The Bill / Shakespeare Project [dot] com: Recent Comments

Comment on Podcast 41: A Midsummer Night's Dream DVD Reviews

2010-04-26T00:26:48Z

I may have to find a better copy and view it again. My less than enthusiastic response (though I do wish I had seen it on stage, where I think it would have absolutely SOARED) might also have been a result of "review fatigue" ... it was the last one I watched... and I watched all four within a span of maybe 5 days...

Yeah, you make some good points... maybe I should re-watch.

Comment on An Audience with an Ass

2010-04-26T00:24:29Z

Yep, Theseus' intro to the play and how to accept it is very high-minded and generous. And I really want to see him as living up to it, but a couple of his comments are less than kind:

"Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?"... if we switch the order of the speeches, so that Demetrius speaks first, and Theseus says this to him, than of the players, we avoid the cruelty.

"With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass." Hard to see this being kind... of course, I've always thought that if it is obviously the same actor playing Theseus/Oberon, this may be a winking reference of Bottom's (Pyramus) transformation to his Hippolyta/Titania (in much the same way as Titania and Bottom share a lingering look in the '94 Noble version that you like (a little more than I did--though I would have LOVED to see it on stage, and think it would have blown me away in that medium).

Agreed, the women in LLL are most cruel (and a reason I'm not a big fan of the play)... but I was thinking more about the men's responses to the Show of the Worthies... very cruel as well (though some critics see this as a venting of frustration over THEIR cruel treatment at the hands of the women).

Comment on Demetrius: Tragic Hero or Misunderstood Jerk? Discuss.

2010-04-26T00:12:51Z

Great commentary, Kevin.

I love the Bottom line... it really does sum up the play.

Your observation about R&J/P&T foreshadow my transition between the plays (it's always been my opinion that one prompted the other ... though historically we don't know what came first).

As for the jumbled senses, it is something I wanted to discuss, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. Like you, I'm not sure what to make of it exactly, but it's got to be there for a reason...

Comment on Demetrius: Tragic Hero or Misunderstood Jerk? Discuss.

2010-04-25T07:03:07Z

I don't know if I'm jumping the gun, and that you will cover these topics in your next entry, but I want to get them out in case you weren't going to discuss them.

First, for me this play can be summed up in Bottom's comment to Titania, " ...to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays." Keep that in mind and all else falls pat: The radical shifts of affection, Titania loving an ass, the lack of any difference between Demetrius and Lysander, the lack of any meaningfull difference between Hermia and Helena, the constant finding of differences where none exist to explain the change of affections, Lysander breaking his oath to Hermia, Helena turning on Hermia, and Puck loving every minute of it.

Next, this play is Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending. And Pyramus and Thisby is Romeo and Juliet, and it would have been Hermia and Lysander's story if it had turned out badly.

Finally, note the number of times senses get jumbled. Bottom goes into the wood to SEE a noise he heard. Snug the Joiner asks Theseus if would like to SEE the epilogue or HEAR a Bergomask dance (he should HEAR the epilogue or SEE a Bergonmask dance), Pyramus SEES a voice, he can HEAR Thisby's face, and "The eye of man hath not HEARD, the ear of man hath not SEEN, man's hand is not able to TASTE, his tongue to CONCEIVE, nor his heart to REPORT what my dream was." I haven't figured this one out completely, but I know it is not just ignorance on Bottom's part. He uses the correct words for senses most of the time.

Comment on An Audience with an Ass

2010-04-25T06:15:43Z

The comments have never bothered me. I think because they were not made to hurt anyone, just to have a little fun (sort of like watching Mystery Science Theatre 3000).

Theseus's voice counts the most, and his comments are sarcastic at times but also generous. He knows who is performing and what they are capable of, and knows that truly nasty comments would be cruel and ignoble ("For never anything can be amiss//When simpleness and duty tender it" and "The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing." and "Love, therefore, and tongue tied simplicity//In least speak most to my capacity."). He reminds Hippolyta that the best performances are merely shadows and that they must use their imaginations to fill in for the actors. Take a look also at his comment about the lion, "A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience." Nothing mean there.
Finally, "so it [the play] is truly, and very notably discharged."

In contrast, the women in Love's Labor's Lost want to draw blood with their remarks.

Comment on Podcast 41: A Midsummer Night's Dream DVD Reviews

2010-04-25T05:49:03Z

Of the four DVD's you reviewed my favorite by far is the Adrian Noble version with the RSC.

The Peter Hall version with the mostly nude Judi Dench suffers from a poor transfer, and much of the camera work doesn't work. I think the problem comes from adopting a stage production for film. I would have preferred to see a carefully filmed version of the stage production (like Adrian Noble's), instead of a movie adaption. However, Judi Dench and Ian Holm are both excellent.

The Kevin Kline version suffers from poor or non-existent verse reading. The playing is far too naturalistic. For me, this usually sucks most of the life out of Shakespeare. I think that turning verse into prose robs the play of its beauty and makes it less intelligible. Even where the dialog is prose (Bottom speaks mostly prose), the part needs to be read with real energy. I know Kevin Kline can do it, so I can only conclude that the reading got tuned down to make it more "accessible."

What do I like about Noble's version? The verse reading glows, especially Oberon/Theseus and Titania/Hippolyta. Desmond Barrit creates the best Bottom by far of the four, and I like Barry Lynch's Puck the most too.

On the down side is the framing device of the boy (an older Osheen Jones plays Lucius in Julie Taymor's Titus). I believe I read that the stage production lacks it: It should have been left out of filmed version too. Adrian Noble heavily, if skillfully, edited the play. I didn't realize how much dialog had been cut until I tried to read along with actors. It doesn't feel chopped up, but I bet close to half of the play got cut. I wonder how much of the play was in the original stage production. I would have preferred less boy, more Shakespeare.

Finally, you must have got a defective disk. Mine is a completely high quality DVD.

Comment on Similar Names, Different Women; Different Names, Similar Men

2010-04-16T14:36:14Z

Never thought about having them closer in height as being a human analog to Bottom's transformation. That's really good. Although, I would like it even more if the ladies were under the influence of the potion.

Yeah, the physical casting in the BBC version is a let down; you're 100% on the money on the drabness of Helena (there's no way that she would be regarded "through Athens ... as fair as (Hermia)" (I.i.227).

Comment on Similar Names, Different Women; Different Names, Similar Men

2010-04-16T04:44:09Z

I've always thought the difference between Lysander and Demetrius was basically zero, and between Helena and Hermia next to zero.

Love turns this minor difference into something important. Love is blind, so trivial differences become important, and grossness becomes beauty. For me, that's the source of the comedy. Helena may in fact be much taller than Hermia, but I think it's funnier if she is only slightly taller. Hermia, fearing that she has lost Lysander, "makes" Helena into a Maypole. This is just as ridiculous as Titania finding Bottom beautiful. Love creates the great distinctions the characters see, justifying all their passion. We see the reality that they are all really basically the same. One complaint I have against the BBC version is that Helena and Hermia are too different, and Helena is drab too.

Comment on Act Four: A Return to Normalcy(?)

2010-04-13T04:47:17Z

fyi, both the 1999 (Kline/Pfieffer) and 1996 (RSC) versions, play up some of the Bottom naughty bits. Both play on a little "donkey dick" humor, and the 96 piece does have the attending fairies giggle at Titania's delivery of the "nuts" line...

Comment on Act Four: A Return to Normalcy(?)

2010-04-13T02:17:19Z

The big thing I've always loved about this play is how the magic love cannot be distinguished from real love, making it, in effect, real.

I believe that Titania truly loves Bottom (and Lysander and Demetrius both love Helena), which means that Oberon's plan backfires. She doesn't find Bottom revolting at all. Oberon has to reverse the spell because he wants Titania to love him. Their fight is nothing more than a lover's quarrel over their dalliances, the changeling just the excuse for the fight. Oberon wants the boy because Titania has him, and Titania wants to keep the boy because Oberon wants him.

Shakespeare is just having fun with the whole idea of love at first sight. No-one questions Romeo and Juliet falling for each other instantly, or Rosalind and Orlando, or Celia and Oliver, or Phebe and Ganymede (Rosalind in disguise), or Countess Olivia and Cesario (Viola in disguise), so what's so hard to believe about Titania and Bottom? Who knows, maybe Oberon has been busier than we think.

This scene also has a couple of nice naughty/nice bits too. What kind of nuts does Titania want to fetch for Bottom? And when Bottom recounts his dream, to what is he referring when he remembers what he had. Was it an Ass's ears or something lower or both.

Someday, someone will do an R rated (or NC-13) version without changing a word or distorting a single scene. They'll just do all the naughty/nice bits as naughty as they can.