New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Never Let Me Go!

Hey, everybody, it’s a new episode of my podcast “A Good Story Well Told” with Jonathan Auxier! In this episode, he shames me into finally reading Kazuo Ishiguru’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go. We get much discussion out of it, including the power and peril of basing your stories on pre-established conspiracy theories. I hope you enjoy it! 

 Here it is on Spotify.

And here it is on Apple Podcasts!

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 31: The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, first broadcast December 27th, 1983

• When was it written? Sometime between 1589 and 1593. Some have made the case that it’s his first play, but others say it’s more likely to be his eighth play.
• What’s it about? Valentine and Proteus are best friends in Verona, both in love with women they aren’t allowed to love (Valentine loves Silvia and Proteus loves Julia.) But then Proteus meets Silvia and instantly decides to ditch Julia to pursue Silvia instead, and goes so far as to snitch on Valentine and get him banished to clear a path. In the forest Valentine joins a group of Robin-Hood-esque outlaws. Julia decides to dress as a boy and win Proteus back. Silvia isn’t interested in Proteus, so he considers raping her until Valentine stops him at sword-point. In the end, everybody ends up with who they started with and the friends are reconciled.
• Most famous dialogue: No famous dialogue here.
• Sources: Primarily The Seven Books of the Diana by the Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemayor, with a bit of Thomas Elyot's The Boke Named the Governour
• Interesting fact about the play: Those (in the minority) that conjecture that this was actually Shakespeare’s first play cite as their primary evidence how bad it is. I would argue the opposite: I found this to be very sophisticated, so I doubt it’s his first. It seems like a much more ambitious undertaking than A Comedy of Errors, which is more often listed as his first comedy. Writing about anti-heroes is hard. You generally want to master writing about likeable heroes first. I would argue that, since Proteus is a compelling and complex anti-hero, this is unlikely to be the first.
• Best insult:
• “She is peevish, sullen, froward, proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty”
• “Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!”
• Worst insult: “Silvia, witness heaven that made her fair, shows Julie but a swarthy Ethiope.” Well that’s problematic.
• Best word: sluggardised, braggardism
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I’ve never read or seen it before.
• Notable names in the BBC Adaptation: None

How’s the cast?

• They’re wonderful. Tyler Butterworth has very unfortunate 1983 hair that makes him a dead ringer for Shaun Cassidy, but other than that gives a great performance as one of Shakespeare’s most callow anti-heroes, John Hudson shows nice range as Valentine goes on his big personal journey from gentleman to criminal. Tessa Peake-Jones, as is always true in this series, is unconvincing as a boy, but does a great job otherwise. Tony Haygarth is very funny as Proteus’s servant Launce (and the dog playing Launce’s dog is great too) Paul Daneman is a real standout as a worldly wise Duke, about whom I will say more below.

How’s the direction by Don Taylor?

• Excellent. Shakespeare has many perfectly fine plays that are miscategorized as comedies and directors have to strain to squeeze jokes out of them, but this very funny production does not feel strained at all, and makes a convincing case that this is actually a very funny play (despite the possibility of rape at the end, which ends the comedy real quick, but I think that’s the point.) Taylor wanted realistic sets, but when he realized that the BBC couldn’t deliver, he decided to go in a more stylized direction, with aluminum poles for trees, and it works surprisingly well.

Rulebook Casefile: The Power of an Ironic Title

Look at that plot description again, then answer me: Who exactly are the gentlemen here? The one who betrays his friend and then considers raping that friend’s true love? Or the one who goes to live as a robber in the forest? Surely the title is intentionally ironic. Of course, these men are technically gentlemen, since that was merely an accident of birth, but to the degree that behavior can be described as gentlemanly, these guys lack it.

This is a play about how a new lust/infatuation can cause a man to betray not only his previous lady-love but his male best friend as well, which is unfortunately an evergreen topic. Valentine (named after the patron saint of love) and Proteus (a name that means changeable) begins the play with much lyrical talk about true love (as opposed to Launce, speaking in prose, giving a hilariously mercenary account of his own lover’s qualities) but one betrays his love and his friend, and the other proves to be a crook at heart.

The title drips with irony. The word “Gentlemen” might as well be in quotes, and the power of that ironic title adds new layers of meaning to the play.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: When Should Actors Be Allowed to Play Things That Aren’t Necessarily in the Text?

Shakespeare wrote rich texts, densely packed with meaning and overflowing with subtext. But that’s never enough for actors or directors. In production after production, you find actors injecting new meanings into scenes that simply aren’t supported by the text. (I’ve talked before about the urge to turn perfectly innocent scenes into sex scenes.)

But then you also have examples of great actors who push it right to the edge, delivering an unorthodox interpretation that is, in retrospect, justified by the text, but was invisible until the actor (and/or director) dug it out.

This production has a wonderful example. Valentine is illicitly in love with the Duke’s daughter, but so is Proteus. Proteus wants to steal his friend’s girl, so he betrays his friend to the Duke. It would have been easy to stick to the text and have the Duke be entirely appreciative of this warning that his daughter is about to run away with Valentine.

But Paul Daneman as the Duke gives us a lot more than is seemingly on the page. In this version, the Duke sees exactly what’s really going on. He can see what a scoundrel Proteus is and he’s disgusted by it, but has to pretend to be thankful for the tip. It’s an excellent example of playing against the surface text in a way that does not contradict the underlying text at all.

Rulebook Casefile: The Power of Props

Props are one of the most powerful tools any writer can have. I’ve written and made videos about how powerful it can be to invest objects with meaning, and create more meaning every time those objects are exchanged.

And yet, Shakespeare does not do this very much. It’s not uncommon to have whole scenes with no props.

This play, however, is a big exception. It struck me in the first scene, where there’s a lot of business with Proteus’s letter to Julia, that this was uncommon. Later, there is a hilarious scene where Valentine has a rope ladder hidden under his cloak that the Duke contrives to reveal.

Perhaps this is an indication that the play really did come earlier than is commonly supposed. We’ve seen with other early plays that Shakespeare didn’t understand Elizabethan stage conventions yet, sometimes to good effect. Was the tendency in his later plays, which were all-dialogue-no-business, a stage convention at the time but he didn’t grasp it yet? If so, this is a delightful departure.

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Slaughterhouse-Five!

It’s a new episode of “A Good Story Well Told” with co-host Jonathan Auxier! We’re still doing our “Shame Shelf” series, and in this episode I shame Jonathan into finally reading Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel “Slaughterhouse-Five.” Much discussion is had about whether it’s good or bad to write a novel that is very much a product of its time.

We also discuss the New York Times review of Guy Fieri’s restaurant in Times Square, written by Pete Wells.  Here that is (or here, if you’d prefer not to give any clicks to the Times.)
 

Here’s this week’s episode on Spotify and here it is on Apple Podcasts: 

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Treasure Planet

Hey everybody, it’s time for a new episode of A Good Story Well Told. In this episode, Jonathan gets me to finally watch the notorious Disney flop Treasure Planet! Will I end up saying “I haven’t missed much” or “Where have you been all my life??”

Here’s the episode on Apple Podcasts…

…And here it is on Spotify!

   

I am no longer cross-posting the episodes on the Secrets of Story feed, so you’ll have to subscribe to the new feed to get them from now on!

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Vertigo!

Hi everybody! As you may recall, I’ve launched a new podcast called “A Good Story Well Told” with Jonathan Auxier. We released an intro episode and a first full episode where Jonathan shamed me into finally reading the book “The Giver.”

I’m glad to say that both episodes got great ratings and lots of positive attention! Thanks to everybody who gave them a listen. Please feel free to rate and review us on iTunes to help people find the podcast! (Here’s an interview with Jonathan and me that my wife conducted for School Library Journal’s website, if you want to learn more about us!)

Well now we’ve released our second full episode, where I get to shame Jonathan into finally seeing the movie Vertigo. I think the episode turned out great!

You can find it here on Apple Podcasts!

And here on Spotify!

Announcing a new podcast: A Good Story Well Told, with Jonathan Auxier!

Hi everybody!

So I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that James Kennedy and I have decided to shutter the Secrets of Story Podcast for the foreseeable future. As you may have noticed, we only did two episodes in the last year, and now things have sputtered to an end, partly because James is so busy with all his exciting writerly endeavors.

So does that mean less content for you? It does not!

You may remember that our most frequent guest on The Secrets of Story Podcast was acclaimed children’s author Jonathan Auxier. Well I overheard Jonathan on a Zoom call with my wife lamenting that he’d like to do a podcast but it was too late to hop on board that train. I gave him a call and said, “Not so fast! I need a new podcast partner!”

Instead of continuing Secrets of Story, we decided to start a new podcast called “A Good Story Well Told”. This will be similar to The Secrets of Story, and everyone who enjoyed that one will enjoy this one too, but there will be changes. The biggest change is frequency. For each season, we’re going to put out a new episode every two weeks no matter what!

The great news is that two episodes are available to listen to right now! The first is an intro episode where we talk about how we met and what we’ll be doing on the podcast. The second is the first episode in our “Shame Shelf” series about what you can learn about writing from the book (and terrible movie) The Giver.

(I’ll be cross-posting the first episode to the Secrets of Story feed, so all 1000 followers or so know about the new show. To hear the second episode and follow along for the whole first season, you’ll have to find and subscribe to the new podcast feed “A Good Story Well Told” on your podcatcher of choice. So please, go right now and subscribe to “A Good Story Well Told” so that you won’t miss the avalanche of new content you’ll have thundering your way!)

Okay, so here’s the first two episodes of the new podcast!

Episode 1 on Apple Podcasts!

Episode 2 on Apple Podcasts!

Or, if you prefer Spotify:

Episode 1 on Spotify!

Episode 2 on Spotify!

Shakespeare, New Sidebar Items, and My Own Personal NaNoWriMo

Well, folks, we have 7 Shakespeare plays left. They are:

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Coriolanus
• The Life and Death of King John
• Pericles
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Love’s Labours Lost
• Titus Andronicus

As you may have noticed, one of these things is not like the others. You have the legendary Much Ado and six of his most forgotten plays. The production history here, in case you hadn’t guessed, is that they let directors pick their Shakespeare plays and these are the ones nobody picked (with the big exception of Much Ado which was supposed to be done earlier but kept getting cancelled and pushed back for various reasons.) Are the six I haven’t seen all duds? I hope not. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some I was unfamiliar with as we’ve gone through these, and I’m hoping that will happen again here.

But I’m intimidated to continue, and, more importantly, I need to rewrite my novel, so I’m turning April into my own personal National Novel Writing Month (which is usually held in November.) I’ve got thirty chapters, there are thirty days in April and I’m going to rewrite a chapter a day.

I also have big news announcing new material coming up but I’m not quite ready to announce that yet.

Meanwhile, if you’re starved for content in April, you’ll note that I’ve been doing what you should be doing, exploring the 15 years of archives of this blog, and I’ve discovered some posts that never ended up in the sidebar. Check them out in the bottom of the sidebar over there, or just click on them here:

• How to Write a Memoir (I had forgotten I’d had a series with this title. My novel is semi-autobiographical, so I’ve been studying memoirs intensely for a year, so I should expand this series with what I’ve learned.)
• Have at Least Six Big Decisions (One question I wish I could go back and add to the checklist)
• Can a Computer Do My Job?
• Secrets of Dungeon-Mastering
• My Top 20 Films! (Or at least what they were 15 years ago, the list would be different today. I was really into Tales of Manhattan at the time!)

Appearance on Jon Spurling Write in the Head YouTube Show!

Hey everybody, I made an appearance on Jon Spurling’s incredible “Write in the Head” YouTube Show! I reiterate my long held belief that the first act should most consist of a longstanding personal problem becoming acute, often though a social humiliation, then an intimidating opportunity presenting itself, then an unexpected conflict immediately arising. On in shorter form: “Problem / Opportunity / Conflict.” We discuss lots of examples and have fun. Unfortunately, I do have to apologize for the quality of the video and audio, which, entirely my fault, are not great. So sorry that a few words drop out, but you can pick them up from context clues. Check it out!

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 30: The Comedy of Errors

The Comedy of Errors, first broadcast December 24th, 1983

• When was it written: Possibly in 1594, perhaps his fifth play and first comedy.
• What’s it about? Two sets of twins, two young lords both named Antipholus and two slaves both named Dromio, are separated at youth and know nothing of each other. When their father is about to be executed for a debt, they all end up in the Greek city of Ephesues, where there are many mix-ups but everything ends happily (except for, y’know, the two slaves who are not freed and still constantly beaten)
• Most famous dialogue: Oddly, this is a beloved and often-staged play, but no one piece of dialogue has really become famous.
• Sources: The play is a modernised adaptation of Menaechmi by Plautus, a Roman playwright.
• Interesting fact about the play: This is the only play to mention America, despite being set in ancient Greece. Jones cuts the line here, possibly because it’s so jarring.
• Best insult: “He is deformèd, crooked, old, and sere, Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere, Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind, Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.”
• Best word: This play had no words that were unfamiliar or strange to me, which is one reason it can be staged so widely.
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I saw an excellent production at Chicago Shakespeare Company as a play-within-a-play set during the Blitz (and I saw a fine production at Earlham College way back in the day)
• Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Roger Daltry of “The Who” is both Dromios! Michael Kitchen, whom you’ve seen in things, is both Antiphili. Charles Gray also returns as the befuddled judge who has to sort everything out.

How’s the cast?

• Excellent. As an actor, Daltry is only remembered for playing the lead in the movie of Tommy, but this proves that he was a very gifted comic actor who could have had a good side career if he hadn’t been so busy rocking. Kitchen does a great job playing the two Antiphili slightly differently despite dressing the same. The ladies are great, the old people are great, everyone’s great.

How’s the direction by James Cellan Jones?

• Absolutely delightful. Everything is bright and colorful, befitting the sprightly text. The town sprawls around a massive map of the peninsula and circus performers prance about at all times doing their tricks. Ultimately, Jones’ best decision was the casting, which I’ll discuss more below.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Stories are Better When Everybody Isn’t Dumb

Usually, this play is staged by casting two pairs of actors who look similar but not identical to each other as the two pairs of twins. This makes all of the townspeople who stare one Dromio in the face, and then stare the other Dromio in the face five minutes later, and can’t tell them apart, look like idiots. Jones does something different, simply casting one actor as each set of twins, dressed and styled identically.

Normally, this doubling cannot be done, because all four are together on stage for a long scene at the end, but this is, of course, TV, and Jones can simply do the ending Patty Duke-style, which works fine.

But there were complainers. According to Wikipedia: 

• “This production used editing and special effects to have each set of twins played by the same actors. However, this was not well received by critics, who argued that not only was it confusing for the audience as to which character was which, but much of the comedy was lost when the characters look identical.”

Allow me to say, those critics were bozos. I’ve seen this play many times, always with actors that looked kind-of-similar as the twins, and it’s never worked this well. Yes, every time Dromio or Antipholus appears, it’s a bit confusing for a moment about which one this is, but then the fun of it is figuring that out from context clues. It never took me more than a minute to get caught up on which one I was watching, and I’m famous for my failure to follow complex stories.

As for “much of the comedy” being lost, the implication here is that a key source of laughs in the play is that these idiotic townspeople can’t tell these not-entirely-similar actors apart. But Jones’ comedy is a more generous comedy. There are no idiots here. Anyone would be very confused in this situation, and these mix-ups are entirely understandable. The comedy arises from our frustration at understanding a situation that they couldn’t possibly understand, and I found it hilarious.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Don’t Let Yourself Get Boxed In

There’s a certain “Dylan goes electric” feel to this play, where we have an artist suddenly branching out in a new direction and hoping his audience goes along.

We’re fairly certain that Shakespeare wrote the three Henry VI plays first (in one order or another), then Richard III. That quartet has very little comedy (unlike his later history quartet, which has Falstaff to lighten things). This was a badass playwright writing brutal history plays on blood-spattered sets. Then, it’s possible that this was the fifth play, an adaptation of an old Roman comedy. The result is a brilliantly funny farce, but theatergoers must have been totally unprepared for this very silly comedy, if we’re right in our suppositions about play order.

(Curiously, there’s almost no subplot. In almost every scene the two Dromios are mistaken for each other or the two Antipholi are mistaken for each other. It’s a dozen permutations of a single joke.)

I wrote a blog post 15 years ago advocating that writers might want to stay in their lane, but this play argues the opposite. You can yank your audience in radical new directions, if you have total confidence in your genius as a playwright, which thankfully Shakespeare did.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Don’t, Y’know, Endorse Beating Slaves

My daughter just made her Shakespearean debut as Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. It was wonderful, but watching this, I kept wondering if they should have staged this one instead. Much Ado is the better play, of course, but this one is, I would say, funnier, and certainly shorter (It’s Shakespeare’s shortest play). The only reason not to stage it is that owning and beating slaves is not condemned, and the “happy ending” leaves the Dromios still enslaved. (And one of the two without a love interest.)

And how do you cast it according to modern gender-blind and colorblind casting? It’s tempting to not have the four of them be white men, but as soon as you change either pair to women or another race, then the constant beatings the Dromios receive at the hands of the Antipholi become something that’s much harder to take.

Ultimately, I think you’d have to take out all the beatings, which I think would work fine. Ideally you would free the slaves at the end too, but I don’t think you could do that without altering the text, which I usually do not endorse.

Personally, with a large cast of 8-13 year olds, I would have done Midsummer, but this one would have been tempting (the lack of unfamiliar words would also help) but, in the end, it’s probably too problematic.