Henry VIII

Whether your introduction to King Henry VIII was courtesy of Herman's Hermits ("I am 'enery the Eighth, I am, I am") or PBS's Masterpiece Theater (The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth), it seems that his history is the best known among the Kings of Shakespeare.

Playlist, Six Wives of Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon

For the Shakespeare Readers attending the December 11 reading at American University library, if you haven't already purchased a copy of the text, there are plenty of online resources. Your best bet would be to download a free copy to your Kindle from Project Gutenberg, or just read it online.

Truth in Shakespeare: The authorship of this late play is believed (by Wikipedia, among others) to be shared with John Fletcher (who apparently was not Anonymous). Among other deviations, the script of the Shakespeare-Fletcher Henry VIII contains significantly more stage directions than any solo work by the fair bard.

What Fletcher really wanted to do, it seems, was direct.

In Bard We Trust,

Cindy

Shakespeare Readers 2011-2012 Schedule

The Comedy Stylings of "Anonymous"

Okay, as promised, I went to see Anonymous today and can report that this film could not have been more hilarious if it had been animated.

With magical movie special effects, the name of William Shakespeare is erased from the parchment.

The Queen really loves plays, especially by guys like Ben Jonson, but noble people like Devere aren't supposed to be playwrights. Nevertheless, Devere hears the muse, like Jonson and Marlowe do (he also apparently hears sirens such as the Queen herself), and so write he must.

So he gets a "beard" to claim authorship on his manuscripts. He wants Jonson first, but Ben is too ethical to do it.

So the plays go on being anonymous for awhile until Shakespeare, the inarticulate drunken actor, seizes the chance to take the bow when the screaming groundlings call for the author.

Here we see William Shakespeare leaping into the mosh pit and crowd surfing over the groundlings' heads. Yay Willie!

Shakespeare's notoriety makes both Jonson and Devere a bit annoyed, so Jonson scowls his way through the rest of the movie, including accusing Shakespeare of killing Marlowe.

And Devere, in the rest of the movie, uncovers a series of unfortunate alternative historical scenarios, among which he fathers his own grandson by bedding his mother, the Queen.

Well, most of the movie was just plain confusing to me. My favorite parts were when actual plays were shown being performed. Shakespeare (the work) comes to life.

Anonymous actually opens and closes exactly the same way Branagh's Henry V does, with Derek Jacobi entering (in this case in modern dress) to Greek chorus a prologue (in this case suggesting that we've all been duped for these many centuries).

The film ended up taking itself so seriously that it was impossible for me to do so. Honestly, I need to go watch Shakespeare in Love again. It did a much more plausible job of tracing the origins of genius back to its proper source: the inexplicable depths of a human soul.

The "Beautiful" Two Gentlemen

Next on the Shakespeare Readers' schedule is Two Gentlemen of Verona, which scholar David Bevington has described as "the most neglected of Shakespeare's comedies in the theater." Luckily, it is coming soon to a theater near us, The Shakespeare Theatre's beautiful Lansburgh Theatre, January 7-March 4, 2012.

So if this "neglected" piece needs an introduction, a sweet place to start is the rendering of the story by Edith Nesbit in her collection of Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare.

Written a bit over a century ago and intended for an audience of 9- to 12-year-olds, the Beautiful Stories have a quaintness not typically found in the average plot summary. Of Valentine and Proteus, Nesbit warns us, "only one of them was really a gentleman, as you will discover later."

Valentine was happy in his name because it was that of the patron saint of lovers; it is hard for a Valentine to be fickle or mean. Proteus was unhappy in his name, because it was that of a famous shape-changer, and therefore it encouraged him to be a lover at one time and a traitor at another.

Two Gentlemen is also the source of one of Shakespeare's better known songs:

Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her
That she might admired be.

So, get ready to use your voice!

In Bard We Trust.