Robin Hood and the Forest

(I realize this isn't specifically and totally about Shakespeare... but he's in here... I promise. More than that, though, this is a muse on Literature in general. And because I can, I'm putting it up here.) :-)

I went for a stroll in the forest the other day, got lost and haven’t made it out yet. It all started with Robin Hood, although the forest was not Sherwood. It was the Forest of Literary Criticism.

I don’t suppose I should be surprised that Robin led me thither: his, after all, is one of the Old Stories. References to Robin Hood date back to the 13^th century, and he has featured in tale and story ever since. Even Shakespeare mentions the famous outlaw, comparing a banished duke and his entourage to Robin and his Merry Men in As You Like It.

       But it wasn’t the evolution of an epic or the staying-power of certain tales that led me off the path and into the Wild Woods, although I will admit to wandering up those paths along the way.

It was clichés.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen so many clichés in one place as I did when I watched the BBC’s Robin Hood show. I wondered, and still wonder, if the writers were perhaps in a competition to see who could include the most… and the most inappropriate for the setting. If I am ever brave enough to watch an episode or two over again, I will count exactly how many make an appearance. And it’s not just the catch-phrase type of cliché. It’s the whole spectrum, from major plot arcs to smoldering glances and everything in between.

But as I sat, puzzled by the depths to which some people lower their writing by filling it with clichés, I remembered that not too terribly long ago, I was praising Shakespeare’s use of tropes. And what, exactly, is the difference between a cliché and a trope? A literary trope is a device or a convention of a certain genre, a commonly recurring motif. A cliché is, perhaps, a trope that has been done to death, to the point that it no longer has any meaning. But they really are just shades of the same thing. If we are talking about a cliché, we call the character a “stereotype”; if it’s a trope, it’s a “stock character.” We belittle the one and admire the other. An author who uses clichés is a hack, whereas one who employs a literary trope is clever, playing with intertextuality, doing something Literary!

And, with that, I looked around and realized that I was deep in the Forest of Literary Criticism, with no hope of finding my way out any time soon. But there was the faintest glimmer of a path over by Intertextuality, and for lack of a better direction, I took it.

Intertextuality is the way that one text references another. It could be Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Hobbit echoing Beowulf. Or Shakespeare directly comparing Duke Senior to Robin Hood. Or the new version of Hawaii Five-O referencing its previous incarnation. Or Doctor Who’s Christmas Special paralleling A Christmas Carol. It’s Ray Bradbury writing “Usher II,” deliberately playing off a preexisting understanding of all the best Poe stories. It’s Agatha Christie titling her book By the Pricking of My Thumbs, or The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (a line from “The Lady of Shalott”) or even One, Two, Buckle My Shoe.

Intertextuality exists. There’s no use denying it. To what extent does it exist? Well, that’s another question.

Ecclesiastes tells us there’s nothing new under the sun. If you believe that, then every story has been told before. And with part of my mind I heartily agree. The Quest, the Coming-of-Age Story, perhaps even the Robin Hood Story – they’re all types, forms. As readers, we recognize them subconsciously. And that’s why we’re incensed when the BBC turns Robin Hood into Hamlet. It’s the wrong form, the wrong story.

But, even though half my mind deeply believes the idea that there are really only a few stories out there, the other part of me looks at my big, beautiful bookshelves and heartily denies it. If there are only a few stories, how do we get Austen and Dickens, Kipling, Lewis and Poe, Shakespeare and Sayers, Tolstoy and Wodehouse?

But surely even the book-loving part of my soul has always known this “few story” theory to be correct. How, otherwise, do I have The Mark of Zorro right next to The Scarlet Pimpernel on my shelf? Is that anything but an admission that they are, in fact, the same story?

But now the author part of my brain is kicking and screaming, so we must give her a chance to speak. How, she wants to know, is one expected to write under these circumstances? Originality is such a virtue, and the fear of someone dismissing your hard work as “copycat” or, worse yet, plagiarism is overwhelming.

And we’re back to clichés and tropes. Can one get away with writing the same stories if one acknowledges the fact and embraces it? Can I, like Shakespeare, deliberately pick stock characters to people my book, and by that make people think back to the original source of those characters and deepen their experience with my story?

In Cymbeline, Shakespeare uses fairy tale tropes, and a lot of them. How does he get away with that? How is his audience not groaning, throwing popcorn at the stage, and thinking, “Seriously? Another wicked step-mother queen?” “A girl dressing as a boy! Never seen THAT one before!” “Lost princes. How original. NOT!”

There may be some debate about the extent to which Shakespeare gets away with using these tropes, but I think there’s a reason for them. The easily-recognizable fairy tale motifs remind us that Shakespeare’s story, too, is a fairy tale, not a tragedy. They also give us a feeling of recognition – this is a story we know. Maybe it has twists and turns we didn’t expect, but what keeps us on the edge of our chairs is not the fascinated horror of inevitable doom (that’s for tragedies), but more of a Wodehouseian “how are they going to untangle this mess?” feeling.

So, the “go back it’s a trap!” feeling we get when Juliet gets the poison-that-is-not-a-poison-but-makes-you-look-dead is not the feeling we have when Imogen gets the same mixture. With Imogen, it’s more of a “here we go again, and won’t this make a convoluted and amusing mess!” They’re different stories… and we know this by the way Shakespeare uses what has been written before.

And we’re back at the Intertextuality Path, because this understanding of genre and types of stories only comes as one story references another. And maybe this path isn’t that far away from the tropes vs. clichés path after all. Dare I suggest that a trope enhances our understanding of what’s going on and deepens our appreciation for the work, but a cliché doesn’t add any layers of meaning or any depth? It’s a working theory, at least.

This may be why we find tropes so satisfying and delightful, while clichés make us roll our eyes and throw popcorn: When we see a trope, we realize that the author is deliberately entering into conversation with texts of the past. We greet the stock characters like old friends. We’ve seen the jealous stepmother many times before. We realize that the author isn’t putting his characters on a boat simply because it’s there or a way to get from Point A to Point B… because boats are made for shipwrecks just like forests are made for getting lost. (If you don’t follow me on that one, don’t worry. I didn’t believe it for the longest time.) And this understanding comes from the older texts.

If we know those older texts, we have Light Bulb! moments. Like the moment we realize that the Prince Florizel of Bohemia in Robert Louis Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights is at least as old as Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale. Or the time we find the line “Abandon hope all you who enter here” in Dante’s Inferno and realize that Disney has just called the Pirates of the Caribbean ride Hell. (Or is the “abandon hope” line a cliché? Either way, it gave me a light bulb moment!)

Does that mean, the author side of me wants to know, that clichés are used unwittingly while tropes come from a conscious decision? Perhaps. I’m not positive that all clichés are used unwittingly. If using a cliché is a conscious decision, is it a wise one? Not usually. Should the author have known better? Undoubtedly. But tropes… Can an author include a trope that she doesn’t intend? (And though the Path of Authorial Intent beckons, I’m just not going there. There be dragons!) For a trope to enhance our understanding of a text, doesn’t it have to be conscious on the part of the author? Can an author include layers of meaning that she herself isn’t necessarily aware of? (I thought I wasn’t going there!)

And does intertextuality play by the same rules as tropes? We know that intertextuality is everywhere. As a child, you read the Chronicles of Narnia and fall in love with Edmund. Sure, he has his problems… but he turns out to be a great chap. Then later you read King Lear and find that maybe there’s more to Edmund than you thought. Perhaps, Lewis is giving us the other side of the story: If Edmund hadn’t learned his lesson, if Aslan hadn’t sacrificed himself in Edmund’s place, would he have turned out like Shakespeare’s duplicitous villain? Edmund’s transformation in Narnia takes on a deeper significance when compared with Lear. But how much of that was a conscious connection on Lewis’s part?

My author side wants to observe that it is possible for an author to reference another work without being completely aware of it. What we read becomes part of who we are and then can’t be separated out again, and it can resurface when we least expect it and in ways we couldn’t have imagined. I have had light bulb moments with my own writing – and that’s just plain weird. (I was re-reading a Doug Adams book when I came across a sentence that I had chuckled over in my own novel, and realized that I was somehow channeling Adams when I was writing that day.) On the other hand, I think this unaware intertextual conversation doesn’t happen as often as my author side would like to think. And why should it? The times when the conversation works best is when the layers of meaning are intentional. And once again, I abandon the Path of Authorial Intent. That way madness lies.

But this perhaps helps us understand also why the Forest of Literary Criticism and the Woods of Lit Theory can be such a daunting and frightening place. Forests are for getting lost in, and being lost can be scary. But it can also be a time of discovery. This particular forest is filled with many paths… some to beautiful glens with sparking streams, and some to dark places as frightening as Mirkwood. But it isn’t completely inaccessible. The Intertextuality Path, especially, is a lovely place. But if one doesn’t know the stories – the Old Stories, the Great Stories, the Few stories (because there really are only a few) and the Many (because there are oh so many!) – one will never find the Intertextuality Path. So go read a story. Introduce a child to a fairy tale – not a Disney one, although they, too, are a part of the Intertextuality Conversation. Bring a book and sit just inside the edge of the Forest and enjoy the cool shade and beautiful view. And if you see Robin, tell him “hi” for me.

Upcoming Shakespeare -- Updated with links to reviews

This list is for me as much as it is for anyone else. I'm trying to find a way to keep track of all the productions I want to see. People keep telling me that I should put all this in one place, so here are the upcoming productions of Shakespeare in the Portland area (at least, the ones I can find; if you know of others, please let me know!):


Cymbeline -- Portland Center Stage -- through April 8th. 
http://www.pcs.org/cymbeline/
I've already seen it once, and will see it again...
Here's my review of Cymbeline. 

Much Ado About Nothing -- Northwest Classical Theatre Company -- March 23 - April 22
My review of Much Ado can be found here.

A Midsummer Night's Dream -- University of Portland -- April 13-15, 19-21
Here's a link to my review of this production.

And then it appears there's a dearth of Shakespeare in May... but things really pick up in the summer.

Hamlet -- Portland Actors Ensemble -- June and July 2012
Here's my review.

Measure for Measure -- Northwest Classical Theatre Company -- June 22 - July 15
This is what I thought of it.

A Midsummer Night's Dream -- Post5 Theatre -- June 29 - July 20
My review is here.


Twelfth Night -- Portland Actors Ensemble -- July 21 - September 3
My review... with lots of deep, philosophical thoughts.

Much Ado About Nothing -- Willamette Shakespeare --July 28 - August 19
My review: Not Much Ado

Henry IV Part 1 -- Post5 Theatre -- August 17 - September 8
http://post5theatre.com/2012season
My Review: Princes and Theatre Groups Have to Grow Up


In November and December, Portland Center Stage is doing A Midsummer Night's Dream. http://www.pcs.org/blog/item/25th-anniversary-season-announced/

And I know there will be more announced later. :-)

PCS's Shakespeare's Amazing Cymbeline (10 February 2012)

I will admit to being extremely skeptical of Portland Center Stage’s Shakespeare’s Amazing Cymbeline. First of all, anything that’s an “adaptation” puts me a little on edge; those tend to be the ones where the people with strange agendas, incomprehensible “concepts” and artsy ambitions crop up. And then, when I got there and realized that it was going to be done with a grand total of six actors – one of them being the piano-playing storyteller – I was even more concerned. On top of all that, when I saw that the part of the evil stepmother Queen was to be played by a guy, I started sharpening my wit and my tongue in preparation for tearing the whole production apart.

I was wrong. Utterly, completely and totally wrong. The entire production was brilliant, and I loved every moment of it.

Director Chris Coleman (who also adapted the play) obviously started with a love for the play and a huge amount of respect for it. In his adaptation, he didn’t stray from the plot or the words, or twist anything out of alignment. All he did was make the story a little easier to follow by adding the storyteller (that and figure out how to make all the doubling work).

Cymbeline is really a very funny play – as you might expect when Shakespeare trots out the old fairy tale tropes and gives them his signature touch. There’s the evil stepmother Queen; the poison-that-is-not-poison; the princess in disguise; the henchman who is supposed to take the princess out, kill her and bring back a bloody souvenir; the princes who don’t know they’re princes; the slimy villain trying to worm his way into the princess’s affections; the woodsmen living in a cave in the middle of nowhere (i.e. Wales); the girl-dressed-as-a-boy bit; the banished lover; the idiot suitor…. It’s all there, and more. And, as you might expect from something that’s so full of twists and devices, it’s a little hard to follow at times. And when we do follow it, sometimes we forget that it’s all a fairy tale, and therefore doesn’t take itself as seriously as perhaps we think it ought.

That’s where the piano-playing storyteller (played by Michael G. Keck) comes in. With a bit of introduction here, a word or two there, an explanation or reminder of what’s going on judiciously placed, and the ever-present hint that this is a fairy tale, he helped the story along. He reminded us that, yes, it’s OK to laugh; the story is supposed to be funny. And his dry delivery highlighted the absurdity of it all. And as if that wasn’t enough, he provided lovely piano interludes as he narrated.

The rest of the casting was gold, also. With such a small cast, it’s hard to single out which performances I liked best. They were all extremely well done. Especially impressive were those who had to switch back and forth between “British” (more like Irish) and “Italian” accents.

Ryan McCarthy played both Posthumous, Imogen’s banished husband, and Cloten, her repulsive suitor. I wasn’t really sure how that was going to work, until I remembered that Imogen has to somehow mistake Cloten’s headless body for that of her husband. And that’s when I realized just how brilliant the doubling of parts was. Ryan did a very believable job in both parts – making Posthumous sincere (if a little gullible and rash), and Cloten slimy, brash and idiotic. He also played Belarius, the old woodsman who lives with his two “sons” in a cave. The three (Belarius, Arviragius and Guiderius) reminded me for all the world of three of the seven dwarves… and I’m pretty sure that’s what Shakespeare was going for.

Arviragius was played by John San Nicolas, who also played Iachimo (the villain) and the evil Queen. I was skeptical of a guy playing the Queen, but then I realized that having a woman play the queen would mean adding another whole actor to do just the one part, and the casting choice made a lot more sense. And John did an admirable job. The Queen was perhaps a little stiff, but I attribute that more to the costuming than to anything else. John’s Iachimo was cunning, duplicitous and slimy – just what the part calls for. One isn’t supposed to like villains, but I do tend to like it when the baddie is well done, as Iachimo was. It made me wonder what he could do with Edmund in King Lear. In contrast, Arviragius was adorable (in a “Seven Dwarves” kind of way), innocent, eager and hysterical.

Space does not permit me to go into the detail I would like about Kelley Curran (Imogen), Scott Coopwood (Cymbeline, Philario, 1^st Lord and Captain), and Danny Wolohan (Pisanio, Frenchman, Caius Lucius, Guiderius). Together they all created an amazing and believable fairy tale world and wove a complex story into a beautiful tapestry – no mean feat for six actors.

But I would be totally remiss if I did not mention the costumes (designed by Jeff Cone), and the amazing work everyone did with the quick changes from character to character. One might think that all the changes and doubling of characters would be distracting, but the whole thing was so artfully done, that I found it rather enhanced the experience than otherwise – for me, at least.

The production runs through April 8^th, and I’d highly recommend going, if you can. It’s in the studio theatre way down in the depths of the Armory, so it was a nice, intimate space. I had forgotten that it was general admission… but even so, we managed to get front-row seats. The show is in the round, and actors are entering just about everywhere. I doubt that there were any “bad” seats. Ours turned out to be particularly good, however. And it was definitely worth the money.

NWCTC's Hamlet (5 January 2012)

How does one take what could very well be the best-known play in the English language and make it fresh and vibrant and vivid?

By sticking to the script.

Hamlet doesn’t need gimmicks. It doesn’t need innovation or concepts or rediscovery.

It needs actors who know it and love it, actors who breathe life into those incessantly quoted lines as if they were speaking them for the very first time, actors with passion and deep emotion, but who aren’t afraid of blending humor with heartache.

All this is present in Northwest Classical Theatre Company’s production of Hamlet. Director Alana Byington has assembled a wonderful cast whose generally spot-on performances reminded me of how I got sucked into Shakespeare in the first place.

Butch Flowers was brilliant as Hamlet. He was totally believable in every facet of the Prince’s complex personality. He had just the right balance between brooding and energy, and what’s more, he gave the character consistency throughout, which is saying something.

Byington peopled Elsinore with a great supporting cast, too. Glen McCumber played Horatio with gentleness, simplicity and sincerity – the perfect friend for someone in the middle of a family crisis of epic proportions.Almost as soon as Dave Bodin (playing Polonius) started talking, I knew he had nailed the part. He drove me nuts. But then, Polonius is supposed to babble on incessantly and get under everyone’s skin. Polonius is obviously a dad who identifies with and really loves his son, but has no idea what to do with his daughter. Dave Burnett and Robert Wylie as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were delightful. The interaction between Claudius (Jason Maniccia) and Gertrude (Deanna Wells) helped explain Hamlet’s frustration at the situation he finds himself in. Chris Porter, Bibi Walton and Tom Walton did a fantastic job as the players. In fact, the whole staging of the bits with the players (the monologue when they first arrive, the “speak the speech” scene and the play within a play) was spot-on. Usually I find the players tedious… but especially the interweaving of the “speak the speech” monologue with the player (Tom Walton) “practicing” his line had me in stitches.

The only real downside for me was I couldn’t help thinking that somewhere, sometime, there has to be an Ophelia who can keep her clothes on. But I suppose it’s a tradition by now to show Ophelia’s insanity is not through her strange songs and odd fancies, but by having her lose all sense of decorum.

The pacing of the whole thing was masterful. Obviously, since the production was not four hours long, some parts were trimmed. But even though I know the play quite well, I didn’t find the missing bits distracting; I barely noticed them at all. Nowhere did the story get bogged down. The moments where things did slow down to emphasize something or let us catch our breath were earned and judiciously used.

Overall, the production was thoroughly enjoyable. To a theater geek like me, part of the fun is watching the cast operate in such a small space – which they do expertly. There’s nothing quite like live Shakespeare; and even if you’ve seen as many movie versions of Hamlet as I have, this production is still totally worth the time and money – as long as you’re the type who doesn’t mind mixing your laughter with tears, and leaving the stage covered with bodies at the end of a play.

Review of Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate

Epic win on the Christmas present front: my friends surprised me with a viewing of the Much Ado About Nothing "movie" last night. Complete and total surprise, because I didn't even know that it was released. But on to the review:

The first thing you should know is that it's set in the 1980s... which gets quite overpowering sometimes. The short shorts on guys, the stone-washed jeans, the obscene amount of pink on everything, the Lady Di reference, the Indiana Jones costume, the world's puffiest wedding dress, the Rubiks Cube, the cigarettes everywhere, the Thriller dancing, the cross-dressed costume... 'Nuf said.

David Tennant is brilliant as Benedick, of course. He handles Shakespeare's words so naturally that you forget that the language is supposed to be "old" and "hard to understand." (Side note: Shakespeare's language is not hard to understand or highbrow when done right... but with some actors you have an easier time remembering that than with others.) But perhaps his best moments comes when he pauses from the words themselves and just looks. The man speaks volumes with his facial expressions. He doesn't tend to go over the top, either. Benedick delivers one monologue entirely while sitting propped against a pillar with a soda (beer?) can and a funky straw. And it's brilliant.

Catherine Tate doesn't have a problem with the language either, but there are moments when her Beatrice lacks sparkle. She's good at the biting, sarcastic Beatrice of the beginning, but once she falls in love with Benedick, she starts acting rather Valley-Girl... which seems too young for her. As the story progresses and things start to get more serious, her Beatrice comes across like an emotional train wreck. In the scene where Benedick and Beatrice talk after Claudio has renounced Hero in front of the whole church, Beatrice goes from heartbroken and sad to giddy and girly when Benedick tells her he loves her, and then back to almost hysterically sad when she tells him to kill Claudio. To me, this feels more like the response of a 16-year-old than an adult. 

Even so, there are priceless moments with Catherine. Beatrice's "sick" scene -- where she comes to talk to Hero right before the wedding -- was hysterical. The sneezing every time someone said "Benedick" was perfect. And the bit towards the beginning when the Prince asks her to marry him is no end awkward, which is what it should be.

On top of all that, David Tennant and Catherine Tate obviously have chemistry. In their scenes together, their timing is delightful.

The best moment of the play (as seems to be the case with any production of Much Ado) is the bit where Benedick "overhears" the Prince, Claudio and Leonato talking about how much Beatrice loves him. The staging -- there's a rotating stage with three columns, and in this scene painters and buckets of paint -- was amazing. Benedick, while trying to listen in, ends up covered in paint, which is so amazingly funny that it almost detracts from the funniness of his lines at that part. But David, ever the showman, doesn't rush the lines. 

There are many other amazingly wonderful moments. But. But there's also enough costume issues and uncomfortably inappropriate bits that I can't recommend this to anyone, really. Catherine Tate always seems to be falling out of her top. At the costume party at the beginning, Benedick comes as... I don't know what. A hooker? Miss Piggy? It hides who he is all right, and as the audience you can totally believe that Beatrice didn't know who she was talking to... but I never really wanted to see David Tennant cross-dressing. The night before the wedding turns into a bachelor party and a bachelorette party, and even though they showed everything when Claudio "overhears Hero talking to a guy out her window," because of the setting, I wasn't convinced that there was enough motive there for Claudio's reaction. (My brain automatically went to "And the bachelor party was OK for you...?") (And because I'm trying to keep this blog family-friendly... I'm not even going to mention some of the other stuff.) Something else that could be a bit of a turn-off was the amount of "drinking" and "smoking" going on.

It's tragic that something with such potential has to be so raunchy. The casting for the whole thing is solid. Elliot Levey plays one of the best Don Johns I've ever seen -- totally believable, straight-laced, uptight, but a nasty piece of work. Claudio (Tom Bateman) is just the insecure, gullible type who would (a) fall in love with someone he doesn't know, (b) believe the worst of her, and (c) go off the deep end about it. John Ramm makes a great Dogberry, although the officers of the watch almost outshine him at times.

Here's hoping that someday good actors will do Shakespeare brilliantly without all the added junk. It can be done, and it should be done. Shakespeare deserves it.

Saint Crispin's Day...

OK. I'm a couple days late. But I love Harry's St. Crispin's Day speech too much to wait for another year to roll around. Enjoy....

Earl of Westmoreland. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

Henry V. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow 
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian: 
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, 
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. 
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; 
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

I wish I was this articulate...

A friend sent me a link to a review of Anonymous... which is too lovely not to pass along. I was really quite surprised by how long it is... but it's worth every word.