Shakespeare Readers, 2012-2013 Season

The SHAKESPEARE READERS of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area meets once a month to read aloud one play in its entirety. No memorization required; simply bring your own standard copy of the selected play. All participants have equal opportunity to use your voice! It's "Shakespeare without tears."

Where: Note, new location, through 2012 only! American University's Bender Library, Room 115 (Training and Events Room on first floor).

Campus Map (PDF)
Parking in the lot at Nebraska and New Mexico avenues is free on Sunday.
Metro riders: Use the Blue Shuttle from Metro-Tenleytown.

When: Note, new time! 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

2012-2013 season schedule:

Sunday, Sept. 16: LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST
Sunday, Oct. 14: OTHELLO
Sunday, Nov. 11: WINTER'S TALE

UPDATE, OCT. 10: Readings at AU Library have been cancelled. Future events will be by invitation. Please check the DC-Area Shakespeare Explorers Meet-Up group for further information.

We're still scouting possible new homes for the 2013 half of this season. Please stay tuned!

In Bard We Trust,
Cindy Wagner
Director, Shakespeare Readers
hosaajoy 'at' gmail.com

Message from The Shakespeare Theatre Company

Received by e-mail this morning:

Dear Friend,

I am writing to you today to let you know about a legal issue we are currently addressing in regard to the Lansburgh Theatre, our home for the past 20 years.

For some time now we have been in negotiations with the management company that oversees the Lansburgh Theatre regarding our rent. Thus far we have been unable to resolve the issue and therefore, as a last resort, have filed a lawsuit this week including a request that the court issue an injunction so that we may continue to perform at the Lansburgh Theatre.

The particulars of the issues are complicated, so I’d like to offer a bit of detail about the creation of the Lansburgh Theatre. In 1992, the developer of the Lansburgh apartment building gained the development rights from the city of D.C. in exchange for building and donating the Lansburgh Theatre for use solely by the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Also established was Lansburgh Theatre, Inc (LTI) a specialized non-profit charity that only exists to support STC and serve as our landlord. By law, as long as the Shakespeare Theatre Company performs its charitable purpose, LTI lacks the power to terminate either STC’s status as the supported organization or STC's/our right to occupy the Lansburgh Theatre.

In the current dispute, LTI has demanded a rent increase of 700%, a demand that we feel is unfounded given the unique relationship of an organization that exists only to support STC. Additionally, through these discussions, it has become very clear that LTI is not operating and abiding by the charter by which it was created and the best course of action was to allow a court to resolve these matters.

We are very confident that a judge will honor STC’s long standing and clear rights to perform at the Lansburgh Theatre. Please be assured, this will not affect any of our current performances and the best thing for you to do is support STC in the same ways you have for the past 25 years. If you are a theatre-goer, keep subscribing and attending performances and if you are a donor (or want to become one), we are grateful for your continued contributions.

We will update our website with any new information and will be sure to send out updates to you as we progress in resolving this matter.

Thank you for your continued support.

Chris Jennings
Managing Director
Shakespeare Theatre Company

Merry Falstaff of Windsor

Next up on my cultural calendar is Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare Theatre Company's beautiful Sidney Harman Hall. I also scheduled a Meet-Up for an upcoming performance and hope to meet some of my fellow D.C.-area Shakespeare Explorers.

Because the Shakespeare Readers' season has ended, I haven't had the opportunity to read this play in advance. So I did a quick search for plot summaries and came away frustrated and confused by pedestrian descriptions of Shakespeare's plot-twisted humor.

What you need to know: Falstaff is in it. Everyone wants to marry Anne, Falstaff needs money, tricks are attempted, tables are turned, and Anne marries the one she wants. STC calls MWOW "A bawdy and riotous romp," a genre at which this venue excels.

And scrolling through the cast list, I see a couple of names I recognize as actors who will ensure this riotously rompy outcome: Tom Story (of whom I have written previously in Hosaa's Blog) portraying Doctor Caius, and Hugh Nees, a DC-theater veteran from way back, portraying Nym. (I once dated a friend of Hugh's, and he almost performed in a reading of one of my plays. Almost. His friend and I stopped dating before the reading was to occur. I don't hold that against Hugh.)

L-R: Kurt Rhoads (as "Page") and Hugh Nees ("Nym") in rehearsal for the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' directed by Stephen Rayne. Photo by Nicole Geldart.

Well, now, this preview is becoming a bit Shakespearean in its plot twists. Till next week ...

In Bard We Trust -
Cindy

The Spring of the Shrew

"I come to wive it wealthily in Padua!" (I,ii) 

The final reading of our 2011-12 season is Taming of the Shrew, which has been a popular selection among theater makers this year. Productions have recently closed in London and New York, and Synetic's rendering at Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh Theatre closes April 22.

And there is still time to see Kate and Petruchio mix it up in Vancouver at Bard on the Beach's Shakespeare Festival and, closer to home, at Folger Shakespeare Library's Elizabethan Theatre.

The lady may "lose" this particular skirmish in the age-old battle of the sexes, but Petruchio's approach is more like the breaking of a bronco or, as he implies, the training of his falcon. Domestication of the shrew, he would argue, is in both partners' long-term interest.

Ay, and amid this hurly I intend
That all is done in reverend care of her;
And in conclusion she shall watch all night:
And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl
And with the clamour keep her still awake.
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness;
And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak: 'tis charity to show.

I confess, though, I prefer a more literal interpretation of the phrase "to kill with kindness."

What: Taming of the Shrew full text (courtesy of MIT)
When: Sunday, May 6, 2012, 1 to 4 p.m.
Where: American University's Bender Library, Room 306
What else: The attending Readers are invited to propose selections for the 2012-13 season, so bring your Complete Works!
RSVP:  Cindy Wagner, e-mail hosaajoy 'at' gmail.com

In Bard We Trust!

"Good Night, Sweet Prince"

Peter F. Warker





The Shakespeare Readers have lost one of our finest voices. A friend writes:

I bear sad tidings. Our dear friend and reader, Peter Warker, passed away on March 30. His death notice was in today's POST. Fortunately, I was able to get over and visit with him for an hour on March 13 at his assisted living facility, Bartholomew House, in Potomac. Joann Dann was there at the time; how wonderful to see her again too.
...
Peter was a prince of a fellow. He preceded even me at the Palisades so he must have been attending for a pretty long time. His death was peaceful, he had had his morphine shot, a favorite helper was with him, he made a sound and then drifted off. Good night, sweet prince.

... and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Villain or Anti-Hero? Richard III

The Shakespeare Readers will next take on the Bard's second-longest work, Richard III, on April 15. (See full schedule here.)

Wikipedia isn't necessarily my favorite go-to resource for research, but the post on Richard III makes an interesting point about Richard, one of Shakespeare's leading villains, as an "anti-hero": Even while behaving villainously and admitting his intentions, "Richard immediately establishes a connection with the audience with his opening monologue. In the soliloquy he admits his amorality to the audience but at the same time treats them as if they were co-conspirators in his plotting."

While he is shown to be evil, Richard is not reduced to the kind of conveniently plot-moving villain that we get, for instance, from Don John in Much Ado.Even Iago's hatred of Othello is taken for granted, and his psychoanalysis left to future generations of scholars. (If Shakespeare needed us to understand Iago, he would have named the play after him, right?)

With Richard, we follow his thoughts into actions. It makes his behavior no less repugnant, but we see the humanity beneath "that bottled spider, ... that poisonous bunchback'd toad" so reviled by Queen Margaret.

In real life, those whom most of society perceive as villains never perceive themselves as villains. They justify, they rationalize, they blame. And empathy is right out. So it is (or should be) in drama. Richard is not an antagonist, working against a focal hero. But he is protagonist only in the sense that he is the focus of the play; a villain, only in the sense of his evil behavior.

Still, I'm not completely satisfied with the Wikipedia description of Richard as "anti-hero." To me, anti-heroes are like Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield--characters whose moral compasses may be calibrated in ways that society does not accept. There is nothing acceptable in Richard's murderous path across the stage.

So we are left with Richard as villain--evil, vile, vicious. Whether he was simply reviled for his deformity or became deformed by depravity--again, something for the modern psychoanalysts to ponder.

"Now is the winter of our discontent" speech (Act I, scene 1) performed by Sir Ian McKellen

What
Richard III: Read the full play aloud with a few of your fellow Shakespeare fans! Please bring your own copy of the play.

When
Sunday, April 15, 2012 - 1 to 4 p.m.

Where
Washington, D.C.: American University's Bender Library, Room 306

Links
Richard III full text (MIT Shakespeare project)

Shakespeare Readers 2011-2012 Season schedule (first post of this blog)

American University directions and campus map

RSVP Cindy Wagner: hosaajoy 'at' gmail.com

Incomplete Works!!

Warning! Warning!

I'm taking back any recommendations I might have made for Kindle. Argh!! My "Complete Plays" unabridged and what-not is missing FOUR plays.

What I bought is this:

The Complete Plays of Shakespeare, special Kindle edition

The table of contents listed at Amazon divides the plays into:

* The Complete Tragedies

* The Complete Histories

* The Complete Comedies

* The Complete Romances

It is the four romances that are missing from my download:

Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Cymbeline
The Winter’s Tale
The Tempest

Unfortunately, I only noticed this lapse today because the Shakespeare Readers are scheduled to read "The Tempest" this afternoon.

Picture me screaming down the halls of American University Library with my hair on fire.

... Or, blithely sliding into room 306 with a beautifully bound hardback edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

A Tempestuous Last Laugh

The Shakespeare Readers will next read The Tempest (complete text available online from MIT)

When: Sunday, March 18, 1-4 p.m.

Where: American University's Bender Library, Room 306 (parking in the lot at Nebraska and New Mexico avenues is free on Sundays)

Directions | Campus Map

RSVP: Cindy Wagner, hosaajoy 'at' gmail.com

Complete Shakespeare Readers schedule

~~~

The winds of late February are roaring outside my window as I now consider The Tempest, Shakespeare's final comedy--composed in late 1610 for King James I.

Scholar Harold Bloom describes The Tempest (along with A Midsummer Night's Dream) as being the most visionary of Shakespeare's comedies but also "the worst interpreted and performed." (Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, page 662).

But as my mind gusts back to the one staging I have experienced, I can only agree to disagree. The late Sir John Wood's humanistic 1988 Prospero was powerful and poignant, the Royal Shakespeare Company's staging was athletic and breathtaking.

In The Guardian's obituary for Wood, Michael Coveney wrote:

Wood's Prospero, in The Tempest directed by Nicholas Hytner (making his RSC debut) in 1988, struck me as the best I had ever seen – and I had seen Gielgud in the role, twice. His Prospero was a demented stage manager on a theatrical island, suspended between smouldering rage at his usurpation and unbridled glee at his alternative ethereal power. He bound the entire play to his wrecked view of experience and had no qualms about playing up and down the vocal register – in the dark backward and abysm of time we did indeed plummet several throaty fathoms deep. The critic Irving Wardle said that Wood lit up the text like an electric storm, and simply had no rival as a source of nervous energy on a stage.

John Wood:1983 Photograph Allstar-Cinetext

In any case, it was a thrill for this Bardophile to experience that lit-up text.

My favorite line:

TRINCULO

Servant-monster! the folly of this island! They
say there's but five upon this isle: we are three
of them; if th' other two be brained like us, the
state totters.

Hee!

In Bard we trust,

Cindy

Romeo, Juliet, and the Punk Rampant

Next on the Shakespeare Readers schedule is "Romeo and Juliet," just in time for Valentine's Day.

But it is not of love or romance that I write today. I bring you a mystery... and an answer!

If your only exposure to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film version, then you have been deceived! The language in the film is not 100% Shakespearean. I give you the case of the "punk rampant."

... (with apologies: the video has been removed) ....

As I wrote in my blog three years ago, I did a little research and discovered that the phrase is actually from The Dutch Courtesan by John Marston, 1605:

Freevill (to Franceschina): Go; y'are grown a punk rampant!

Great phrase, though, and very apt for the likes of Mercutio and Tybalt, the restless punks whose passions are the real culprit in this tragedy. Romeo and Juliet themselves are passionate, but their blood burns for love, not aggression; for reconciliation of families, not revenge for perceived slights.

Actually, Mercutio (portrayed by John McEnery in the above clip) and Tybalt are two of my favorite characters in all of Shakespeare, no doubt because the actors who portray them are always so much more compelling than the various Romeos. (Okay, I'll give you Leonardo di Caprio, best Romeo ever.) Michael York's distinctive voice gave the Zeffirelli Tybalt a heavy helping of sexiness that rocketed the actor to superstardom.

And, incidentally, York co-wrote (with Adrian Brine) a nifty book full of advice and gossip, called A Shakespearean Actor Prepares. He writes:

Cast in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, as the cocky, libidinous Tybalt, I was originally introduced in the very act of proving my reputation as the King of Cats between the thighs of a Veronese maiden. This was perhaps too obvious an image and it was cut, but I still make my entrance a trifle more subtly, from the codpiece upwards!

It may also have been a bit too rampant for the movie ratings board and in 1968, I highly doubt my mother would have permitted this view of such a punk.

Shakespeare Readers, prepare to read Romeo and Juliet using an authorized edition (i.e., one that does not contain this errant phrase).

Folger Shakespeare Library edition (paperback)
Penguin edition (Kindle)

In Bard We Trust,
Cindy

RSVP for the February 12 reading at American University's Bender Library (1-4 p.m. in room 306) to hosaajoy 'at' gmail.com

Ungentlemanly in Verona

If you're heading out to see the Shakespeare Theatre's latest production of Two Gentlemen of Verona, first of all, lucky you! This modern-day adaptation (retaining the language) of Shakespeare's early romantic comedy is breathtakingly energetic.

A warning, though, it is violent. Not quite Stacy Keach King Lear violent, but heads are hit and blood is shed. So much so that my friend and I both were wishing the two gentlemen would wipe their faces before taking their bows at the end.

I confess that, during Sunday's IDR, I took great pleasure in watching these two really great-looking gentlemen: Andrew Veenstra as Valentine (who also served as the fight captain) and Nick Dillenburg as Proteus. Another familiar face was that of Euan Morton as the servant/dog lover Launce.

I last saw the handsome Veenstra in Shakespeare Theatre's production of The Heir Apparent, and the versatile Morton in Ford Theatre's production of Parade last fall.

Note, don't be confused by the rock opera version of Two Gentlemen, which is also scheduled for later this month at Sidney Harman Hall. The gentlemen of whom I write now are appearing at the Lansburgh.


Two Gentlemen of Verona (aka Two Gents) cast picture, courtesy of The Shakespeare Theatre

The Two Gentlemen of Verona
directed by P. J. Paparelli
set design by Walt Sangler
Costume design by Paul Spadone

Cast
Valentine: Andrew Veenstra
Speed: Adam Green
Proteus: Nick Dillenburg
Launce: Euan Morton
Crab (his dog): Olliver
Antonio: Christopher McHale
Panthino: Stephen Patrick Martin
Julia: Miriam Silverman
Lucetta: Inga Ballard
Duke of Milan: Brent Harris
Silvia: Natalie Mitchell
Thurio: Gene Gillette
Eglamour: Todd Scofield

View this post on my arts (and miscellaney) blog, Hosaa's Blog.