Uncomfortably Close

Uncomfortably Close to Richard III

When I am a witness to something horrible, I feel tarnished, weakened, and dirty. This thing — be it violence, cruelty or inflicted pain — reaches in and touches something deep inside me, pulling me in, making me a part of the contagion.

Had I caused the situation, the emotions would be different: guilt, anger, fear, panic, a brain on overdrive looking for justification and absolution, but I am instead an observer, somehow by my stunned passivity and inability to affect what’s happened, I am caught, held, and held too closely.

Driving past a bad accident does this. Initially I am annoyed at the delay, the endless line of unmoving vehicles in front of me, the merging of lanes ever smaller and tighter until finally the problem comes into view. It’s right there on the far side of the road barrier, ringed by police and emergency trucks lights flashing, with people wandering around or huddled in small groups beside crumpled cars. I am not proud of what I am feeling: relief (“It's not me”) and embarrassed that I want to drive by and get on with my day. I can (and do) forget this moment

It is not possible to forget the emotional violence we witness. It reaches deeper into our beings and draws back what we ourselves have felt, This is (in part) why great art touches us so deeply. 

We cannot look away from Richard’s horrifying account of his cold seduction of Anne, whose husband and father Richard has so recently killed. Richard having dispatched most of the characters in the course of his play, addresses his explanation of his conquest directly to the audience and we cannot look away in spite of our revulsion. Shakespeare, through King Richard has touched up deeply with familiar horror. 

                    I'll have her but I will not keep her long 

                    What I, that kill'd her husband and his father:

                    To take her in her heart's extremest hate,

                    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

                    The bleeding witness of her hatred by,

                    Having God, her conscience and these bars against me —

                    And I no friends to back my suit at all,

                    But the plain devil and dissembling looks — 

                    And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!      

                    Ha!

                                        [I,ii.234 -243]

i

Coming to a nightmare near you!

Richard III

(Encylopedia Britannica)

Richard was the last of the Plantagenet kings, defeated decisively at the Battle of Boswell Fields by Henry Tudor in 1485, ushering in the Tudor era. Elizabeth I of course was Henry VII's granddaughter. As Shakespeare's continued success as a play maker — the contemporary phrase —  it was perfectly reasonable to paint the vanquished king as more dreadful than he really was. Reasonable but also politically expedient to keep the queen happy. 

Both Shakespeare and Thomas More portrayed Richard as a dreadful man, conniving, cruel and physically malformed but history has softened its judgement. 

He was born with scoliosis which twisted his spine but was neither hideous nor a hunchback though he was small of stature.

He took shocking care of his minor nephews, the older of whom had a stronger claim to the throne than Richard. Their deaths were announced but never clarified though none of this matters to Shakespeare’s play.

Richard is a villain from the start. Toward the end of the play as he loses confidents and enemies through his own behaviour. his increasingly frightening justifications for his actions  and cruelty are delivered straight at the audience who become unwilling witnesses to an unravelling soul who explains his seduction of the widow of a good man whose death Richard has arranged to an audience both mesmerized and horrified.

Was ever in this humour woo’d? 

I’ll have her but I will not keep her long.

What, I that kill'ed her husband and his father,

To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,

With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness of her hatred by,

Having God her conscience, and these bars against me —

And I, no friends to back my suit at all,

But the plain devil and dissembling looks —

And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!

Ha!

Hath she forgot already that brave prince,

Edward, her lord, whom I some months since,

Stabb’ed in my angry mood at Tewksbury?

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,

Fram’ed in the prodigality of Nature,

Young, valiant, wise and no doubt, right royal,

The specious world cannot again  afford.

And will she yet debase her on me,

That cropp'd the golden prime of that sweet prince.

And made her widow to a woeful bed

On me whose allot equal Edward’s moiety?

That halts and am misshapen thus?

[I.ii.232 — 55]e4

King John was not a good man

History, Shakespeare and even Walt Disney's animators agree: the reign of King John (1199 — 1216), the younger brother of the wildly popular Richard the Lionhearted was a dismal time. He may have been a decent administrator — reviews are mixed — but was also known for his bad temper, irrational rages cruelty and many losses including all of Englands French lands and much of the power of the English monarchy. In June, 1215, John was forced to sign the historic Magna Carta or Great Charter which curtailed royal power in matters of taxation, justice, religion and foreign policy.
Thenews was not lost on cartoonists more than 700 years later. The 1978 Walt Disney movie, Robin Hood portrayed John as a weak snivelling imposter king imposing punitive taxes on his subjects which his brother, the rightful king was off on Crusdades (all true) 


(King John and Sir Hiss, Walt Disney Corp. 1978)

The Life and Death of King John (1590? — 1594) as Shakespeare's play is formally known ir rarely staged these days but contains one of the most vivid characters in all of Shakespeare, Falconbridge, the Bastard, the natural though illegitimate son of Richard the Lionhearted whom John has betrayed. The Bastard earns the begrudging respect of all the characters in the play with his loyalty and courage and serves his unworthy uncle to the end.
King John ends with one of the great Shakespearian rallying cries, spoken not by the miserable dying king but by his fictional nephew, Falconbridge,
          O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
          Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
          This England never did, nor never shall
          Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
          But when it did first wound itself.
          Now, these her princes are come home again
          Come the three corners of the world in arms
          And we shall shock them! Nought shall makes us rue
          If England to itself be true!
                                        [V vii. 110 — 18]

He's everywhere....

He's everywhere....

If your father was an English professor (as mine was) it makes sense that Shakespeare and his many plays were just part of the furniture.In the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined my father's study just off the dining room, were separate books of all the plays in addition to the well worn Complete Works of Shakespeare with its tattered paper jacket that travelled with us to the cottage every summer. While the rest of us were carrying in stacks of beach towels and groceries, my father would be busy taking down the framed print of small sailboats that my uncles had hung above the fireplace, putting that in the corner and standing up the Complete Works where the print had hung. It never stayed there long. We would find him re-reading the text of whatever plays were being performed at the nearby Stratford Festival that year, plays he had read and taught for many years but nevertheless wanted to read again before loading us all into the station wagon for the long drive to the theatre. Shakespeare was a much a part of the cottage as corn on the cob and playing in the dunes.

In the decades since, I have thought little about Shakespeare or his plays.

This winter I decided to Get Back to the Bard — as they say — only to discover he is everywhere: in documentary and regular films, art museums, all over literature and journalism, psychology and ordinary conversation. Those are some of the places I have found traces of William Shakespeare. I suspect his influence may be encountered in science, medicine, and professional politics, areas I know little about.
What I know so far is that the more Shakespeare I read, the greater his reach seems to stretch. 

Cut out into little stars

Cut out into little stars

I was no more than 25 the first time I read these lines in an essay written by a father mourning the loss of his child after a long and heartbreaking illness. They certainly made an impression. 

Somehow I failed to notice where they came from, missed that they were spoken by a love-struck young girl or that this poetry came from one of most famous plays of all time.

I have thought of these words many times over the decades since and they came back to me as I took in the news of the recent death of a good man: the sudden silence, the clarity of the unreachable stars in the cold sky, the unbridgeable gap.

 I find these lines from the most romantic of plays very comforting in their simplicity. 

“When he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act lll, Scene 2 

Macbeth

I saw many of the Shakespearean plays as a child but certainly not Macbeth. I suspect it was deemed to be unsuitable, what with all the death both bloody murder, despairing madness and suicide.

It continues to elude me why this play was assigned to teenagers in their high school English programs after the happy sunshine, enchantment and fun of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and as a warm up to King Lear. 

As a 15 year old, I found the witches entertaining but unconvincing, Macbeth irrational and Lady Macbeth her own worst enemy. Having passed the course, I wanted nothing more to do with the whole miserable bunch of murderous Scottish depressives in their dark cold castle.

Perhaps Macbeth is meant for older people who have lived more years and seen enough of life to better understand what the play speaks to: that greed and envy could lead to hatred and an impassioned justification for violence wildly beyond the scope of the people we believe ourselves to be.

Another mystery: why would Shakespeare give his character the name of a real Scottish 11th century king? Mac Bethad mac Findláech (known s Macbeth in English) killed Duncan, not after a dinner party but in battle, a well-worn path to power and was himself killed fourteen years later by Malcolm Canmore, Duncan’s son (later Malcolm III). His rule “was marked by efficient government and the promotion of Christianity” (bbc.co.uk). He was a good king, not a madman consumed by illegitimate greed.

To be continued….

Macbeth

Juliet

Most people know who Juliet is, even those who don’t go to the theatre, 

The name has become a synonym for all the bright optimism, and headlong passion our golden youths when everything seems within reach and every sense is turned on high

I remember the vivid clarity of city parks in spring as I strode past them on my walk to school in the mornings as well as the sound and colour of fresh leaves as they shook in the warm wind of an ordinary day. I remember liking how well my body worked and how fast I could run. Music was brilliant, even food tasted better, emotions and feelings never stronger.

The thing is, I don’t think I’m unusual in the vividness of my memories — I suspect we can all summon these distant echoes though, of course, my parks and leaves, tastes and loves are different to yours. If we try, we can conjure up the magic of being young and hopeful which is why we don’t scold Juliet for her reckless plunge into life. We are on her side, faces toward the brightness of buoyant belief, and away from the inevitable crushing of the passion that gave her decisions flight.

The realist in me knows that Juliet is just a name like any other but the eternal youth in me perks up whenever I meet a Juliet, 

We hired a lovely young woman, described by one of the guests as “Botticelli-like”  to play her harp — yes, a harp! — at our house for a few friends in honour of the New Year.: our very own Juliet sitting by the window on a winter’s afternoon filling the house with such gentle beauty.

“ But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
(Romeo, Act 2 Scene 1)