Commonwealth Shakespeare presents Macbeth on Boston Common

August 6, 2023August 7, 2023 ~ duane ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been attending Commonwealth Shakespeare’s annual free production on Boston Common for longer than I can remember. I think my first show was their previous Macbeth in 2003, where we went with friends and only saw part of it in a right place, right time, “Oh, they’re doing Shakespeare? Let’s watch!” situation. Since then, I missed 2005 (Hamlet, a long story) and 2019 (Cymbeline, my mom was sick). So I’ve seen … 17 of their shows. Only Macbeth and Much Ado have repeated on my watch. The great thing about going now is that my kids are old enough to come with us, and have been to several shows now. So it’s a family affair! We rent our chairs; we get our spot, and we bring a Chinese takeout picnic. Gotta love traditions.

When I saw the burned-out jeep, I posted wondering whether we were going to get a dystopian Macbeth. That’s kind of like the generic interpretation, don’t you think? I feel like dystopian Macbeth is clichè. “Watch,” I told the kids, “everybody will be dressed in military uniforms and camouflage.”

Possessing the bodies that were available, maybe?

So, there’s that. 🙂 In fairness, Macbeth gets to change his clothes, but nobody else does. Where’s the camo, though, you ask? Let’s talk witches. The witches weren’t just in camouflage, but a bright yellow, almost glow-in-the-dark version. Once you accepted that you weren’t going to see anything “witchy” and thought of them more as the possessed souls of fallen soldiers, the effect worked.

I’m paying particular attention to the costumes because I want to highlight Lady Macbeth’s. She got all the good stuff, and it was so worth it:

I was asked on Twitter how they made use of the set. I wish the jeep had moved, but it did not. The lights worked, as we see with the witches. People climbed all over it. This did give us opportunities for a cool shot like this during the dagger speech:

I still can’t figure out if there’s something special going on there. The angle of his real arm doesn’t match the angle of the shadow. That’s one of those “If I went back to see it again I’d pay closer attention” moments.

They did a great job with lighting and smoke. This is Macbeth going to visit the witches. Later, the stage will be full of the ghosts of kings. And yes, unfortunately, that monitor was right in our way the whole time. That’s my biggest complaint about the show. In recent years they’ve leaned heavily into accessibility, which is great (a year or two ago, they had sign language interpreters, which was really cool). But that’s a horrible spot, and you’re literally saying, “We’re going to lower the quality of the experience for the majority of the audience who don’t need this feature.”

Yes, but how was the show?

Enough pictures; let’s talk about acting. Over the years, it’s become my role to be the Shakespeare explainer guy. Whoever I’m with, whether it’s my family, coworkers, or friends, typically doesn’t know the story’s intricacies. So I’m called upon to, and I’m going to say this like this for a reason, keep it interesting. Anybody can read the synopsis in the program, and I could laundry list what’s about to happen. What I try to do instead, therefore, is to find the “watch for this” moments that they can hang on. They’re going to lose track of who’s who, and they’re going to misunderstand most of the lines. So if I can find some moments of human experience that (a) they won’t miss and (b) they’re sure to understand, then they have something to work with.

What I said this year was, “Watch Macduff. Here’s the thing with Macduff. Macbeth’s technically got no beef with him, he’s not Duncan’s family and he’s not in line for the throne. But he doesn’t go to Macbeth’s coronation, and Macbeth takes that personally. So there’s going to be a scene where Macduff’s wife and children are murdered. I don’t know how they’re going to play it here, but it’s a bad scene, it’s legit horror if they want to go that way. And then there’s this poor messenger that has to tell Macduff what’s happened, and Macduff loses it. Done right, it’s heart-wrenching. He’s so excited to get news from his family that the messenger at first tells him everything’s fine, but then has to break it to him, and the way he just keeps asking, all of them? all? can tear your heart out. So Malcolm convinces Macduff to join his army, and ultimately he’s the one to be the hero, get his revenge and kill Macbeth to end they play.”

They – more specifically, Macduff – did not disappoint. The actual murder did, That scene was played out almost like an interpretive dance, and I found it too safe. Make it obvious; make it bloody. The wife’s pregnant, and I can’t remember if that’s always how it is played. But if you show the murder of a pregnant woman, you’ll get the audience to pay attention.

But Macduff just crushed it. The Shakespearean actor playing Macduff is immediately gone, and the man whose family has been murdered (because he wasn’t there to protect them!) is before us. When I described the scene as I did, he gave me exactly what I hoped it would be. You felt what he was feeling. His revenge would mean something.

Points also to Lady Macbeth, who knocked it out of the park in all of her scenes. During her sleepwalking scene, she let out this long ghostly wail that quite frankly made me jump and ask, “Where the hell did that come from?” It made her seem less than human. My only disappointment is that in the next scene, where there’s a scream offstage, they used a recording. Why? You just delivered a beauty on stage, do it again.

I also want to shout out a minor thing I saw because sometimes the little things catch your attention. One of the murderers lets Fleance go. He clearly picks him up, carries him out of the fight, gives him back his flashlight, and makes what I saw as a “Go! And, *shush!*” gesture. I thought ok, that’s different. But … there’s no room for it to go any place. I still wanted to point it out because I did see it! Somebody made that choice and should know that it was noticed!

How was our Macbeth? Here’s how I decided to put it. With Macduff, I saw a man whose family had been killed. With Lady Macbeth, I saw a woman driven insane. With Macbeth, I saw an actor playing Macbeth. Does that make sense? It’s not necessarily bad. He’s got a stage presence. His delivery is excellent. But I never really felt his story. I’ll give you an example. In the production that Teller (of Penn and Teller) did for the Folger years ago, we get to the scene where we learn that Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped and, just for a second, that revelation knocks Macbeth to his knees like this whole final act had just been battering down upon him and this was the final blow that almost but didn’t break him. I still remember that. Here, though? Not even a pause. Just rolled right into the next line. yawn.

I think I’ll leave it at that. I’ve been watching these productions for 20 years now, and when I try to remember them, only certain parts will be memorable from each. This Macduff will. Lady Macbeth’s wail. Not too much else.

Merry Little Christmas to Me!

January 6, 2023July 22, 2024 ~ duane ~ 1 Comment

A joyous Epiphany to you all! I didn’t think I would have anything to post this holiday season, but it turns out I got some Shakespeare stuff after all!

Be these the wretches that we play’d at dice for?

My oldest told us all ahead of time that college had been particularly busy this year and that everybody would be getting their presents at some point after the holiday. This added a level of fun because each person got their present separately instead of getting lost in the chaos of the big day.

Both my daughters, at one point or another, fancied themselves writers — my oldest won NaNoWriMo at one point, and her younger sister is in fact, a published novelist. So we have a collection of story cubes scattered around the house. You’ve perhaps seen them, each side of each die has an icon – a man, a woman, an alien, a weapon, an animal … – and you use them however creatively you like to take turns making up stories.

You see where I’m going with this? Behold, from the brains behind Upstart Crow Creations … Shakespeare’s Plot Device Dice (which I’m inevitably going to continue to call Shakespeare Story Cubes)!

Shakespeare's Plot Device Dice by Upstart Crow Creations

Five dice and six sides yield thirty symbols. Luckily there’s a guide to them all because some of the artwork does make you go, “uhhh…??” But how would you iconically show madness? or fate?

My only nitpick is the Death face which is labeled “Only Mostly Dead”. Don’t you be sneaking Princess Bride references into my Shakespeare toys 😉 Just kidding. I get it, and I appreciate it, but it is definitely out of place. There’s also “The Mighty Pen”, which I hope isn’t a reference to “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Because, you know, Shakespeare didn’t write that.

If Hercules and Lichas play at dice, which is the better man?

Like so many of my Shakespeare toys, I have no idea what I will do with this. But I’m happy to add it to my collection! I prefer to think of myself as more Smaug on his horde of gold than Gollum and his precious. My wife thought it was a game to play. I suppose technically it is, just not in the competitive sense. It’s more about storytelling. In theory, people go around the room and build a story collaboratively using what the dice tell them. My daughter chose it for me for inspiration because I, too, have attempted the NaNoWriMo challenge in the past. She thought I could use them when I get stuck on plot ideas.

I’m thinking about a game where you guess the play based purely on the dice (like with emojis). If I get any good results, you’ll be the first to know!

Review : 10 Things I Hate About You

November 9, 2021November 10, 2021 ~ duane ~ 2 Comments

10 Things is generally regarded as the best of what we’ll call the “high school Shakespeare adaptations.” We’ve got She’s The Man, O, Get Over It, Were The World Mine, and I’m sure I’m missing a few. Julia Stiles is in two of those, and I’m not counting her turn as Ophelia in the 2000 Hamlet with Ethan Hawke. (Also in 2000 she played a character named Imogen in Down To You but alas I can’t make the Cymbeline connection.)

But enough of that. Over the years the subject has come up regularly, we’ve reviewed some of them, and shared many a “top 10” list on social media. 10 Things is the bar against which all these movies were (and still are) compared.

And, until now, I’d never seen it.

Confession time. I don’t watch a lot of Shakespeare. My work-life balance just never allowed for it. If it wasn’t something I could sit down with my family and watch, the only time I’d get would be later at night after everyone had gone to bed. But finding a two-hour block to sit and pay attention to a movie, sometimes taking notes for my eventual blog post? Honestly, I usually had things I’d rather do.

The pandemic changed all that. I work from home now. The tv is on almost constantly in the background, providing some much-needed noise in an otherwise empty and silent house. So I’ll often get into a mood like “80’s movies I remember being good (or at least entertaining)” and I’ll put on a Lethal Weapon or Breakfast Club, something I’ve seen, just to be butterfly net for my attention. It’s not interesting enough to me to pay attention to it, because I’ve seen it. But when I need to lift my head up from the computer and focus on something else for a minute, I can stare at something familiar. For bonus points, count how many references you see or hear in these movies that are totally unacceptable now. The ’80s were a different time.

As each of these movies finishes I’ll click through the “You might also like” list that inevitably follows. And somehow, I ended up on 10 Things I Hate About You. On the one hand, it’s true, it broke my basic rule because I haven’t actually seen it. But this is something of a special case because over the years I’ve seen so many clips and heard so many quotes and read so many articles and summaries, I felt like the only thing I was missing is honestly being able to say, “Yes, I sat through and watched this entire movie.” Now, I can check that box and offer my honest review, not just a parrot of what I heard everyone else saying.

I liked it.

Thank you, and good night.

Ok, seriously :). I think we all know the plot, lifted quite plainly from Taming of the Shrew. He’s got two daughters. The younger one wants to date. He says that she can’t until her older sister does. Not because he’s trying to marry off the older sister first, but because he feels safe that the older sister – Julia Stiles as Kat, our shrew – has no interest in dating, and no one has any interest in dating her. Enter a young Heath Ledger, who takes on the challenge because he’s paid by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who wants to date younger sister Bianca. I think we all know where it goes from there, in a predictable teen comedy fashion.

As a father in my fifties, I think I pretty substantially missed my window for truly appreciating (nay worshipping) this movie and its young actors. I found myself sympathizing mostly with the father, played by stellar 80s comic icon Larry Miller, who feels the most important job in the world for a father is to make sure his daughters don’t get pregnant and ruin their lives. I get that the world is a whole lot more liberal today than it was when I was their age, but I’d still rather see my daughter get a college degree before a baby. During the house party scene I could think of a dozen different and very bad ways the story could have ended. Even the smartest kids can get angry and be stupid sometimes, and when you take a girl who has spent her whole life acting better than everybody else and put her drunk and out of control in the middle of a house party, there’s not always going to be a white knight boyfriend to save her from other life-changing consequences.

Heath Ledger’s voice bothered me the whole time. It’s very deep, and did not suit his high school character. The Australian accent, which they did nothing to hide, made it worse. The notes for the movie say they felt this made him “dangerous and sexy”. Nah. Made him seem like he was cast entirely for his looks. This was especially true for me when he sings, because his singing voice does not match his speaking voice. I went looking for confirmation that he was lip-syncing but from what I can tell it was really him.

The movie is loaded with Shakespeare references without being about Shakespeare if that makes sense. So many of these movies are about a high school that’s putting on a production of Romeo and Juliet or A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In terms of the actual plot, the closest we get is some attention to the sonnets. What it is filled with, though, is easter eggs. The family name is Stratford. The boyfriend’s last name is Verona. They go to Padua High School. They did give us one token character, Mandella, who is supposedly obsessed with Shakespeare (she even has pictures of him in her locker). Though I always love Shakespeare content, this was pretty obviously shoehorned in just to add some more references. Trust me, if there were any girls in my high school harboring a crush on Shakespeare and decorating their lockers with his picture, I would have found them.

When I told Bardfilm I’d finally watched this one his one question was, “Does it still speak to today’s high school students?”

I don’t think it does. I think it was a good movie for its time, better than average. Written well. I thought at times it might have been written at least in part by Tina Fey, who is known for her sharp dialogue. But in the end it’s still just a glued together collection of the same tropes of every other teen comedy of the era, hung on a Shakespearean frame. They just did it better than others.

Review : Commonwealth Shakespeare presents The Tempest on Boston Common

August 2, 2021August 2, 2021 ~ duane ~ 2 Comments

We’re baaaaacccckkk!

I had a killer streak going for CommShakes shows. Until recently I’d been to something like 14 of their shows. Last year was off for everybody, and the year before that I missed it because my mom was sick, so it’s been two years off. I was looking forward to a return with The Tempest, my favorite, which I’ve started referring to as “our family play” because my children know it so well. I don’t take the kids to many productions – they went to Romeo and Juliet a few years back, and of course, they’d be coming to The Tempest.

We started out unfortunately on a poor note, as we arrived to discover there were no chairs for us. This is a free, outdoor production where you claim your space by putting down your blanket, bring a picnic, what have you. But you can normally rent chairs, which we’ve always done – it’s an easy way to contribute money to the cause. This year they changed that, requiring that you get chairs in advance, and due to a poorly designed mobile website I didn’t get that memo. So, after finding no help among the volunteers to remedy the situation, I spent the whole production trying to figure out how to get comfortable on the ground. I probably would have ended up with a more charitable review if that all hadn’t happened.

Stuff I Loved

Loved the opening. The whole cast comes out, just stands there. Breathing. Calm. Tranquility. Get the audience settled down and paying attention. Prospero, in the center, raises his staff over his head and slams it onto the ground. BOOM, storm. Chaos. Waves. Thunder. Screaming. Actors, including a not yet introduced Ariel, circling the stage like a tornado. And then, when the time is right? Prospero lifts his staff, and the storm is over. Nice.

Along those same lines, loved the special effects. You can only do so much with an outside production like this, and it being such a magic heavy show doesn’t help. But they did a great job with the simple stuff – a hand gesture from Prospero would immediately freeze a character in his tracks, or kill the lights, or summon thunder – but also with some more prop-oriented symbolic ideas, like Ariel attaching a red ribbon to Ferdinand and tugging him toward Miranda.

Ariel magically guides Ferdinand toward Miranda.

Love love loved their Caliban. Best part of the show for me. When he’s introduced he comes running at Prospero to attack, and we see that he is tied down by one leg. He looks like a vicious dog. And he’s got no cower in him, let me tell you. Standing there at the length of his rope, hopping on one foot, he’s swinging his arms and hurling sand and casting his own curses in Prospero’s direction. Great stuff. Later, after he meets up with Stephano and Trinculo, he balances the drunken comedy with a very believable “Guys, you’re not really getting me – if you don’t focus on the mission and kill Prospero when you have the chance it is going to go *very bad for us*.” Despite showing almost no fear in the opening scene, he’s got plenty of fear.

A truly great Caliban. I wish his “Be not afeard” moment got the attention it deserved.

Loved the comedy. I’m not generally a huge fan of the “play it over the top so the audience gets it” kind of stuff, but I understand the necessity for it. Miranda was a big hit, really playing up the “man crazy” aspect of the teenage girl who suddenly realizes just how many people there are in this brave new world. Later when Stephano and Trinculo arrive they just knock it out of the park. I could watch the Stephano/Trinculo/Caliban show like a tv series.

Ok, Stephano and Trinculo went a little Three Stooges at times, but I still loved them.

Stuff I Didn’t Love

Unfortunately, what I saw as a very uneven Prospero. Personally, I like a bit of a scary Prospero who runs his island the way he wants it, and takes no back talk. After all, this is a father who has done nothing but protect his daughter (and plot his revenge!) for twelve years. He doesn’t have time to relax. What I got was a father getting walked on by his daughter (during the first “pluck my garment from me” moment, she just walks away, leaving him to chase her). He then starts crying while explaining their back story. Huh?

I’m trying to read this in the context of “the father of the bride who cries at the wedding.” Prospero knows how this story plays out. He knows that every interaction with his daughter is part of this last chapter. He’s sad. I can kind of get behind that. Not usually how I see it, but I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong.

But when he’s not crying he’s screaming at everybody. He screams the “Our revels now are ended” bit? I don’t think I understood what they were going for, there. I tried to explain it to my wife and kids something like this: “This is like his wedding present to Miranda and Ferdinand. He’s bringing out all the stops, he’s literally summoned down the goddesses for their blessing. He’s showing the full power of his art, and he’s happy to be in the moment. But then he’s broken from that trance by the realization that he still has to deal with everything else that’s going on, and he’s angry about it.” That could be complete BS from what the director/actor intended, but it’s how I figured to read it.

Other Things

Lot of stuff just kind of ends up in the middle. Like Ariel. Ariel here is a dancer. He ballets his way around the various scenes. <shrug> Ok, I guess? I didn’t get any connection. I told the kids on the walk back to the car, “Ariel’s got this great opportunity to play with the relationship to Prospero. Do they love each other? Or is it resent? Why does he keep asking, and complaining?” I’ve seen productions where the minute Prospero says you’re free, Ariel’s gone without turning his head, and ones where he goes give a last look back. I don’t feel like any attention was paid to Ariel’s freedom here, he just kind of left.

The music. Parts were good — somehow they made the “Caliban ban ban” song a real toe tapper. But in the beginning, with the “Full fathom five” bits? Their version of Ariel working with the other spirits on the island involved some singing women coming through the back of the stage who looked exactly like the women who hop down off the Grecian urn in Disney’s animated Hercules movie. Once I had that image in my head I couldn’t shake it, unfortunately.

Ariel’s helper spirits entrance Miranda.

The rest of the cast? If a scene didn’t involve Prospero, Caliban or Miranda, it just didn’t rise to the same level. They aren’t the stars, true. Their scenes are mostly about plot. But I don’t know if it was the delivery, or the blocking, or just the sound system, but my family spent most of this time “We’re lost, what’s happening?” Antonio in particular I felt was miscast. Maybe it’s because I recognized him from previous clown roles, but I was trying to sell him to my kids as, “Ok, this guy’s a real bastard, he’s trying to get Sebastian to kill the king and he doesn’t think twice about killing the only witness,” and I just wasn’t feeling it.

Conclusion

Overall? It’s Shakespeare under the stars, it’s The Tempest, and I don’t care if I had to stand through the whole thing, I’m going to watch it and I’m going to look for parts I love. If I was still in my bachelor days I’d probably go back and see it three times, looking for different things every time. Go see these things, I’m sure your town or one near you has similar. The world is made a better place by hearing Shakespeare spoken into the universe. I look forward to seeing what I can be a part of next year.

Among His Private Friends

July 13, 2021July 8, 2021 ~ duane ~ 1 Comment

When I started this site way back in 2005 I really had no idea what I was doing. There was no Twitter, no Facebook, and basically you started a blog as a way to brain dump ideas you had on a topic in the hopes that other people might want to read them and engage in conversation. I don’t know that I knew more about Shakespeare than your average Joe, I just knew that I found the topic more interesting and wanted to talk about it more than my friends and family did. So I started a blog to talk about Shakespeare.

Then a funny thing happened. People who actually did know about the subject – a lot, as it turns out – joined the conversation. One of my new friends was Dr. Carl Atkins, who sent me a copy of his book Shakespeare’s Sonnets : With 300 Years of Commentary. Looking back now I admit that I had no idea what I was doing and understood very little of it :), but it’s been a reference ever since, both when I pull it down from the shelf, and when Carl pops up in the comments on sonnet threads and quotes his research to answer our questions.

Among His Private Friends

Well Carl’s working on a new book and site now called Among His Private Friends which aim to put you the reader in the role of one of Shakespeare’s “private friends”, passing the sonnets around among yourselves and learning the story they tell from the inside. In the author’s own words, the goal of this one is not to be a definitive reference but rather a fun read, the way Shakespeare may have intended.

The site is still a work in progress. Hardcore sonnet fans who are always interested in a new angle, should definitely check it out and send Carl some feedback! His book is due out in October.