The first thing that struck me when I started reading Othello, was that it seemed worlds away from the largely comic Much Ado About Nothing. But as I continued to read the first act, I did note that just as in Much Ado About Nothing, many of the characters in Othello are deceiving the others; the principle deceiver being Iago. Unlike in Much Ado where Don John's deceptions are figured out and righted, Iago's ability to deceive downright everyone thus far has me convinced that this might be the kind of play where the villain triumphs.
The source of Iago's hate for his master, Othello, is apparently all due to his feeling slighted at being overlooked for the position of lieutenant. This propels Iago to seek revenge on not only Cassio and Othello, but apparently everyone they associate with. I wonder though if Iago has any other motivation for such serious general malicious intent. At first I thought that Iago's disdain for Othello particularly might be based in somehow in racism, as everyone seems to make note of Othello's skin color- but I think this wouldn't really account for Iago's hatred for everyone else as well. I think that maybe the only explanation is in Act I scene I, where Iago says of his loyalty to Othello:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end. (I.i.58-60)
Iago has no true loyalty to anyone but himself, but he also says that "heaven is [his] judge" which to me means that Iago is saying that he has no reverence for God or Heaven, because he still intends to act in whatever way pleases him. Iago makes himself more enigmatic as he goes on, saying that the day that he shows his true nature is the day that he lets crows peck out his heart (I.i.61-64). As Iago concludes his passage with "I am not what I am", I'm left wondering how Iago sees himself and how we are meant to see him. If Iago tells us that he is a villain, but then says that his identity is unstable, then I'm curious to see if he will purely be a villain over the course of the play or if at some point he'll express some sort of pathos.
New Paltz Students Blogging about Shakespeare
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance. Show all posts
Monday, October 1, 2012
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
New Paltz's Presentation of Twelfth Night
I attended SUNY New Paltz’s production of Twelfth Night this fall under two mindsets; that of a student of Shakespeare’s literature as well as of an average theater-goer. In context of the latter, this Twelfth Night was a slow show to watch and delivered a more bland performance of the comedy than it should have.
Not to say that Twelfth Night did not have its captivating moments. The most enjoyable scenes seemed to be any featuring Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Feste, preferably all three. Granted they were playing the comic relief of the play, but they were also the most animated and pleasurable to watch. Playing the role of fool to a tee, they were loud and exaggerated their speech and gestures.
As a student of Shakespeare, I appreciated the clear division of performance between the lower class and comical characters (Maria, Feste, etc.) compared to the noble protagonists of the play (Olivia, Viola/Cesario). When reading the play, I detected some indulgence in Duke Orsino’s pining for Olivia that gave the text a humorous flair, but I found this absent in New Paltz’s rendition. In the New Paltz production, Duke Orsino was rather flatly portrayed as all-sorrowful, lacking the dimension of secret pleasure in chasing Olivia that I picked up from reading the play. Also, an inconsistency in how all the characters seemed to have a formal English accent except Olivia disturbed my suspension of disbelief.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Final Part III
I chose this clip because I think this scene is the beginning of the most pivotal interaction in all of Merchant of Venice. Portia and Shylock only interact this one time, and yet their encounter has the most damaging ramifications. Also, when they meet Portia is in disguise while Shylock is being scrutinized by an audience (both Shakespeare's reading audience and those at the trial, which I think this film interpretation illustrates nicely,) so one is hiding herself and is able to exert power while the other is exposed and can only react to that exercise of power.
1. What do you think about the decision to have so many extras in the scene? Does the trial being so explicitly public affect how you experience it?
2. To whom is Portia speaking? Is she giving the speech to only Shylock, or to another audience?
3. If Portia is speaking to Shylock, do you think he is listening to her (as Pacino plays him)? If you do not think he is listening to her, do you think he is justified in doing so (is this just a case of a failure to communicate, or do you think that Shakespeare creates two worlds - the Jewish one and the Christian one - that are so different that there simply cannot be any real communication between the two)?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Class & Edmund
Class & Edmund
One similarity between Richard II, Henry V, and King Lear is that they each blur the lines between the classes. In Richard II the usurped King laments the fact that he has been deposed and in King Lear the banished king begins to recognize the validity of the lower classes’ experiences, as can be seen when he says “Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart that’s sorry yet for thee,” at 3.2.70. Each of these leaders have lost the power they once had and are betrayed by those who had once been their subjects, their subordinates. In doing so they become enlightened, in a sense, because their range of experience is made larger. With Henry V, however, there is no actual change in his knowledge because he has already been associating with the lower classes. When he rallies his followers together by calling them a “band of brothers” and elevates the peasants rankings by telling them all those who fight with him will be nobles, it does not cause a crisis in his identity as it does with Richard (“And now know not what to call myself”) and Lear (“Yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself). Richard and Lear’s experience of downward social mobility destroys them: neither knows how to operate unless they are king. Henry’s experimentation with it empowers him: he is the one who initiates the upward “advancement” of others (while Richard and Lear fall) and his blurring of class distinctions allows him more power while simultaneously exempting him from the consequences of having that power (“no more is the King guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for which they are now visited” at 4.1.162.)
The character I find most interesting in Lear is Edmund: he drives forward the entire subplot of the play through his sheer force of will, which is in contrast to Lear, who sets the events in the plot in motion, but subsequently loses all control, very unlike Edmund; his psychology seems to be a mixture of feeling inferior because he is an illegitimate child whose father has no legal obligations to him and feeling superior to all those around him because he is smarter than they are (he keeps on making fun of his father’s superstitions) and can easily manipulate them; he’s an excellent example of performativity (like Hal) in that he performs his roles of “good son” and “good brother” well; and he is very rational and practical, traits that seem to be missing from all the other characters in the play (save maybe Goneril.) What interests me most, though, is how he resembles Shakespeare’s other ‘characters of manipulation,’ the Duke in MfM and Hal in Henry IV. All three of them have a lack of power (the Duke can’t really run his dukedom efficiently and Hal is thought to be foolish) and sacrifice others (Edgar, Angelo, Hotspur &Falstaff) in order to gain in. I’m not sure how an actor would play him: I watched the Ian McKellan version of the play and was surprised at how the actor playing him delivered his speech at 1.2. In my mind he was brooding and vengeful, but the actor made him flippant, arrogant, and even playful. I’m not sure which one seems more honest to the overall tone of the play.
One similarity between Richard II, Henry V, and King Lear is that they each blur the lines between the classes. In Richard II the usurped King laments the fact that he has been deposed and in King Lear the banished king begins to recognize the validity of the lower classes’ experiences, as can be seen when he says “Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart that’s sorry yet for thee,” at 3.2.70. Each of these leaders have lost the power they once had and are betrayed by those who had once been their subjects, their subordinates. In doing so they become enlightened, in a sense, because their range of experience is made larger. With Henry V, however, there is no actual change in his knowledge because he has already been associating with the lower classes. When he rallies his followers together by calling them a “band of brothers” and elevates the peasants rankings by telling them all those who fight with him will be nobles, it does not cause a crisis in his identity as it does with Richard (“And now know not what to call myself”) and Lear (“Yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself). Richard and Lear’s experience of downward social mobility destroys them: neither knows how to operate unless they are king. Henry’s experimentation with it empowers him: he is the one who initiates the upward “advancement” of others (while Richard and Lear fall) and his blurring of class distinctions allows him more power while simultaneously exempting him from the consequences of having that power (“no more is the King guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for which they are now visited” at 4.1.162.)
The character I find most interesting in Lear is Edmund: he drives forward the entire subplot of the play through his sheer force of will, which is in contrast to Lear, who sets the events in the plot in motion, but subsequently loses all control, very unlike Edmund; his psychology seems to be a mixture of feeling inferior because he is an illegitimate child whose father has no legal obligations to him and feeling superior to all those around him because he is smarter than they are (he keeps on making fun of his father’s superstitions) and can easily manipulate them; he’s an excellent example of performativity (like Hal) in that he performs his roles of “good son” and “good brother” well; and he is very rational and practical, traits that seem to be missing from all the other characters in the play (save maybe Goneril.) What interests me most, though, is how he resembles Shakespeare’s other ‘characters of manipulation,’ the Duke in MfM and Hal in Henry IV. All three of them have a lack of power (the Duke can’t really run his dukedom efficiently and Hal is thought to be foolish) and sacrifice others (Edgar, Angelo, Hotspur &Falstaff) in order to gain in. I’m not sure how an actor would play him: I watched the Ian McKellan version of the play and was surprised at how the actor playing him delivered his speech at 1.2. In my mind he was brooding and vengeful, but the actor made him flippant, arrogant, and even playful. I’m not sure which one seems more honest to the overall tone of the play.
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