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our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light
I take thee for pity.
BEATRICE: I would not deny you, but by this good day, I
yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your
life, for I was told you were in a consumption."
Act 5, sc 4, lines 96-101
This is following the final marriage of Hero and Claudio (bleh), where the attention moves to Benedick and Beatrice, who continue to deny their affections for one another. Even after Hero and Claudio present notes that were written by the "merry warriors" professing their love, they say they will accept the other only out of pity or to "save them."
The relationship between Benedick and Beatrice was my favorite part of the play. Their banter was so funny and real, and made their love for each other all the better. It's obvious that they both respect one another and love each other, but they are both too prideful to admit it fully. I just think it's funny that even after everything has been revealed, they are like "Wow I can't believe my hands wrote that I love you when in my heart it's not true. Oh well, guess I have to marry you." They're funny for that, especially when Benedick is like "oh my god, shut up" and kisses her to get her to stop talking. Love-sick little fools, they're so cute. Once again, F- Claudio, and long live the merry warriors.
At the level of language, childhood in Macbeth equals emasculation. Lady Macbeth accuses Macbeth of looking with ‘the eye of childhood’ when he balks at returning to the body of the murdered Duncan. Later, trembling at the appearance of Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth berates himself for being ‘[t]he baby of a girl’ – either a girl’s doll or a baby girl. Only when the ghost has disappeared can he be ‘a man again’.
...Macduff’s son is humanized and individuated, yet he remains nameless. In the speech prefixes in the First Folio of 1623, the first printed edition of the play, he is merely called ‘son’. This is significant because it enables him to function as an emblem of childhood innocence, while simultaneously eliciting audience empathy as an individual.
What is particularly interesting about this scene is that Shakespeare deliberately reworks his source material, the historical chronicles known as ‘Holinshed’, to reinforce further the helplessness of the innocent child in the face of tyrannous power. In Holinshed, Macbeth knows of Macduff’s flight and yet expects him to be still at home when he attacks the castle: ‘he came hastily with a great power into Fife, and forthwith besieged the castell where Makduffe dwelled, trusting to have found him therein’. The target of Macbeth’s murderous rampage is thus Macduff himself and not his unprotected family.
I’m of the opinion that watching anything by Shakespeare increases your I.Q. by 1000 points, if only temporarily. I’m trying to write, so my flabby brain needs some exercise.
Watching even bits like this is, for me, like a couple shots of espresso and a hearty walk around the park.
This is live theater as it should be enjoyed, at the Globe in London.
The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson: A Theater Review
New theater review at The Storytelling Blog. The Book of Will. Shakespeare's friends' battle to publish his collected plays and capture the words as he penned them.
The Book of Will. A play by Lauren Gunderson. Image courtesy Library of Congress. https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.wdl/wdl.11290
I recently (July 29, 2023) attended a performance of The Book of Will at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Here are a few thoughts on this wonderful play. If your local theater company produces it, don’t miss it!
The Book of Will That Almost Wasn’t
Three years after William…
Margot Robbie dedicating the first ever Golden Globe award for cinematic and box office achievement—for Barbie (2023)—to everyone that dressed up to see the film in theaters.
Photographs by Marc Brenner, The Globe Theatre 2024 production of Much Ado About Nothing, starring Amalia Vitale, Ekow Quartey, Lydia Fleming, and Adam Wadsworth.
Those of us still capable of neurosis (most of us) worried that this splendid beginning might be a chimera to be followed by a crash landing. We were concerned the first show may have set the bar a little high. Such doubts were dispersed when the Māori company, NgaKau Toa, swept onto the stage with their bruised masculinity, and their visceral tribal take on Troilus and Cressida. Their bodies were almost naked, their buttocks painted with swirling green Pacific patterning, their eyes popping and their feet stamping so hard, it was as if they were trying to pound their way through the earth back to New Zealand.