Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

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Wolter
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Wolter »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
Flex wrote:Image
Source:
That's a Married To the Sea cartoon. They have/had it as a t-shirt and I would have bought one, but they only have it in canary yellow. :yuck:
You'll wear a CTC shirt but not yellow?
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Wolter wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
Flex wrote:Image
Source:
That's a Married To the Sea cartoon. They have/had it as a t-shirt and I would have bought one, but they only have it in canary yellow. :yuck:
You'll wear a CTC shirt but not yellow?
It's not like I wear-wear that CtC shirt. For a while it was a workout shirt in our cold basement, but then it got put away except for exclusive modelling gigs.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Wolter »

Sorry, but every known picture of you is in that shirt. I'm forced to believe that's all you ever wear.
”INDER LOCK THE THE KISS THREAD IVE REALISED IM A PRZE IDOOT” - Thomas Jefferson

"But the gorilla thinks otherwise!"

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Wolter wrote:Sorry, but every known picture of you is in that shirt. I'm forced to believe that's all you ever wear.
If you're suggesting that I'm actually a cartoon character, I have no comment at this time.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Wolter
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Wolter »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
Wolter wrote:Sorry, but every known picture of you is in that shirt. I'm forced to believe that's all you ever wear.
If you're suggesting that I'm actually a cartoon character, I have no comment at this time.
I'm almost certain you're an off-model Canadian Charlie Brown ripoff.
”INDER LOCK THE THE KISS THREAD IVE REALISED IM A PRZE IDOOT” - Thomas Jefferson

"But the gorilla thinks otherwise!"

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Wolter wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
Wolter wrote:Sorry, but every known picture of you is in that shirt. I'm forced to believe that's all you ever wear.
If you're suggesting that I'm actually a cartoon character, I have no comment at this time.
I'm almost certain you're an off-model Canadian Charlie Brown ripoff.
Ha! I was initially going to post a picture of Charlie Brown in his yellow and black shirt.

edit: Seriously, tho, yellow is a fugly colour for a t-shirt.
Image
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Silent Majority »

I've been doing some Shakespeare re-reading and junk and had some thoughts after my day at the Globe. So I knocked together a bit of a short, rambling blog post.
There's a fantastic modern adaptation of the series of plays that Shakespeare wrote on the Kings of England, from Richard II to Henry V currently playing on Saturday nights on the BBC. It's one of the best elements of an odious Olympic year, the bringing of a spotlight back to the national poet in the name of a bloodless patriotism (albeit an anaethisized and toothless version), and the BBC brings a rugged realism to the plays, which I've often thought better off on paper, away from the overbearing influence of arrogant directors and misguided, egotistical actors. The current series is very nicely done, and has the characters talking with the rhythm and inflection of real people, unlike probably 75% of the interpretations I've seen.

That post-Victorian, bullshit 1930s BBC Received Pronunciation was the worst thing that actors and directors could possibly do to Shakespeare's writing. Even in the nancy-boy capital of London, in William's lifetime, English was spoken with a Yorkshire style tinge and the Bard himself was a country boy. Everyone sounded like a working class yeoman farmer. This is why, today, Northern actors tend to have a much more profound connection with his words(, words, words,) as opposed to those who choose to play rich, identifiable characters in the fey, alienating RSC bray that's haunted generations of bored schoolchildren. No powerful man would have been taken seriously if he behaved like that, as Shakespeare's Richard II showed.

Received Pronunciation came from a Basil Fawlty-esque aspiring middle class, middle management who weren't allowed to sound like they were from anywhere in particular for the radio, so instead strived to sound like nobody at all, in an attempt to ape their perceived betters. It's got nothing to do with the ink under the fingernails of a glovemaker's bohemian son in a brutal, passionate and uncivilised time.

Shakespeare, the man, is only knowable to us through his work and is thus an ideal literary hero for those of us who only care about the work of artists, away from the tattle and gossip that is, after all, completely secondary. If we need a biography, it's right there in his couplets and prose. There's parts of Hamlet when the title character steps forward, away from the action, to deliver his soliloquies which remind me of nothing so much as the very modern medium of stand-up comedy. If ever I am let loose on a production, I'm going to have a Jerry Seinfeld-esque brick wall and curtain off to one side where the lead actor can dart away from the action to get behind a microphone and, using the original text, mine the humour out of the famous tragedy that is completely missing in any comic relief. And don't try and tell me the clown-gravedigger is a comic character, all that one proves is that Shakespeare was incapable of being funny on purpose. Aside from a slow pace that modern sensibilities can rail against, it's one of the few blots on the record for me. It's nothing to do with time either, bawdy Chaucer has made me laugh out loud from two centuries before the Bard. So he may be guilty of taking himself a little seriously, but there's enough evidence around today to show that's not uncommon amongst professional writers.

Anyway, as Hamlet bares his soul to the audience, like a Bill Hicks or a Louis CK, or any number of confessional comics, it's there that I feel we hear Shakespeare speak most directly to the audience, across four centuries. Apart from the sonnets, at least. We hear him again, as Hamlet gives advice to the actors he's brought in to smoke out his Uncle King. That's a neat bit, one of my favourite in all the plays, because you can really hear an expert talking about something that he has a great love for and interest in. "Just say the fucking lines, Jack!"

He had a lot of time for women, with Lady Macbeth being one of the best female characters ever, a sexy, powerful, madly ambitious woman, manipulating her vassal of a husband to further her own ends. I'm not convinced she's been bettered in the canon. He probably got around a bit and was, I like to think, a bit of a rake. Shakespeare shows off a tough, practical, still-recognisable understanding of men and women, composed in language that delights in its own ingeniousness, and it's this that makes him so compellling to me. While I'm enjoy the current Wire-esque adaptation, it's William's poetry and word choice that keep the game interesting and no actor, regardless of whatever compensation they may bring, can allow the viewer to savour that language at their own pace. This is a purely personal bias, and one that may change as I see more and more of his plays live, as they were intended. I suppose the sonnets were his records and the plays his live shows. But I'm not the world's biggest fan of live music, I like to own the song and repeat play my favourite parts at my leisure. And I like my Shakespeare on the page, where a day can be spent on a verse.
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Wolter »

Great post, James.
”INDER LOCK THE THE KISS THREAD IVE REALISED IM A PRZE IDOOT” - Thomas Jefferson

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

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Wolter wrote:Great post, James.
Says the guy who doesn't even believe Shakespeare existed …
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Silent Majority »

Wolter wrote:Great post, James.
Cheers, I'm glad you like it.
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Wolter
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Wolter »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
Wolter wrote:Great post, James.
Says the guy who doesn't even believe Shakespeare existed …
IT'S AN APE EATING BARBECUE...wait, what are we talking about?
”INDER LOCK THE THE KISS THREAD IVE REALISED IM A PRZE IDOOT” - Thomas Jefferson

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Wolter wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
Wolter wrote:Great post, James.
Says the guy who doesn't even believe Shakespeare existed …
IT'S AN APE EATING BARBECUE...wait, what are we talking about?
I wish it was about apes eating barbecue, frankly. *stomach rumbles*
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

John Byrne's beating the Shakespeare-wasn't-Shakespeare drum again: http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/foru ... otPosts=20

I think I've mentioned this before, but what I find most fascinating about him buying so ardently into this conspiracy is that he just as ardently denies any possibility of a conspiracy in JFK's assassination. What's consistent, tho, is he acts like a dick about both.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

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Why do people reach into such convoluted bullshit when an obvious answer is so easy in grasp?
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Will the real Shakespeare please stand up?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:Why do people reach into such convoluted bullshit when an obvious answer is so easy in grasp?
I know very little about the Shakespeare conspiracy theories, but I believe Wolter and eumaas argued that it was rooted in classist elitism, that a commoner could never have constructed such wide-ranging acts of genius. Once you start from that premise, then any framework to validate it seems sensible. Awful as it is to invoke the name of Ayn Rand, her response to arguments she hated was "check your premises." Her blind squirrel moment.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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