This past week, I had a lot of interesting moments. I went on a writing retreat wherein I wrote over 40,000 words in three days (with some bonus writing while I was at it, putting the end-of-the-week total at 47,500 words and change). I was hoping to write an essay about that.
I had a chance to meet my dad in Manti and enjoy a dinner with him and my family, somewhat unexpectedly, and then, during that time, had some introspection that made me think more clearly of what and how I write.
I'm reading a couple of books that have me pretty excited (The Last of the Doughboys and Building God's Kingdom, if you care to know) and I was thinking of maybe drafting a few hundred words about either one.
An old Spider-Man comic came to mind that I was thinking I should reread, then do a close reading on it. (It comes from a comic published in 1994.) I mean, my Spider-Man essays don't pull in a lot of readers, but the point of these posts are more for my own growth as a writer, as well as a way of documenting thoughts that spring up--like a thought about an old comic I haven't read in, I'd guess, over 15 years.
But no.
I don't feel like I should write about any of that stuff. Because of this.
You may not like to click the links I provide, so here's the quick shake down: Julius Caesar, written by William Shakespeare in (probably) 1599, depicts the eponymous Caesar getting stabbed to death by his former friends (and enemies) in order to preserve the Roman democracy, thus ushering in a civil war that ends with the protagonist (Brutus) getting his. I saw a production of it last year, where the setting was closer to Syria than, say, Seattle, and as is always the case, "updating" the play always creates a bizarre tension. The linguistic difference always takes a little accommodating and generosity from the audience (why, if it's taking place in the modern day, does everyone use daggers when a handgun is much more likely?), but an "updated" Rome isn't really something that parallels us.
Okay, that's not necessarily true. But unless you're familiar with the history of Rome, finding the parallels between the modern sensibilities and the Roman ones is always a bit of mental calisthenics.*
So Julius Caesar is a fantastic piece of drama that speaks to people now as much as it did then, and though we maybe miss some of what's fantastic about it (as always happens when interpreting Shakespeare), it can be applied to lots of ages, lots of people, lots of politics.
Like that one time when a lanky, dark-skinned stand in for President Obama was the slaughtered would-be dictator of Rome.
Or, more recently, a red-power tie wearing bombast took the title role and was knifed in New York's Shakespeare in the Park.
It's less that the director took the obvious step of making Shakespeare's powerful (I hesitate to say most powerful, but the appellation could be there) political drama and directly applying it to our modern times than it is about the absurd backlash of the whole thing.
I've mentioned before that I'm no fan of conservativism or its current darling, President Trump.** So in terms of the play intriguing me more because of its topicality, yeah, maybe a little bit. It is, as I said, an obvious thing for a director to do. (So obvious that it makes me wonder why they keep doing it.) And the timelessness of Caesar's story is, of course, part of its allure.
So what has me frustrated isn't that the director made this choice, nor that people are upset about it, but instead that they aren't talking about Shakespeare. Admittedly, I live in a perpetual state of disappointment that we don't talk about Shakespeare more. I'm kind of like the Hulk in that instance: I'm always angry (with how little attention we pay the Bard).
But this is the same codswallop that dogs genuine (and uplifting) discussions about Shakespeare whenever the authorship question crops up. Why are we wasting time talking about the trappings of the play when we could be talking about the play? Why discuss conspiracy when we could discuss what is there?
(By the way, I'm not even interested in the "bad taste" argument--Shakespeare has had his plays played in so many ways that there's bound to be a version of one of his plays that makes somebody angry somewhere. The concept of "bad taste" relies so heavily on assumptions as much about the commonality of preference as it does the concept of subjective interpretation that it hardly merits discussion.)
Here are some questions that interest me a great deal more than the political controversy that it has engendered: What is Shakespeare saying about power in the play? What ought to be remembered about someone, and should the good they do really end up "interr'd with their bones"? Was Caesar on the brink of dictatorship, thereby justifying the conspirators' cause? What do we learn about ourselves when we watch this play?
Notice how all of these questions are about the text, the drama, the play? That's because Shakespeare is far above the politics of any time, despite being grounded in his own. This is something about Shakespeare's broadest application, far beyond any one play (though Hamlet and, perhaps, Richard II come closest) but a look at his work as a whole. Shakespeare is like Dickenson: There's a play or a character that will speak to everyone--just as there's a poem that Emily Dickenson wrote that will do the same. The issue is, how do you find it?
That's what the last question I posed is all about. What do we learn when we see a man at the height of his power being rendered impotent by others? What do we learn about ourselves when we watch the status quo being shattered? How does seeing this tragic trajectory make us feel about the country we live in, the world we have to deal with? See, Shakespeare will raise these questions regardless of the "suits of woe" that the players will wear. And if the trappings overpower Shakespeare's light, we're forced to read him in the dark--and that idea is something that deserves protests.
---
* There are ways around this problem. I think Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus does a fantastic job of straddling the modern and the ancient. One could always stage this play "traditionally" (with togas and all) and let the audience pick up on the parallels of Shakespeare's version of events and our own modern parallels. A creative director could maybe even think of a third way to solve this conundrum.
** And, lest there's any attempt to distinguish the two, I recommend rereading my essay. I view President Trump as the inevitable and logical conclusion of the Grand Ole Party's politicking and philosophies. To me, Republicanism is, at its core, Trumpism.
I had a chance to meet my dad in Manti and enjoy a dinner with him and my family, somewhat unexpectedly, and then, during that time, had some introspection that made me think more clearly of what and how I write.
I'm reading a couple of books that have me pretty excited (The Last of the Doughboys and Building God's Kingdom, if you care to know) and I was thinking of maybe drafting a few hundred words about either one.
An old Spider-Man comic came to mind that I was thinking I should reread, then do a close reading on it. (It comes from a comic published in 1994.) I mean, my Spider-Man essays don't pull in a lot of readers, but the point of these posts are more for my own growth as a writer, as well as a way of documenting thoughts that spring up--like a thought about an old comic I haven't read in, I'd guess, over 15 years.
But no.
I don't feel like I should write about any of that stuff. Because of this.
You may not like to click the links I provide, so here's the quick shake down: Julius Caesar, written by William Shakespeare in (probably) 1599, depicts the eponymous Caesar getting stabbed to death by his former friends (and enemies) in order to preserve the Roman democracy, thus ushering in a civil war that ends with the protagonist (Brutus) getting his. I saw a production of it last year, where the setting was closer to Syria than, say, Seattle, and as is always the case, "updating" the play always creates a bizarre tension. The linguistic difference always takes a little accommodating and generosity from the audience (why, if it's taking place in the modern day, does everyone use daggers when a handgun is much more likely?), but an "updated" Rome isn't really something that parallels us.
Okay, that's not necessarily true. But unless you're familiar with the history of Rome, finding the parallels between the modern sensibilities and the Roman ones is always a bit of mental calisthenics.*
So Julius Caesar is a fantastic piece of drama that speaks to people now as much as it did then, and though we maybe miss some of what's fantastic about it (as always happens when interpreting Shakespeare), it can be applied to lots of ages, lots of people, lots of politics.
Like that one time when a lanky, dark-skinned stand in for President Obama was the slaughtered would-be dictator of Rome.
Or, more recently, a red-power tie wearing bombast took the title role and was knifed in New York's Shakespeare in the Park.
It's less that the director took the obvious step of making Shakespeare's powerful (I hesitate to say most powerful, but the appellation could be there) political drama and directly applying it to our modern times than it is about the absurd backlash of the whole thing.
I've mentioned before that I'm no fan of conservativism or its current darling, President Trump.** So in terms of the play intriguing me more because of its topicality, yeah, maybe a little bit. It is, as I said, an obvious thing for a director to do. (So obvious that it makes me wonder why they keep doing it.) And the timelessness of Caesar's story is, of course, part of its allure.
So what has me frustrated isn't that the director made this choice, nor that people are upset about it, but instead that they aren't talking about Shakespeare. Admittedly, I live in a perpetual state of disappointment that we don't talk about Shakespeare more. I'm kind of like the Hulk in that instance: I'm always angry (with how little attention we pay the Bard).
 |
| My clothes fit a bit better, though. (Source) |
(By the way, I'm not even interested in the "bad taste" argument--Shakespeare has had his plays played in so many ways that there's bound to be a version of one of his plays that makes somebody angry somewhere. The concept of "bad taste" relies so heavily on assumptions as much about the commonality of preference as it does the concept of subjective interpretation that it hardly merits discussion.)
Here are some questions that interest me a great deal more than the political controversy that it has engendered: What is Shakespeare saying about power in the play? What ought to be remembered about someone, and should the good they do really end up "interr'd with their bones"? Was Caesar on the brink of dictatorship, thereby justifying the conspirators' cause? What do we learn about ourselves when we watch this play?
Notice how all of these questions are about the text, the drama, the play? That's because Shakespeare is far above the politics of any time, despite being grounded in his own. This is something about Shakespeare's broadest application, far beyond any one play (though Hamlet and, perhaps, Richard II come closest) but a look at his work as a whole. Shakespeare is like Dickenson: There's a play or a character that will speak to everyone--just as there's a poem that Emily Dickenson wrote that will do the same. The issue is, how do you find it?
That's what the last question I posed is all about. What do we learn when we see a man at the height of his power being rendered impotent by others? What do we learn about ourselves when we watch the status quo being shattered? How does seeing this tragic trajectory make us feel about the country we live in, the world we have to deal with? See, Shakespeare will raise these questions regardless of the "suits of woe" that the players will wear. And if the trappings overpower Shakespeare's light, we're forced to read him in the dark--and that idea is something that deserves protests.
---
* There are ways around this problem. I think Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus does a fantastic job of straddling the modern and the ancient. One could always stage this play "traditionally" (with togas and all) and let the audience pick up on the parallels of Shakespeare's version of events and our own modern parallels. A creative director could maybe even think of a third way to solve this conundrum.
** And, lest there's any attempt to distinguish the two, I recommend rereading my essay. I view President Trump as the inevitable and logical conclusion of the Grand Ole Party's politicking and philosophies. To me, Republicanism is, at its core, Trumpism.