Maria Penas' post: Internet Shakespeare FAQ's: What Makes Shakespeare Great?

Internet Shakespeare FAQ's: What Makes Shakespeare Great?

"People still talk about Shakespeare and study his plays because

-- he wrote plays that are enormously rewarding to act and direct

-- his characters are endlessly interesting and impossible to reduce to a simple formula

-- his language, though now difficult, is subtle, richly varied, and eloquent

-- the plots of his plays still speak to the experiences of a modern world

 -- his plays survive translation and are performed around the world

-- he's just an amazingly good writer

There are also some less attractive reasons. Some people still talk about Shakespeare because:

-- he's famous, so you should take him seriously

-- he's famous so you would look bad if you didn't say you liked him

-- he's always been studied, so we should go on studying him"

The article then went on about aspects of Shakespeare's life that were/are interesting. The author never went into why Shakespeare is so famous as opposed to other writers.

I think Shakespeare is definitely worth his fame, but the argument missing here is that what if there were other authors worth his fame, too?

The Speaker's Progress (Twelfth Night)

http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/the-speakers-progress-al-bassam-sulayman-2011/

I came across this modernized Twelfth Night that is set in the Arab world as the citizens under totalitarian rule begin to fight for freedoms. Theater has been banned in this unnamed country, but a few brave souls are putting on a play and becoming important players on the underground blogging and twitter scene.
Here's a quote from the writer/director:
 “A new history is finding its voice among the millions across the Arab world who stood up and continue to stand—and fall—for dignity and freedom after decades of shame and oppression. This play, forged at the cusp of these two eras, has the fortune—and the responsibility—to be one of its platforms.”–Sulayman Al-Bassam

and another link to Professor Litvin's review of the production:
http://www.academia.edu/4443584/Review_of_Sulayman_Al-Bassams_The_Speakers_Progress_2011_

I think this production is an excellent example of the concept of meaning by Shakespeare that we discussed in class on Monday. While there are obvious differences in time, place, and circumstance from the original "Twelfth Night," the irrefutable desire to be who you are, express yourself, and love who you choose are still the central themes of the play. Even though the play centered around Arab issues, all people are able to relate to the agony of repression and censorship (as someone who was removed from a school paper for her political views, I can personally attest to that). Al-Bassam uses the core of Twelfth Night to express his meaning, honoring courageous dissidents in the modernizing Arab World in this tumultuous time of uprising and political discontent, but he is able to speak to me, a young girl in a comparatively free western nation whose reporting on Todd Akin and the legitimacy of rape was deemed unfit for Catholic school girls in wealthy suburb.

My point is, people have been forced to hide since the times of Shakespeare. He composed Twelfth Night based on his own views and experiences with the issue, whatever they may be. Al-Bassam is just one of the many directors able to adapt the work to convey his own socio-political message, which is part of what makes Shakespeare so successful. No matter where you search in the world, from free democracies to rigid dictatorships, people have felt repressed in one way or another and we often admire the brave few that stand up. This play provides relatable heroes in its characters that can and should inspire everyone to fight for the creation of a more accepting world, wherever they may be.

Makebai furen (Lady Macbeth)

While I was browsing the MIT Global Shakespeares website, I stumbled upon a link that seemed interesting. About an hour later, I had watched an entire play based off Macbeth,  called Lady Macbeth. This play was fascinating, firstly because of the entirely different culture in which  Macbeth  took place. The producers had placed Shakespeare's original play in ancient Taiwan, which I found reminded me strongly of the article from yesterday's class (with the woman who visited with the Tiv tribe) because of the way small changes had been made to accommodate the people's culture. Emperors replaced kings and tea replaced wine.

Another thing that grabbed my attention was that the play was being narrated by Lady Macbeth. It was cool to be able to view the play from an entirely different standpoint - especially a female perspective (since Shakespeare's original plays never focused on a female character) . I felt that the audience could sympathize with Lady Macbeth more in this play because her power-seeking nature was highlighted less than her remorse over murdering the emperor.

The final half of the play focused on Lady Macbeth's guilt, and how the emperor she killed reminded her of her own father. In the last scene of the play, where Lady Macbeth laments her fate (as well as that of the dead emperor's) she is dressed in all white - something I found peculiar. I'm not sure if white in Taiwanese culture symbolizes purity, as it does in Western culture, but it made me think that perhaps the playwrights were suggesting that her remorse had somehow "cleansed" her of all her wrongdoings.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in watching this short play as well, the link is below!
<http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/lady-macbeth-tian-mansha-2001/>

Shakespeare Appropriation: Were the World Mine (2008)

While surfing Netflix this afternoon, I rediscovered Were the World Mine, a loose musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream that premiered at Sundance in '08 and which features the play's production as a central plot device. I haven't seen it for a good number of years (stumbled upon it on IFC a while back), but I remember finding it funny and irreverent and shocking and warm and wonderful--all the things that a good version of A Midsummer Night's Dream should be.

As far as I can remember, it tells the story of an outcast gay kid in an all-boy's school who gets cast as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He then decides to forge his own version of the magic flower, and uses it to win over an athlete he's pining after. This prompts him to go even bigger, and he uses it on his entire town in order to open their minds. Chaos predictably ensues. 

Searches through YouTube for clips seem to corroborate my memory that the music is pretty excellent. It also makes excellent and modern use of the whole "sexual liberation and chaos" theme that Shakespeare tackles in A Midsummer Night's Dream, often in unpredictable ways. 

Here's the trailer if you're interested, and as I mentioned above, it's on Netflix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygm_BmGYoJE

Shakespeare Adaptation: Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead

Tom Stoppard's 1960 play Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead takes two of Hamlet's background characters, Rosencratz and Guildenstern, and gives them a backstory. Throughout the play, Stoppard takes scenes from the original Hamlet and adds in his own storyline for Rosencratz and Guildenstern in between the Hamlet scenes in which they appear.

This adaptation can be confusing at times to read as the characters stumble through circular logic and logical fallacies while they basically accomplish nothing. However, the play is an entertaining read and does a good job of explaining what Rosencratz and Guildenstern could have been doing during the times that they do not appear on stage in Hamlet.

The movie adaptation of the play is cool to watch as well (the 1990 film)

Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

In The 9 Lives of Shakespeare, Life One, Graham Holderness examines the circumstances around which Shakespeare wrote his famous plays and poems. Specifically, how and where he wrote, and what he was thinking. He writes that most people are interested in the "romantic idea" that Shakespeare wrote with a beautiful quill and scroll, in a secluded book-lined room. While we can some inferences about Shakespeare's writing habits, we have no actual knowledge about what they were like, Holderness writes.
The article seems to almost obsess over the fact that while we don't have his original manuscripts of the plays, we do have his signature on several legal, which apparently is a very big deal even though it doesn't provide us with any insight into his writing habits. The author does the same thing about a specimen of his handwriting that has been recovered. To me, it seems like a bit of an overkill to analyze the circumstances surrounding Shakespeare's writings simply based on a random piece of his handwriting.
Later in the section, Holderness overviews the two general (and very opposite) speculations as to Shakespeare's writing habits. Both go over every detail about what it was like for Shakespeare to write. One writer places Shakespeare writing carefully in the quiet countryside, while another writer believes he liked to write in the midst of the hustle-and-bustle of London, wandering the streets and writing at "break-neck speed." As Holderness cleverly concludes the first section: "Will the real William Shakespeare please stand up?"
The fact that it is possible for either of these completely opposite scenarios to have been the case makes it seem like maybe we shouldn't even try to speculate about what we don't know.
--J.D.

Group 2 Post

Shakespeare without his language:
In this article, Kennedy writes about the implications of foreign adaptations of shakespeare. He writes that, "Though the condition of Shakespearean studies is natural [Anglocentric] it has been unfortunate in at least one regard, for it has tended to cloak Shakespeare's vast importance in the theatre in languages other than English." Kennedy continues, reflecting that, "The cultural attitudes that inhere in the work, and that the Anglo-centered approach has assumed to be the common heritage of Shakespeare's art, require not only linguistic translation but also cultural adaptation when they are transferred to a foreign environment." This article continues, focusing on the importance of Shakespearean adaptations and their universal relevance to historical and political issues throughout the world.

Shakespeare in the Bush:
Laura Bohannon begins her article with the assertion that "...human nature is pretty much the same the whole world over..." and that, therefore, the core themes and ideas of Shakespeare are universally similar and relevant. However, Bohannon's position quickly changes and finally, she asserts that there is no way that Shakespeare's plays can be literally translated throughout the world because in certain areas, the concepts Shakespeare writes about are unheard of or the ideas he contemplates have different connotations. A quote from her trip best exemplifies this idea by the way the tribal elders interpret the situation in which Hamlet kills Polonious, who is hiding behind a curtain: "The old men looked at each other in supreme disgust. 'That Polonius truly was a fool and a man who knew nothing! What child would not know enough to shout, 'It's me!'' With a pang, i remembered that these people are ardent hunters always armed with a bow, arrow, and machete; at the first rustle in the grass an arrow is aimed and ready, and the hunter shouts 'Game!' If no human voice answers immediately, the arrow speeds on its way. Like a good hunter, Hamlet had shouted, 'A rat!'"