37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 23: The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merry Wives of Windsor, first broadcast December 28th 1982

• When was it written? In or around 1597, possibly his 23rd play
• What’s it about? 200 years have passed since Henry IV Part 2, but John Falstaff is seemingly alive and well in Elizabethan England, up to his old tricks. He sends identical love letters to two married women, who compare notes, and lay a series of traps to humiliate him. Meanwhile, three suitors want to marry one of the women’s daughters, who ends up with the one she loves.
• Most famous dialogue: “Why then, the world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open.”
• Sources: Some elements may have been adapted from “Il Pecorone,” a collection of stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino.
• Best insult: So many!
• “You Banbury Cheese”
• “I combat challenge of this latten bilbo” (I learned that the word “bilbo” refers to a flexible sword made in Bilboa, Spain.)
• “Froth and scum, thou liest”
• “O base Hungarian wight!”
• “Out of my door, you witch, you hag, you baggage, you polecat, you runyon!”
• “What, a hodge pudding? A bag of flax?” “A puffed man?” “Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?” “And one that is as slanderous as Satan?” “And as poor as Job?” “And as wicked as his wife?” “And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?”
• Best word: Anthropophaginian
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I saw it in Stratford ON with Brian Dennehy as Falstaff and it was rather fun.
• Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: It’s practically star-studded: Richard Griffiths (Mr. Dursley from Harry Potter) is Falstaff, Judy Davis is one of the wives and Ben Kingsley is her husband

How’s the cast?

• Wonderful. I saw Griffiths on Broadway in the very serious Equus, so I know he would probably do great with the more tragic material in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, but he’s certainly great here as well in this strictly comedic take on the character. Ben Kingsley, the same year he had his big break-out as Gandhi, is delightful as a manic Mr. Ford, yet another of Shakespeare’s imaginary cuckolds (though he has more reason to be afeared than some).

How’s the direction by David Jones?

• Very sprightly and funny. He wanted to shoot outdoors in the streets of Stratford, but was forced to stay in studio by the BBC. He nevertheless makes it feel airy and outdoorsy. My only complaint is that 2:45 is a bit too long for a lightweight (no pun intended) comedy, but blame Shakespeare for that.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Should You Give Your Audience What They Say They Want?

The legend that has always trailed this play, whether it’s true or not, is that Queen Elizabeth saw the Henry IV plays (or possibly only the first one had come out at this point) and said she wanted more of Falstaff, so she requested a play where Sir John falls in love. Shakespeare then supposedly dashed this off quickly to satisfy the request, which has led to it being dismissed by later critics. (Personally, I find it to be carefully-constructed and very funny, so I dispute the claims that Shakespeare didn’t care about it.)

There will always be much debate about the veracity of this story, and what the timeline might have been, and what we can possibly know about what actually went down.

But let’s suppose that it’s all true, and this play really was written to give the queen a play where John Falstaff falls in love. This begs the question that is never answered, not even in the wildest speculation: What did the queen think of the new play? Did she feel it satisfied her request?

The answer is: Surely not. Falstaff doesn’t fall in love! He pursues two married women, and it’s a bit unclear if he’s going for sex or money, but love is right out. He’s barely chagrined that his plans don’t work out, and ends the play happily single, as he began it.

Did Shakespeare have contempt for his queen’s request? Did he feel it would violate the character to have him actually fall in love, whether happily or unrequitedly? Did he feel that she didn’t really want what she thought she wanted, and would have actually been horrified to see Falstaff overcome his wicked ways (“old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails”), so he crafted a play that he knew would actually please her more? History, and even wild conjecture, tells us nothing. Certainly, she had the power to punish Shakespeare in various ways (from killing him to withdrawing his charter) and didn’t, so she can’t have been that upset.

Do audiences want characters to grow and change in sequels, or do they want more of the same? If they insist on the former, should writers confidently assume they really want the latter? Shakespeare, if this backstory is true, defied his queen and wrote a very funny play, which hopefully amused her though it might have frustrated her.

I, for one, would have loved to see Shakespeare actually try to satisfy her request, and try to write a play in which Falstaff moved from gut to heart, but I love this play, too, which stays firmly in the gut. Whether Shakespeare felt this was what Elizabeth truly wanted to see, or simply what he himself truly wanted to write, or perhaps if he felt this was all Falstaff could be, we have to respect his decision.

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 22: King Lear

The Tragedy of King Lear, first broadcast September 19, 1982

• When was it written? We really don’t know. Sometime between 1603 and 1606. Possibly his 28th play.
• What’s it about? In ancient England, King Lear decides to retire early and divide his land among his three daughters, but demands they profess their love for him first. Cordelia, who actually loves him, is insulted by the request and refuses, so she gets nothing. Goneril and Regan falsely praise him and get everything. They instantly start abusing Lear after they get it. Meanwhile, Lear’s friend Gloucester has one bad son (Edmund) and one good one (Edgar), and likewise misunderstands which is which. Both old men end up wandering around outside in a storm. In the end, everybody except Edmund ends up dead.
• Most famous dialogue: One of these three:
• How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child
• I am a man more sinned against than sinning
• As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods, they kill us for their sport
• Sources: First Geoffrey of Monmouth and then Holinshed told the story of Leir of Britain and his daughters, supposedly from the pre-Roman times of 800 BCE. Shakespeare moves it up just a bit, because they all swear to the Roman gods. But the names of all the dukedoms match 1600 AD, not ancient times. Miller, of course, puts them in Elizabethan dress, which only confuses matters all the more.
• Best insult: So many!
• You whoreson dog, you slave, you cur!
• A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch.
• And yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter, or rather a disease that’s in my flesh which I must needs call mine, Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood
• You’re not worth the dust that the rude wind blows in your face
• Milk-livered man, that bear’st a cheek for blows
• A most toad-spotted traitor
• And finally we get the title of Taylor Swift’s next breakup album: “You base football player!”
• Best word: Yokefellow
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I just saw it once, in Startford ON, which was good but Paul Gross was a fairly low-energy Lear.
• Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: They had originally planned to do it with Robert Shaw but he died unexpectedly during the planning stages. As it turned out, the only familiar face is Penelope Wilton returning as Regan.

How’s the cast? 

• Michael Horden is excellent as a very haggard Lear. Everyone else is good but Miller did a bit too well casting for family resemblance, because I had a hard time telling the three daughters apart and the two sons apart.

How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?

• The good news is that, after producing the last two seasons and making a lot of bad decisions (not the least of which was having a white Othello), a new season begins here and Miller is now out as producer. But on his way out the door, he does one last job, directing this play for the new producer. And he repeats a lot of the mistakes he made before, such as using Elizabethan dress and stagebound sets, but of course the real job of a director is to get great performances, and he does that here.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Great Plays Transcend Bad Politics

Many things made the England of 1603 unjust, but one of the worst was primogeniture. Basically, only the first born legitimate son could inherit anything and everyone else, especially daughters and illegitimate sons, was out in the cold. Shakespeare could have seen the injustice of this and protested it, but, to put it mildly, he does not do that here. 

Instead, this play could be seen as a paean to primogeniture, because it shows why it’s a bad idea to inherit your daughters and your bastard sons. Cordelia presumably would have done a better job if she had inherited some land, but she wisely rejects it and it’s made clear by several characters that the two daughters who do accept the land are particularly perfidious because they’re women. (“Women will all turn monsters.”)

And certainly Edmund does not paint a good portrait of bastard sons. (Has there ever been a good bastard son in literature? The most obvious answer is Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, but it’s the exception that proves the rule, because it eventually turns out that he’s not really a bastard, which explains his nobility.)

So the politics are bad here. But it’s a great play for lots of other reasons. Ultimately, once we begin condemning works for failing to stand up to power systems in place at the time, we’ll lose almost everything. We should still particularly praise authors who, in addition to their other gifts, actually were on the right side of history on whichever issues they address, and we should be hyper-aware of poisonous political messages lurking in the bosom of plays like Lear, but, given that, we should marvel all the more at Shakespeare’s ability to create something so emotionally powerful when coming from a politically dubious place.

Straying From the Party Line: Come Up With Complimentary Plots and Subplots

From a storytelling point of view, the biggest flaw of this play is that the plot and the subplot are too similar. Both Lear and Gloucester believe a lying child (or children) over an honest child, lose everything, end up howling mad in the same rainstorm on the same heath, finally figure it out only to keel over dead at the very end for no real reason (one of joy, one of grief).

Shakespeare usually does a much better job coming up with an A-plot and B-plot that compliment each other by approaching the same themes with different tones and plot turns. In the last play we looked at, for instance, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the teenagers in the A-plot and the fairies in the B-plot both had jealousies and love-potion shenanigans, but neither felt like a repeat of the other. They each resonate together richly.

At first, the two plots in this play are on different tracks and, while hitting the same beats, barely intersect, until the third act when Lear’s bad daughters both fall for Gloucester’s bad son. There shouldn’t be this much of a record scratch when we jump from one plot to the other, as is the case in the first two acts.

Worse, each story is precisely as bleak as the other. Both fathers suffer so extremely that we yearn for more tonal relief, and switching back and forth between these two plots provides none. (Lear’s fool provides just a bit of comic relief to his plot, and he’s my favorite character, but he doesn’t really try to alleviate the grimness)

Many consider this to be Shakespeare’s greatest play, but, for this reason, I must disagree. I would still put it very high, but not in the Top 5.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Express Love in Ways That Love Has Never Been Expressed Before

So do I have anything positive to say? Yes, obviously, there is much to praise in this devastating play.

The most powerful moment is when Gloucester, who’s had his eyes gouged out by Regan and her husband, wanders the heath and runs into his good son Edgar, who (as was the case with Hamlet) may have gone mad or may be feigning madness (or both).

Gloucester, not recognizing his son’s voice, asks this stranger to lead him to a cliff he can jump off, and Edgar agrees, then leads him to the middle of a flat meadow, tells him about looking down a sheer cliff and encourages him to jump forward. Gloucester stumbles forward but there’s no cliff. Edgar then switches voices, pretends to be someone way down at the bottom of the cliff who has just seen him land, and convinces his father that he has fallen from a great height and survived, so he should now embrace life. (“Thy life is a miracle.”) This works. It’s a truly bizarre way for a father to try to save his father’s suicidal soul, and makes for a delightful scene.

This is a play about human behavior pushed to horrific extremes by terrifying events. In such twisted times, love can only be expressed in twisted ways. The oddity of it makes it all the more transcendent.

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 21: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, first broadcast December 13th, 1981

• Possibly written: 1595 or 1596, possibly his 12th play. Very early for such a great play!
• What’s it about? It’s very complex, but I’ll attempt to sum it up. In ancient Athens, Helena loves Demetrius who loves Hermia who loves Lysander who loves her back, but Hermia’s dad insists she marry Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander go into the woods at night to elope, followed by the other two trying to stop them. Meanwhile, fairies Titania and Oberon are feuding and their war affects the teenagers as well as some workmen who are rehearsing their play in the forest. Oberon sends out his servant Puck with love potions, and soon the boys both switch their affection from Hermia to Helena, and Titania falls for one of the workmen, who has been given the head of a donkey. In the morning, the teens finally pair off into two happy couples and Bottom rejoins the workmen. They perform their play at a wedding, unintentionally amusing the other characters.
• Most famous dialogue: Either “The course of true love never did run smooth,” or “Lord what fools these mortals be”
• Sources: None! This is considered one of Shakespeare’s few truly original works. Aristophanes’ The Birds does have a scene similar to the scene with Titania and Bottom.
• Best insult: Lots of them:
• Away you Ethiope! Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; let loose or I will shake thee from me like a serpent. Out, tawny Tartar, out!
• You juggler! You canker-blossom! Thou painted maypole
• Get you gone, you dwarf, you minimus, of hind’ring knot-grass made! You bead! You acorn!
• Best word: None stood out.
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I’ve seen many very good productions. One at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem had a very funny Bottom. There was a good one at Stratford during the Iraq war that was shockingly warlike. But perhaps I have the most affection for the bare bones version I saw in the brief time we had a Shakespeare company here in Evanston. I loved that Flute, as Thisbe in the play at the end, gives a shockingly great performance that quiets the hecklers.
• Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Helen Mirren returns for the first time since As You Like It, this time in the very different role of Titania. Geoffrey Palmer, who you’ve seen in a million things, shows up as Quince. They’re both very good.

How’s the cast?

• Excellent. As you would expect from the BBC, the “teenagers” are a little long in the tooth, but they’re very funny, especially Cherith Mellor as Helena. The real stand-out is Phil Daniels as Puck. Moshinsky said he didn’t like portrayals of Puck as a harmless sprite and had Daniels play him as an “anti-establishment punk.” (He sounds like Billy Bragg, so I guess that’s an Essex accent?) I’d never seen a scary Puck who genuinely dislikes the people he’s zonking, and it’s a great interpretation.

How’s the direction by Elijah Moshinsky?

• It’s delightful. Everything is very funny and, as opposed to the last two, which were over three hours long, this one is under two hours because it’s played fast, so fast in fact that they spend half the time talking right over each other. The sets, while stagy, are beautiful, with much use made of pools and puddles, and the lighting really makes it feel like a forest on a moonlit night.

Rulebook Casefile: The Case for Imperfection

Previously on this blog and in one of my books, I talk about being T.A. for Andrew Sarris’s Hitchcock class at Columbia, and a student asking me, “Why does everybody say that Vertigo is better than North by Northwest, when North by Northwest is generally considered to be perfectly constructed and Vertigo is so messy.” My answer was that depth is found in holes. Vertigo’s plot holes make it deeper, more mysterious, and more beautiful.

Likewise, this play has always been my favorite Shakespeare play. But it’s a mess.

The pacing is bizarre. Every other comedy builds up to the fifth act, when all of the misunderstandings are resolved in the final scene and true love wins out at the last possible minute. But in this play, that all happens in the fourth act. Almost every storyline wraps up in Act Four Scene Two, and Act Five is just a long one-scene epilogue, where our two pairs of happy lovers just do some heckling while the workmen put on their play.

I’ve always wondered when I’ve seen this play on stage or screen, if anyone has ever tried to “fix” it, slice and dice it, and move the resolution of the teenager and fairy plots until after (or during) the performance of the workmen’s play. I think you would have to make a terrible hash of it if you did, but I’ve never stopped thinking about ways to do it.

But no, this is as it should be. Shakespeare, masterfully splicing together other people’s plots, would usually interweave many story elements until they tie together into a beautiful fifth act bow. In this, one of the only plays without source material, he doesn’t try, and allows many of his (original) plot elements to be resolved early, with only one plot element awkwardly spilling over into the final act. It’s a somewhat baffling decision, but still wildly entertaining.

It’s a mess, but it’s his most beautiful mess, and greater than many plays that are far more (and perhaps far too) tidy.

Straying From the Party Line: Don’t Give Physical Descriptions of Your Actors!

This is one of the few Shakespeare plays which limits who can play which part, because it’s a big element of the dialogue that Helena is taller than Hermia. And indeed, I think in every production I’ve seen they did cast the taller actress as Helena. It breaks a big rule of playwriting, because it means they can’t cast just anybody in any part, but it’s a very funny dialogue runner (see the insults above), so Shakespeare can get away with it just this once.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Redeem the Old “Take Her Glasses Off” Trick

The production does an old trick: Helena wears glasses (one of many anachronisms) and, when Demetrius finally realizes he loves her, the glasses are, of course, off.  But I loved that later, when they spend the fifth act just heckling the play, the couple are happy together and the glasses are, thankfully, back on.  Guys may not make passes at girls who wear glasses, but once they realize they’ve found the one, they’ll hopefully let you see again.  

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 20: Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida, first broadcast November 7th, 1981

• Possibly written: 1602, possibly his 24th play
• What’s it about? During the Trojan War, Achilles sulks in his tent on the Greek side while Ajax prepares to fight Hector in his place. Meanwhile, over on the Trojan side, Prince Troilus loves a young woman named Cressida, but when her father defects to the Greeks, he insists that Cressida be forced to follow him. Troilus spies on her seemingly being untrue to him. There’s a battle, Achilles kills Hector while he’s unarmed, but the Troilus and Cressida story is forgotten and never concluded.
• Most famous dialogue: None, but we do take the phrase “good riddance” from this.
• Sources: Combines Homer’s Iliad with Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, and many others.
• Best insult: This play rivals Henry IV Part 1 for number of insults. There’s a character (Ajax’s slave Thersites) who does nothing but exchange insults. Some of the best:
• “Dog, thou bitch-wolf’s son”
• “Thou mongrel beef-witted lord”
• “Thou vinewedst leaven”
• “You whoreson cur”
• “Thou stool for a witch”
• “Thou has no more brain than I have in mine elbows”
• “Thou thing of no bowels, thou!”
• Best word: Orgulous? Frautage? Vinewedst? No, this is the best word we’ve encountered in all 20 plays: oppugnancy
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: This was my first exposure to the play
• Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Charles Gray (Diamonds are Forever, Rocky Horror Picture Show) returns to the series (after playing Julius Caesar and others) as Pandarus, who gets Troilus and Cressida together in a leering way, thus giving us the word panderer. I don’t recognize anyone else.

How’s the cast? 

• Terrible. Anton Lesser as Troilus and Suzanne Burden as Cressida are both forgettable and I kept losing track of each one. Benjamin Whitrow as Ulysses is too old and not wily enough. Then there’s the issue of the three parts that are played as gay, which I’ll discuss below.

How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?

• Terrible. Miller stages the play as if it was a comedy and the actors keep waiting for laughs that never come, because none of it is remotely funny. Yet again, he dresses them up in Elizabethan dress for no reason, which feels ridiculous in the Trojan War. This is the same director who just cast Anthony Hopkins as Othello in the previous production, but somehow this one is even more offensive as I’ll talk about below.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: How to Avoid Causing Offense

In the original Homer, Patroclus and Achilles seem, at least to modern readers, to be having a gay romance. Shakespeare also portrays them this way. Thersites says to Patroclus, “Thou art said to be Achilles’ male varlet.” Patroclus responds, “Male varlet, you rogue! What’s that?” and Thersites says, “Why, his masculine whore.”

So this is a play with gay content and that has to be dealt with. Miller, however makes odd choices. He has Simon Cutter play Patroclus as fairly effeminate, which is not inherently offensive, but has Kenneth Haigh seemingly play Achilles as straight, which loses out on a chance to positively portray a gay relationship. Oddly, Miller also has Charles Gray (who was good in his other productions) play Pandarus as a fey caricature of a gay man, though there’s no indication of that in the text, and it’s tremendously grating.

But Miller then codes a third character as gay, and here's where he really wrecks the production. For Thersites he cast an actor named Jack Birkett, who chose to be billed here as “The Incredible Orlando,” which is an odd billing to see in the BBC font. Wikipedia describes Birkett/Orlando as “flamboyantly gay.” As Thersites, he wears dresses, acts very swishy and speaks with a greatly exaggerated lisp. I was tremendously offended as I watched it, even more so than I had been by watching Anthony Hopkins play Othello, but I tempered my opinion of the character somewhat afterwards when I found out that Birkett/Orlando might not have been that far off from how he seemed in real life.

Is it inherently offensive to have three gay-coded characters in the time of the Trojan War? No, of course not. It’s somewhat progressive to not have “the single example.” Is it preferable to cast a flamboyant gay man in a part you have chosen to code as flamboyantly gay? Yes, it is. But something just tips into offense here, even knowing the circumstances.

Two years earlier, in 1979, the out-and-proud gay film director Derek Jarman cast Birkett/Orlando as Caliban in his version of “The Tempest” and I checked out his performance there to see how different it was. The performance was similar, and there was also a bit of a lisp there, but Birkett/Orlando was far less grating there that he is here. Jarman, being gay, seems to have a respect for Birkett/Orlando’s flamboyance that Miller, being straight, does not have. Thersites seems like a very cruel mockery of gay people, in a way that the same actor’s not-entirely dissimilar portrayal of Caliban did not.

Birkett/Orlando has a tremendous amount of fun with the part. He is simultaneously the best thing and the worst thing about this production. His insults and crudity are delightful, but the part is ruined by the fact that, though this was probably the farthest thing from the actor’s intention (and may not even have been the director’s intention), it feels like a hateful caricature.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: The Difference Between Ambiguity and Just Not Finishing the Damn Thing

What is this thing?

Embarking on this project, I was unfamiliar with several Shakespeare plays. I haven’t finished the project, so there are still six more coming up I am unfamiliar with, but, according to my research, this is the play that people are most confused about whether it is supposed to be a comedy or tragedy (or even a history play!)

Usually, you can tell from the ending. “The Winter’s Tale” and “Cymbeline” aren’t funny, but they end with scenes where everybody comes together to resolve mix-ups, lovers are reconciled, and everything works out for most characters, so we have to conclude that Shakespeare intended them to be comedies. This play has no such scene at the end. The entire final act is dark and heavy and nobody ends up happy, so it was surely intended to be a tragedy.

The problem is that the main story doesn’t end at all. The lovers pledge loyalty to each other but are separated, at which point she is dragged into what she considers to be an enemy camp, where she is immediately ordered by a general to kiss every man there. She then has an encounter with one where she may or may not be capable of consenting. Troilus spies on this and comes to hate her, and swears to kill the man she’s with. Indeed the next day in the war, he chases that man off stage, but we never find out if he killed him, and he returns back to his camp without ever confronting Cressida who is never seen or mentioned again! In the original Chaucer, Troilus dies in battle, but here he’s talking to Pandarus in the last scene, still quite alive. And Cressida? Who knows.

Surely the play is unfinished, but that would make more sense if it were published posthumously. Rather, this was one of the plays that Shakespeare published in his lifetime, so he seemingly okayed it being published in this form.

Bizarrely, when it was first sorted into a category, in the first Quarto, it was classified as a History Play! (Very odd since all of the plays that are classified today as History Plays took place in medieval England.) The First Folio then reclassified it as a Tragedy, but Miller seems to believe it’s a Comedy, and plays it as if it’s funny. Everybody seems vaguely amused by most events for no reason.

Ultimately, whether the story of the two lovers ended in death or reconciliation would have determined if it were tragedy or comedy, but since their story has no conclusion, we’ll never know. Given that it is possible that this was a complete play, should we assume that Shakespeare was being intentionally ambiguous here?

If so, this is the worst type of ambiguity. Even today, stories must climax. This non-climax is not intriguing or meaningful in any way, it’s just unsatisfying and bizarre. Maybe if either one had announced that they never wanted to see the other again, that might have given us some sort of finality, but no, we get the feeling that neither of them feels any closure here, and there would be ample opportunity to gain it if the story didn’t just end where it does. This might have been a chance to discover a third way other than reconciliation or death, and if Shakespeare had attempted something new, it could have been a great play, but the way it is, it just feels like it was unfinished or something went very wrong.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Consent is Tricky

One of Shakespeare’s favorite tropes is the woman who is falsely accused of infidelity. Women in Othello, Much Ado About Nothing and Cymbeline are framed for committing infidelity by a villainous third party, whereas in the Winter’s Tale, the husband just imagines the infidelity with nobody tricking him into it. In each case, it’s presented as the ultimate nightmare for these blameless women to face the most grave accusation a woman can face, one that makes the love of their life want to kill them.

I had begun to come to the conclusion that no Shakespearean women actually cheated, until I saw this play.* This play complicates that conclusion, but does not entirely overturn it. This situation is just really fucked up. Cressida is in love with a Trojan and loyal to Troy, but her father is not and bargains to have her seized in Troy and taken over to him in the Greek camp. Ulysses takes an immediate dislike to her, orders every Greek man to kiss her, then refuses to do so himself because he says she’s clearly a slut. She then has an assignation with one of the men that night, which Troilus spies on and condemns, but it’s hard for me to really see this as cheating. She’s in an enemy camp and cannot meaningfully give or refuse consent.

The question is, am I just misapplying messy 21st century morality to a situation that would have been clear at the time, or is Shakespeare intentionally allowing this messy interpretation? Ultimately, Cressida is an underwritten, unconvincing character either way. When everybody kisses her, she says some things to them that could be considered either flirtatious or just desperate to survive, and Shakespeare wrote the character well enough that an actress could play it either way, but Shakespeare doesn’t give her enough three-dimensionality to help us (or the poor actress) feel strongly either way. The play is just a mess, and has no ending, so we can choose how we feel, but god help the student who has to use this text to write a term paper defending his or her point of view. There’s a reason this play is never assigned.

(*Titania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream is under a love spell, and is basically in an open marriage, so I don’t count her.)

37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 19: Othello

Yup, that’s Anthony Hopkins in (light) blackface as Othello!  The most infamous episode.  (Okay, folks, this series has taken way too long.  I now plan to do one every Friday until we’re done.)  

Othello, first broadcast October 4th, 1981

• Possibly written: Sometime around 1604 or 1605, possibly his 27th play.
• What’s it about? Othello, a Black Moor, has earned a place in the Venetian military, marries Desdemona the daughter of a senator, and appoints Cassio to an office that another officer named Iago wanted. Iago gets his revenge by convincing Othello that Desdemona cheated on him with Cassio. Othello kills Desdemona, then himself. Iago’s role is exposed but he lives, being dragged off in chains.
• Most famous dialogue: Many candidates:
• “Your daughter and the moor are now making the beast with two backs”
• A line I often say about my empty wallet: “Who steals my purse, steals trash.”
• “Tis the green-eyed monster”
• “Then you must speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well.”
• Sources: A tale in the story collection “Gli Ecatommiti” by Giovanni Battista Giraldi, better known as Cinthio
• Best insult: Not a lot of great insults! Surprisingly, Othello never really lets go on Desdemona when he believes he is deceived. The best one is when Iago’s wife sums up men: “They are all but stomachs and we all but food”
• Best word: exsufflicate
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I studied the play in college but I’ve just seen the Larry Fishburne film before this. I’d like to make it to Broadway next year to see Denzel Washington and Jack Gyllenhaal as Othello and Iago.
• Notable Names in the BBC Adaptation: Bob Hoskins is Iago. It took me a long time to recognize Desdemona: She’s Penelope Wilton from Doctor Who and Downton Abbey. I finally realized I’d seen her before from recognizing the way she pursed her lips. Othello, tragically, is played by Anthony Hopkins. Cedric Messina, director of the first two seasons, originally wanted to bring over James Earl Jones from America, but the British film unions (famous for being assholes) threatened to strike if any non-British actors were brought in, so the production was cancelled. Instead, it launches the fourth season, the second with Jonathan Miller as showrunner, and Miller declared the play had nothing to do with race, and so cast Hopkins.

How’s the cast?

• Hopkins is, of course, one of the greatest actors of all time. It’s shameful that he was given this part rather than a Black actor, and I desperately wish they had recorded Jones in the part, but it’s undeniable that Hopkins does an amazing job. (If he’s wearing any blackface, it’s just a little bronzer, but still inexcusable) Hoskins as Iago is even better. His Iago is constantly bitterly amused by himself, and his uncontrollable laughter (the last thing we hear in the play) is truly terrifying. Wilton, who I’m used to in much older roles, is heartbreaking as a pessimistic young Desdemona.

How’s the direction by Jonathan Miller?

• Miller, in addition to his deplorable decision to cast Hopkins, makes other bizarre decisions. Much of the dialogue is inaudible, including Desdemona’s final speech. The dress, as we’ve seen in his other productions, is nonsensically Elizabethan. The whole thing runs too long at three hours and twenty-four minutes. But Miller is great with the actors and the staging and lighting are excellent.

Rulebook Casefile: Speak to the National Pain of 400 Years Later

Modern productions of “The Merchant of Venice” try to rescue the mildly-sympathetic character of Shylock, but I found him to be a vicious racial caricature, reeking of Shakespeare’s ignorant prejudice towards Jewish people. And I found “The Taming of the Shrew” to be unforgivably misogynist. So why does “Othello”, which is also about a group that was despised at the time, work so well? Why does it, unlike those two plays, get no protestations when it is produced today? Why are they about to do it on Broadway with Denzel Washington?

Because it’s a brilliant play, and Shakespeare, astoundingly, creates a fully human portrait of a Black man despite the fact that he’s writing in 1603. It’s a part every Black actor considers himself lucky to get to play today. He’s truly noble at times, though he does eventually prove to be a menace.

Of course, one of the reasons he’s so great is that he can be played many different ways. As with all of Shakespeare’s greatest characters, directors and actors have a tremendous amount of leeway when deciding how sympathetic to make him. He can be played as either a violent man whose true nature comes out, or a non-violent man who gets pushed to violence that is totally against his nature. (But even if you play him as having a violent nature, it somehow never feels like that would be an example of a prejudice Shakespeare has against Black men.)

I had the misfortune of taking my college Shakespeare course with a professor who flat-out didn’t like Shakespeare and was teaching the course under duress. She made many bizarre pronouncements, but the oddest was when we were studying this play in 1995 and she said that it had nothing to say about our modern world. 

I was gobsmacked. 

I said, “Oh yes, a Black man succeeds in the martial arena, earns a place among his white masters, marries a white woman, becomes convinced she’s cheating on him, beats her in front of everybody which they all choose to ignore, finally kills her and attempts to kill the man he falsely thinks she’s cheating with, then attempts suicide. Yes, that has nothing to do with anything that’s going on right now.”

Of course, the big difference between Othello and O.J. Simpson is that Othello is meant to maintain our sympathy, whereas, aside from 12 jurors, O.J. largely did not. But does Othello deserve our sympathy? Unlike O.J., Othello is the victim of a vicious, brilliant, overwhelming deception engineered by one man, and that makes him more sympathetic, but does that really excuse Othello’s actions?  Every wife killer, in his own mind, has his reasons.

It’s interesting that racial prejudice is not a prime motivating factor in the play, though it’s always, of course, bubbling under the surface. Iago tells Roderigo that his primary motivation is that he was passed up for promotion, not a hatred of the idea of interracial marriage, and even Desdemona’s father says he’s more upset at being deceived than the possibility of miscegenation, but Miller’s contention that the play has nothing to do with race is absurd. Right at the beginning, Iago and Roderigo are mocking Desdemona’s father with racial language: “What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe If he can carry ’t thus!” and “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” Racial hatred is everywhere under the surface, but Othello, like O.J., has earned such a place of esteem in the white world that no one speaks openly of it.

Rulebook Casefile: Not the Way the World Works

Let’s talk about the most bizarre aspect of this play. Desdemona is choked to death in her bed, not once but twice. Othello wanders off and leaves her there. Iago’s wife Emilia finds her. Desdemona then utters some final words to Emilia before she dies. That’s not how choking works! If someone tries to choke you, then leaves, then you can still speak five minutes later, you’re going to be fine! Choking kills you off while you’re being choked or not at all. There’s no lingering death. The only way this would make sense is if he stabs her, and I think that it could be staged that way, but it seemingly never is. It totally takes me out of the play! Directors must find a way to fix it.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: The Promise and Peril of Downtime

As I say above, the production runs way too long at 3 hours and 24 minutes, but, if you’re going to bother to produce all 37 plays for posterity, there’s a case to be made for cutting nothing. One of the most fascinating scenes is one that I’m sure most productions cut, where Desdemona and Emilia somewhat idly prepare for bed and Desdemona, like Nicole Simpson to Faye Resnick 400 years later, makes clear to her friend that she knows she will be killed before long. 

It’s a languidly paced scene: Desdemona has a song stuck in her head and keeps murmuring it as she goes about her nighttime routine, then it occurs to her to mention something else and continue the conversation. It’s a momentum killer, but it’s a brilliantly written scene in its own rite. Downtime is one of the hardest things to write because it kills storytelling momentum, but, if you’ve got a very indulgent director who’s in no hurry, it can make for beautifully written, heartbreaking scenes.

Episode 48, Our First Live Show: Capturing the Voices of Children with Betsy Bird

The Secrets of Story Podcast · Live Show: Capturing the Nature of Children with Betsy Bird

Recorded Live at The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL, hosted by The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, James and I welcome the legendary Betsy Bird (my wife) to tackle a topic all three of us know something about: Capturing the Voices of Children in Your Writing. I argue that novels that feature truly authentic kids are by definition not children’s books, and James and Betsy debate me on that.

Thanks to those who came out on Wednesday!

James, Betsy and I had a great time recording the first ever live episode of The Secrets of Story Podcast at The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL last Wednesday.  (And thanks to my brother-in-law Andrew Atienza, who you can see in the back doing the sound!)  We’ll post the episode soon.

Come Out On Wednesday to Our First Secrets of Story Podcast Live Recording!

Please come out to Winnetka's bookstore The Book Stall on Wednesday (September 4th) from 6:30pm to 8pm to hear the first ever live recording of The Secrets of Story Podcast featuring usual co-host James Kennedy and special guest Elizabeth Bird, where we'll discuss the ways authors capture the voices of children. The Book Stall would love it if you could register in advance so they can get a headcount, but you can just show up, too! It's free!

Check out the 100th episode of Marvel Reread Club with Dan Santat!

Hi guys, sorry you haven’t heard much from me recently! I’ve been meaning to restart 37 Days of Shakespeare but I haven’t gotten around to it. In the meantime, I have exciting news! I stopped posting about my other podcast, Marvel Reread Club, on this blog because I decided to separate the two brands, but MRC has been going strong and now it’s reached the epic milestone of 100 episodes! Even more impressive, our guest for the 100th episode is National Book Award Winner Dan Santat!  Dan really opens up for us about his life, and he previews his hilarious new Incredible Hulk picture book. It’s a really fun conversation and I think it’s accessible even to people who haven’t read the comics we’re discussing and don’t care to. Check it out!

Soundcloud no longer let’s me embed the episodes, but you can find it here or here!

It’s our landmark 100th episode, with very special guest, National Book Award winner Dan Santat! We discuss the 1966 Annuals: Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3, Fantastic Four Annual #4, and Giant-Size Thor #2! Testiness! Anguish! Brawling! Check it out!