September 2018

Summer is cooling down some, but the autumn is bright, and it’s been a Shakespeare-rich month. So, to the report.

But first, as always, I will mention to visitors of this blog that Shakespeare Calling – the book is available for purchase. Please help promote the book by buying it, of course, and telling your friends about it, by liking and sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Bokus…. And please encourage your local book shops and libraries to buy it. Thank you. Your support is needed to keep this project alive.

Available for those of you in Great Britain and Europe on this site:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/9163782626/ref=tmm_hrd_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=1514378301&sr=8-1

Also available on http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Calling-book-Ruby-Jand/dp/9163782626/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436073737&sr=1-1&keywords=Ruby+Jand+shakespeare+calling

or

http://www.bokus.com/bok/9789163782626/shakespeare-calling-the-book/

or Adlibris. Or contact the publisher info@vulkan.se

Shakespeare sightings:

• In Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things Coralie was given Shakespeare to read as a child. When older she discussed Shakespeare with the Wolfman, so-called because of the fur covering his face and body. The Wolfman was enticed to leave Coralie’s father’s Museum of Extraordinary Things to work for a competitor, reading Shakespeare in his beautiful voice.
• In The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. When Charlie, looking for her cousin Rose, missing after WWII, finds a strange woman in the wood, she compares her to a Shakespearean chorus, who can explain a strange scene but not why it happened.
• In the film Only Lovers Left Alive the vampire Christopher Marlowe (in the film 400 years old and played by John Hurt) is credited with writing Shakespeare’s plays. Sonnets are read, and Shakespeare is called a zombie philistine. Despite this silly humour it’s a very good film!
• In Season 1 Episode 2 of Doctor Who (Christopher Eccleston) Charles Dickens says to the Doctor and Rose after seeing aliens/ghosts, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Doctor, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ 
• 1666 – Plague, War and Hellfire by Rebecca Rideal starts with the ‘Brave new world’ quote then later the author mentions that the first woman allowed to act on stage was Anne Marshall, who played Desdemona in 1660. Still later we are told that the son, or possibly nephew of Thomas Cotes, who had printed Shakespeare’s Second Folio, wrote a pamphlet blaming the 1665 plague on the sinfulness of the people.
• In John Boyne’s novel A History of Kindness the archbishop quotes Shakespeare: ‘Ours is not to question why.’ The narrator points out that it was Tennyson, not Shakespeare. Later he remembers his father as a failed actor who wanted to be ‘alas-poor-Yoricking’ on stage. One of his classmates had been in a school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a neighbour girl had been the subject of a sermon by the priest who was as belligerent as a Shakespeare character.
• In Jerry Brotton’s This Orient Isle, bought at the Globe bookstore, Shakespeare plays quite a prominent role:
• Peter Baker was a sort of pirate, and also servant to Edward de Vere, ‘the man an eccentric minority still believe wrote Shakespeare’s plays’.
• The farcical view of Jews on stage became ‘darker and more complicated in the hands of Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare.’
• The witch’s quote in Macbeth, ‘Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’th’ Tiger,’ shows how aware Londoners were of the 1583 voyage of The Tiger to Syria bearing letters from Elizabeth to Akbar.
• Chapter 8 ‘Mahomet’s Dove’ explores the history plays, Shakespeare’s portrayal of Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus and Shylock.
• In Chapter 11 ‘More than a Moor’ Othello is analysed from the perspective of England’s relationship – both in trade and diplomacy – with Arab nations.
• In the epilogue Shakespeare’s appeal for understanding and compassion for refugees in Sir Thomas More’s long and stirring monolog is quoted in its entirety.
• In the comic book The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, one of the villains takes poor Tom to the Globe.

Further since last time:

• Read aloud with Hal: The Taming of the Shrew
• Saw: the film of same, the Globe version 2012.
• Wrote: text on same.
• Read: Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler, based on same. Sadly, it’s the worst of the novels based on Shakespeare’s plays I’ve read so far. Even here Katherine loves Petruchio (or whatever their names are in the book).
• The insult for today, 3 September 2018: ‘What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name, or to know thy face tomorrow.’ Henry IV Part 2

Posted this month

• ‘Sly, Bianca and dashed hopes’ in The Taming of the Shrew https://rubyjandshakespearecalling.blogspot.com/2018/09/sly-bianca-and-dashed-hopes-in-taming.html 
• This report

Shakespeare Calling – the book is promoted by

http://shakespearesallskapet.se/

Read more about my son:

·       https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/ruby-and-shakespeare/shakespeare-calling-the-book/

·       https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/ruby-and-shakespeare/spoiler-merlin-and-shakespeare/

http://rubyjandshakespearecalling.blogspot.com/2018/08/august-2018.html

Sly, Bianca and dashed hopes in The Taming of the Shrew

Sly, Bianca and dashed hopes

in

The Taming of the Shrew

     Can we please agree that Katherine in absolutely no way loves Petruchio, that he has tortured her into submission and that theirs is not a happy marriage, at least not for her? If we can do that, if we can agree that like Shylock Katherine is a tragic figure in a funny play, then maybe we can enjoy this silly play in the parts that aren’t quite so tragic.

     For example, Christopher Sly. Of course, as an alcoholic wreck he’s tragic but he’s funny, albeit an odd character to tack on at the beginning.  Or is he so odd? The trick played on him to make him believe that he’s a lord brings an uncertainty to everyone’s identity and status in the play to come and the fact that this whole play is presented as a play offers all kinds of exciting questions about the validity of perceived truths about – dare I say? – gender roles in Shakespeare’s society. Not to mention wondering what Shakespeare was trying to tell us with all this.

     The disguises and switching of roles – Tranio as Lucentio and Lucentio as Cambio and Hortensio as Licio – same thing. Who is really who he is and who is really in his proper place in this class society? Are they all really interchangeable? All the names ending in -io only add to the confusion and humour.

     Bianca certainly should not be ignored. A resourceful lass, she eludes her father’s manipulations much more subtly and effectively than poor Katherine. She ends up with a man she actually loves but does not allow herself to be locked into an oppressive relationship like Katherine. Her answer at the dinner when the wager is on which wife will be obedient is the nonchalant retort that ‘she is busy, and she cannot come.’ When Katherine, at Petruchio’s command, removes her cap and throws it on the floor, Bianca says, ‘Fie! What a foolish duty call you this?’ Lucentio points out to his new bride that he wished she were as duteous since she ‘hath cost one hundred crowns since supper-time.’ Her response: ‘The more fool you, for laying on my duty.’ (All quotes are from Act 5.2.)

     So yes, there are several things I had been inspired to explore after this second reading of the play, and remembering the excellent production by a visiting all-woman theatre group we saw at the Globe in 2013 (see pages 418-19 in Shakespeare calling – the book) I was looking forward to the DVD of the Globe production from 2012 and reading the analysis in Shakespeare After All by Marjorie Garber.

     But no! My hopes were dashed to pieces. No subtleties, no nuances, no darkness. Katherine loves Petruchio = happy marriage.

     No! No! No!

     This is a funny, acerbic, multi-levelled, astute view of society and it ends in tragedy for Katherine.

     That. Is. It. Those of you who think it doesn’t, your arguments are invalid.

Film seen this time:

• The Globe version 2012. Director: Toby Frow. Katherine: Samantha Spiro. Petruchio: Simon Paisley Day. Grumio: Pearce Quigley. Lucentio: Joseph Timms. Bianca: Sarah MacRae. Biondello: Tom Godwin. Tranio: Jamie Beamish.
• Loud, farcical, annoying, absolutely no subtlety. Quigley as Grumio was quite amusing, the intro with the drunken Sly pushing his way through the audience was funny. Otherwise this was a dreadful production with the worst imaginable ending – Kate falls dewy-eyed in love with Petruchio and gives her final monologue sincerely and adoringly. Absolutely awful. Globe, you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.