think, to Lyly - I couldn't stop thinking of the 'courtly' actions and the word play found in the older man's work and attempts to satisfy for Elizabeth's taste.
There is Greene, in the character and spirit of these two young men.
But it is not the 'borrowed clothes' plagiarism of A Groatsworth of Wit, which would suggest an insecurity - for this is quite a confident play - it is an early exploration of the power of the theatre to self reference - and to deepen and even create meaning through such reference. It is a shorthand - why waste time going over the same ground already covered. It is a playing with the audience - spot the quote (remember, education was mainly about quoting the right authority when you are debate).
Curiously enough - it is a play about leaving a woman you love to go to another city - and, to commit the sin of implied biography, I can't help linking this to the earlier sonnet (1- 145).
It is also very much a genre play, with a set of conventions to guide both the performance and the watching - and I suspect part of its unpopularity is due much more to the genre being out of fashion than with any quality of the play itself.
This is a play of wit - and therein lies another difficulty: Wit frequently requires a knowledge of and easy flexibility with language - and we are just too distant to take the 'set-piece' exchanges without a degree of study beforehand.
Above all else, this is an entertaining play - something doubted at times: I enjoyed watching it, I enjoyed reading it through.
Whether it is a play to be 'studied' is a different question - but then, I very much doubt whether any of the plays should really be studied - death by academia.
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