Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
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1. Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+=eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
------------------------------
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Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of * Coriolanus*, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like *Coriolanus* the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, *Macbeth*, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about *Coriolanus*, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time--after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows *some* inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he *could* move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson *for me* was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in *Hamlet, *though a lot of what we could love but miss in *Hamlet* is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.* * * * And what I loved about those kids performing *Coriolanus* out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with *Coriolanus* on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love *Coriolanus* too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. wsteele@lockelord.comwrote:
Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
-----Original Message----- From: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:01 AM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
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- Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: <CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+= eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
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I also thought it was a great performance and moving, but I'm not sure I agree that Caius Martius ever tried to overcome his blind spot...he was aware of it, not as a flaw, but as static in the tidy image he held of himself...a bothersome fly
On Aug 6, 2012, at 7:09 PM, Casey Caldwell w.casey.caldwell@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of Coriolanus, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like Coriolanus the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, Macbeth, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about Coriolanus, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time--after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows some inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he could move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson for me was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in Hamlet, though a lot of what we could love but miss in Hamlet is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.
And what I loved about those kids performing Coriolanus out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with Coriolanus on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love Coriolanus too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. wsteele@lockelord.com wrote: Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
-----Original Message----- From: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:01 AM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
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Today's Topics:
- Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+=eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
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Hey, Aub:
It was really a special treat to see you at Winedale and to talk about the play. Your observation here is spot on.
Cheers,
Doc
On Aug 6, 2012, at 6:31 PM, Aubrey Carter wrote:
I also thought it was a great performance and moving, but I'm not sure I agree that Caius Martius ever tried to overcome his blind spot...he was aware of it, not as a flaw, but as static in the tidy image he held of himself...a bothersome fly
On Aug 6, 2012, at 7:09 PM, Casey Caldwell w.casey.caldwell@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of Coriolanus, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like Coriolanus the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, Macbeth, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about Coriolanus, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time-- after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows some inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he could move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson for me was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in Hamlet, though a lot of what we could love but miss in Hamlet is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.
And what I loved about those kids performing Coriolanus out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with Coriolanus on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love Coriolanus too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. <wsteele@lockelord.com
wrote:
Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
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- Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: <CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+=eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com
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In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
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Thanks Doc, I'm so glad to have had the chance to reconnect with you and Winedale. Having been in such an intense pursuit of architecture after I left there, it faded some from my consciousness...but something stayed in me that wanted what I got there. It came out differently; the follies...I played in many punk and rock bands along the way but when I saw Robert Faries do that scene from Henry IV at the reunion...well, it knocked my socks off and I realized what I'd been missing for so long. Thanks again Doc, Aub
On Aug 7, 2012, at 9:25 PM, James Ayres jayres@cvctx.com wrote:
Hey, Aub:
It was really a special treat to see you at Winedale and to talk about the play. Your observation here is spot on.
Cheers,
Doc
On Aug 6, 2012, at 6:31 PM, Aubrey Carter wrote:
I also thought it was a great performance and moving, but I'm not sure I agree that Caius Martius ever tried to overcome his blind spot...he was aware of it, not as a flaw, but as static in the tidy image he held of himself...a bothersome fly
On Aug 6, 2012, at 7:09 PM, Casey Caldwell w.casey.caldwell@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of Coriolanus, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like Coriolanus the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, Macbeth, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about Coriolanus, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time--after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows some inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he could move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson for me was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in Hamlet, though a lot of what we could love but miss in Hamlet is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.
And what I loved about those kids performing Coriolanus out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with Coriolanus on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love Coriolanus too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. wsteele@lockelord.com wrote: Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
-----Original Message----- From: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:01 AM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
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- Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+=eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
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Which was the scene he did?...the soliloquy from Henry IV
On Aug 7, 2012, at 8:10 PM, Aubrey Carter aubreycarter@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Thanks Doc, I'm so glad to have had the chance to reconnect with you and Winedale. Having been in such an intense pursuit of architecture after I left there, it faded some from my consciousness...but something stayed in me that wanted what I got there. It came out differently; the follies...I played in many punk and rock bands along the way but when I saw Robert Faries do that scene from Henry IV at the reunion...well, it knocked my socks off and I realized what I'd been missing for so long. Thanks again Doc, Aub
On Aug 7, 2012, at 9:25 PM, James Ayres jayres@cvctx.com wrote:
Hey, Aub:
It was really a special treat to see you at Winedale and to talk about the play. Your observation here is spot on.
Cheers,
Doc
On Aug 6, 2012, at 6:31 PM, Aubrey Carter wrote:
I also thought it was a great performance and moving, but I'm not sure I agree that Caius Martius ever tried to overcome his blind spot...he was aware of it, not as a flaw, but as static in the tidy image he held of himself...a bothersome fly
On Aug 6, 2012, at 7:09 PM, Casey Caldwell w.casey.caldwell@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of Coriolanus, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like Coriolanus the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, Macbeth, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about Coriolanus, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time--after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows some inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he could move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson for me was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in Hamlet, though a lot of what we could love but miss in Hamlet is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.
And what I loved about those kids performing Coriolanus out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with Coriolanus on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love Coriolanus too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. wsteele@lockelord.com wrote: Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
-----Original Message----- From: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:01 AM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
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Today's Topics:
- Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+=eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
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I don't know you, Casey, but I would love to meet you. I will never look at Coriolanus in the same way. Eloquent stuff, and I think Ralph saw the play as you did when he made his film. All the best, michael b
From: Casey Caldwell [mailto:w.casey.caldwell@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, August 06, 2012 05:09 PM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of Coriolanus, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like Coriolanus the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, Macbeth, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about Coriolanus, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time--after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows some inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he could move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson for me was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in Hamlet, though a lot of what we could love but miss in Hamlet is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.
And what I loved about those kids performing Coriolanus out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with Coriolanus on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love Coriolanus too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. <wsteele@lockelord.commailto:wsteele@lockelord.com> wrote: Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
-----Original Message----- From: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:01 AM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@gmail.commailto:mnemonic@gmail.com> To: Michael Saenger <saengerm@southwestern.edumailto:saengerm@southwestern.edu> Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums <winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: <CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+=eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.commailto:eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
------------------------------
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End of Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10 ******************************************
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Great letter, Casey. Thanks. I'm pleased that the posts of Michael, Mike, Jerald, and myself, have generated this much interest and produced very special insights. I think the older Winedale "kids" ('70-2000) will, for sure, appreciate, as I do, your personal address, how you connect with the play and Martius. You have certainly come a long way from Grumio in '03. (beaten there also). By the way, I was amused that you refer to the '12 class as "kids." So you are 30 now?
Like you, I did marvel at the energy and pace of the play. That spirit was evident in all three plays, I thought (although I wonder about the gratuitous moments). It seemed to me that the "kid" who played Coriolanus gave everything he could to the character, the conflict, left everything on the stage, a noble effort. I thanked him for that after the play. But I saw nothing heroic or tragic. Instead something like the struggling you mention, the blind spot, the trapped, confused, angry, seeking release. And maybe that is what the play is about.
Right on with Jonson, but remember he's writing humour comedy. Characters do not develop much at all there. They sort of bounce off one another. But the plays are great fun. MWW is Sh's "humour" comedy.
Now if we can turn our attention to Pericles.................
Doc
On Aug 6, 2012, at 5:09 PM, Casey Caldwell wrote:
Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of Coriolanus, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like Coriolanus the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, Macbeth, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about Coriolanus, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time-- after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows some inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he could move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson for me was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in Hamlet, though a lot of what we could love but miss in Hamlet is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.
And what I loved about those kids performing Coriolanus out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with Coriolanus on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love Coriolanus too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. <wsteele@lockelord.com
wrote:
Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
-----Original Message----- From: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org ] On Behalf Of winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:01 AM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
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- Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: <CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+=eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
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Thanks, Doc. Ha, I hadn't realized I was referring to them as "kids"-I think I was feeling the old in my soul looking at Coriolanus, and seeing the young in theirs performing it. If that makes sense.
:) Oh yeah, I did get pretty beat up as Grumio... maybe that's why I learned so much!
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 10:39 PM, James Ayres jayres@cvctx.com wrote:
Great letter, Casey. Thanks. I'm pleased that the posts of Michael, Mike, Jerald, and myself, have generated this much interest and produced very special insights. I think the older Winedale "kids" ('70-2000) will, for sure, appreciate, as I do, your personal address, how you connect with the play and Martius. You have certainly come a long way from Grumio in '03. (beaten there also). By the way, I was amused that you refer to the '12 class as "kids." So you are 30 now?
Like you, I did marvel at the energy and pace of the play. That spirit was evident in all three plays, I thought (although I wonder about the gratuitous moments). It seemed to me that the "kid" who played Coriolanus gave everything he could to the character, the conflict, left everything on the stage, a noble effort. I thanked him for that after the play. But I saw nothing heroic or tragic. Instead something like the struggling you mention, the blind spot, the trapped, confused, angry, seeking release. And maybe that is what the play is about.
Right on with Jonson, but remember he's writing humour comedy. Characters do not develop much at all there. They sort of bounce off one another. But the plays are great fun. MWW is Sh's "humour" comedy.
Now if we can turn our attention to Pericles.................
Doc
On Aug 6, 2012, at 5:09 PM, Casey Caldwell wrote:
Hi all,
I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of * Coriolanus*, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like *Coriolanus* the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, *Macbeth*, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about *Coriolanus*, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time--after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows *some* inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he *could* move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson *for me* was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in *Hamlet, *though a lot of what we could love but miss in *Hamlet* is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.* *
And what I loved about those kids performing *Coriolanus* out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with * Coriolanus* on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love *Coriolanus* too.
Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. wsteele@lockelord.comwrote:
Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
-----Original Message----- From: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: winedale-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of winedale-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 7:01 AM To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
Send Winedale-l mailing list submissions to winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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You can reach the person managing the list at winedale-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Winedale-l digest..."
Today's Topics:
- Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
Message: 1 Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700 From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT Message-ID: <CAKFh3H-QOGM2B6AkNg8cxT29BFb+ES8h+= eaiudxZ_c7Wy-DjQ@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in... .
--Mike
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End of Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
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Thank you Casey, Doc and all who've shared your thoughts on Coriolanus, the play and the performance. A wonderful conversation to listen in on. And thanks again Mike for setting up this list two years ago.
Like Kate I don't know the play well but am looking forward to giving it some attention soon. I did see one performance of it with James long long ago in London, a small-stage Kick Theatre production directed by Deborah Warner, and I must confess my only lasting memory of that evening is that just as I was nodding off about halfway through, lulled into a trance state by the incessant jawing of various indistinguishable (to me, then) plebians and tribunes, I suddenly had the strange feeling, asserting itself through the fog in my head, that something had changed onstage... oh, wait a minute, the guy playing Coriolanus... he's not wearing any clothes..... Helllllo! Oh, Calcutta! He was showing his scars. All of 'em. I was awake for at least another act after that.
I will be seeing the summer class performance Saturday afternoon and look forward to re-reading the emails afterwards. Speaking of threads, I trust none of the students are pulling an Ian McKellan and dropping trou (or toga) in this one.
Though I have nothing helpful to say about the play right yet, other than to advise you to watch out for naked people in it, I did want to tip a hat in the direction of Dr. James Loehlin, whose decision to invite some of Shakespeare's "turkeys" (as Terry put it) into the Barn made this roundtable discussion possible. Over the past few years I have sensed that James's students bring a special energy to the lesser-known plays, perhaps reflecting in part their teacher's excitement at taking on a work never before assayed in full in the Barn. And it's wonderful, as someone who's read and listened to Shakespeare performances for almost 30 years, to sit and watch a play under the cedar beams and actually not know what's going to happen next in the story. So thanks for that, James.
The well-loved plays can certainly be fresh and surprising with each approach, and the great achievement there perhaps is to make us forget, for a while, that we've seen the play before, and to lead us into experiencing it anew. Watching the Camp "Macbeth" gave me that feeling many times last month. But it's been very interesting to get a wide-angle view on Shakespeare by experiencing some of his less successful or brilliant work. You never know when those little flashes of genius will spark up, even in the turkeys. Failures are as interesting in their own way as successes.
I never could get very far into the Henry VI plays as a reader, but now have a much better sense of their possibilities thanks to James and the summer classes. Doc has done much of the same thing for all of us over the years by leading students and audiences to Pericles, Cymbeline, the first-quarto Hamlet, and other Elizabethan plays such as Shoemaker's Holiday. The lifelong learning continues.
I have heard James say he wants to eventually take on at Winedale every play Shakespeare wrote, which means, at some point before too long, Titus, Timon, Henry VIII.... Gobble gobble. Turkey sandwiches for all. I'll bring the mayo.
cs
Dear fellow Winos,
Please forgive this least intellectual of brainwaves inspired by the recent thread of references to "Shakespeare's Turkeys", but each time I hear that phrase, all I can think about is, in lieu of the now-ended UT/Aggie football game tradition, it seems like there could be opportunity to REALLY celebrate Shakespeare and turkey ;-)
Perhaps even an express venue FOR the "turkeys"? Some folks, some food, some Shakes and some scenes from his turkeys? Just like the first settlers when they performed Shakespeare with the natives -- a classic T-givs, if ever there was one!
I realize this may not require the Winedale property just to occur, and I imagine it may be a less exciting suggestion to those of you who actually manage Winedale and any sanctioned time there...but you know what they say about there being a Will...(that there may be students or alum happy to assist any grassroots effort? ;-).
Alas, sneakily, I am not a likely candidate for that, so long as I am not in Austin. But I do enjoy the connection allowed via ye olde internete, so consider this a "just thinking of y'all", if nothing else.
--Matt Spring '99, Summer '00
PS - I also realize informal get-togethers involving Shakes' is not a novel suggestion, here & PPS - Apparently, there IS a Turkey day football game against TCU.
On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Stromberger < cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Thank you Casey, Doc and all who've shared your thoughts on Coriolanus, the play and the performance. A wonderful conversation to listen in on. And thanks again Mike for setting up this list two years ago.
Like Kate I don't know the play well but am looking forward to giving it some attention soon. I did see one performance of it with James long long ago in London, a small-stage Kick Theatre production directed by Deborah Warner, and I must confess my only lasting memory of that evening is that just as I was nodding off about halfway through, lulled into a trance state by the incessant jawing of various indistinguishable (to me, then) plebians and tribunes, I suddenly had the strange feeling, asserting itself through the fog in my head, that something had changed onstage... oh, wait a minute, the guy playing Coriolanus... he's not wearing any clothes..... Helllllo! Oh, Calcutta! He was showing his scars. All of 'em. I was awake for at least another act after that.
I will be seeing the summer class performance Saturday afternoon and look forward to re-reading the emails afterwards. Speaking of threads, I trust none of the students are pulling an Ian McKellan and dropping trou (or toga) in this one.
Though I have nothing helpful to say about the play right yet, other than to advise you to watch out for naked people in it, I did want to tip a hat in the direction of Dr. James Loehlin, whose decision to invite some of Shakespeare's "turkeys" (as Terry put it) into the Barn made this roundtable discussion possible. Over the past few years I have sensed that James's students bring a special energy to the lesser-known plays, perhaps reflecting in part their teacher's excitement at taking on a work never before assayed in full in the Barn. And it's wonderful, as someone who's read and listened to Shakespeare performances for almost 30 years, to sit and watch a play under the cedar beams and actually not know what's going to happen next in the story. So thanks for that, James.
The well-loved plays can certainly be fresh and surprising with each approach, and the great achievement there perhaps is to make us forget, for a while, that we've seen the play before, and to lead us into experiencing it anew. Watching the Camp "Macbeth" gave me that feeling many times last month. But it's been very interesting to get a wide-angle view on Shakespeare by experiencing some of his less successful or brilliant work. You never know when those little flashes of genius will spark up, even in the turkeys. Failures are as interesting in their own way as successes.
I never could get very far into the Henry VI plays as a reader, but now have a much better sense of their possibilities thanks to James and the summer classes. Doc has done much of the same thing for all of us over the years by leading students and audiences to Pericles, Cymbeline, the first-quarto Hamlet, and other Elizabethan plays such as Shoemaker's Holiday. The lifelong learning continues.
I have heard James say he wants to eventually take on at Winedale every play Shakespeare wrote, which means, at some point before too long, Titus, Timon, Henry VIII.... Gobble gobble. Turkey sandwiches for all. I'll bring the mayo.
cs
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Hey Matt. Good to hear your voice again. I'm getting old: please help me with the coded language. So where are you and what are you doing?
Your suggestion about gathering to read some of the lesser played or read plays: actually, our faculty Shakespeare reading group did that in the early '80s and found some very good things to talk about afterward. And I vividly remember sitting on the floor in my office in '85 with an energetic group of former Sh at W students reading Titus Andronicus. Those were the days......
I suppose I prompted the "turkey" approach to Coriolanus when I wrote Michael that I I really did not like it, could never figure it out, did not find favor with the characters. That prompted some very interesting exchanges. Even prompted some folks to read the play. So what happened from that and what James has done at Winedale has given us all a chance to explore something new. Some I talked to after the performance I saw thought that the play was a travesty of Roman values, a sort of "mock-heroic" effort. Several thought, like myself, that it was irony, satire. Several were simply confused. Some thought that it was absolutely wonderful. The latter prompted deservingly, I think, by the spirited effort of the class. The e-mail exchanges brought forth some very valuable critical and personal insights. All of this suddenly made me think of Wallace Stevens and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."
Well, after it all, I still have problems with Coriolanus, the play and the man-kid. But the exchanges have opened up some very interesting approaches to everything. And that is good, I think. And it connected me with some I've not heard from in a while, like Joe Jordan!
Before your time, Matt, in the Spring '98, I took on the 1603 "BAD QUARTO" of Hamlet and then, with s group of former students, took the same "BAD" play to the Globe Theater in London where it became "GOOD," surprising not a few theater folks there. I heard the sounds and then the silence. Hmmmm.
In '08, a Camp Shakespeare group of 14 11-16 yr olds performed the same play at Winedale. Former students and the faithful Winedale audience said that the "BAD" play was the "BEST" play EVER performed on the Winedale stage. Wow!
You just have to be there.
Cheers,
Doc
On Aug 9, 2012, at 3:20 PM, Matt McNutt wrote:
Dear fellow Winos,
Please forgive this least intellectual of brainwaves inspired by the recent thread of references to "Shakespeare's Turkeys", but each time I hear that phrase, all I can think about is, in lieu of the now-ended UT/Aggie football game tradition, it seems like there could be opportunity to REALLY celebrate Shakespeare and turkey ;-)
Perhaps even an express venue FOR the "turkeys"? Some folks, some food, some Shakes and some scenes from his turkeys? Just like the first settlers when they performed Shakespeare with the natives -- a classic T-givs, if ever there was one!
I realize this may not require the Winedale property just to occur, and I imagine it may be a less exciting suggestion to those of you who actually manage Winedale and any sanctioned time there...but you know what they say about there being a Will...(that there may be students or alum happy to assist any grassroots effort? ;-).
Alas, sneakily, I am not a likely candidate for that, so long as I am not in Austin. But I do enjoy the connection allowed via ye olde internete, so consider this a "just thinking of y'all", if nothing else.
--Matt Spring '99, Summer '00
PS - I also realize informal get-togethers involving Shakes' is not a novel suggestion, here & PPS - Apparently, there IS a Turkey day football game against TCU.
On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Stromberger <cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu
wrote:
Thank you Casey, Doc and all who've shared your thoughts on Coriolanus, the play and the performance. A wonderful conversation to listen in on. And thanks again Mike for setting up this list two years ago.
Like Kate I don't know the play well but am looking forward to giving it some attention soon. I did see one performance of it with James long long ago in London, a small-stage Kick Theatre production directed by Deborah Warner, and I must confess my only lasting memory of that evening is that just as I was nodding off about halfway through, lulled into a trance state by the incessant jawing of various indistinguishable (to me, then) plebians and tribunes, I suddenly had the strange feeling, asserting itself through the fog in my head, that something had changed onstage... oh, wait a minute, the guy playing Coriolanus... he's not wearing any clothes..... Helllllo! Oh, Calcutta! He was showing his scars. All of 'em. I was awake for at least another act after that.
I will be seeing the summer class performance Saturday afternoon and look forward to re-reading the emails afterwards. Speaking of threads, I trust none of the students are pulling an Ian McKellan and dropping trou (or toga) in this one.
Though I have nothing helpful to say about the play right yet, other than to advise you to watch out for naked people in it, I did want to tip a hat in the direction of Dr. James Loehlin, whose decision to invite some of Shakespeare's "turkeys" (as Terry put it) into the Barn made this roundtable discussion possible. Over the past few years I have sensed that James's students bring a special energy to the lesser-known plays, perhaps reflecting in part their teacher's excitement at taking on a work never before assayed in full in the Barn. And it's wonderful, as someone who's read and listened to Shakespeare performances for almost 30 years, to sit and watch a play under the cedar beams and actually not know what's going to happen next in the story. So thanks for that, James.
The well-loved plays can certainly be fresh and surprising with each approach, and the great achievement there perhaps is to make us forget, for a while, that we've seen the play before, and to lead us into experiencing it anew. Watching the Camp "Macbeth" gave me that feeling many times last month. But it's been very interesting to get a wide-angle view on Shakespeare by experiencing some of his less successful or brilliant work. You never know when those little flashes of genius will spark up, even in the turkeys. Failures are as interesting in their own way as successes.
I never could get very far into the Henry VI plays as a reader, but now have a much better sense of their possibilities thanks to James and the summer classes. Doc has done much of the same thing for all of us over the years by leading students and audiences to Pericles, Cymbeline, the first-quarto Hamlet, and other Elizabethan plays such as Shoemaker's Holiday. The lifelong learning continues.
I have heard James say he wants to eventually take on at Winedale every play Shakespeare wrote, which means, at some point before too long, Titus, Timon, Henry VIII.... Gobble gobble. Turkey sandwiches for all. I'll bring the mayo.
cs
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Hey Doc Just wanted to say that your "man-kid" characterization was pretty much exactly what I saw last weekend. Sputtering, shrill insistence...adolescent temper tantrum because things are not working out. Aubrey
On Aug 10, 2012, at 9:53 PM, James Ayres jayres@cvctx.com wrote:
Hey Matt. Good to hear your voice again. I'm getting old: please help me with the coded language. So where are you and what are you doing?
Your suggestion about gathering to read some of the lesser played or read plays: actually, our faculty Shakespeare reading group did that in the early '80s and found some very good things to talk about afterward. And I vividly remember sitting on the floor in my office in '85 with an energetic group of former Sh at W students reading Titus Andronicus. Those were the days......
I suppose I prompted the "turkey" approach to Coriolanus when I wrote Michael that I I really did not like it, could never figure it out, did not find favor with the characters. That prompted some very interesting exchanges. Even prompted some folks to read the play. So what happened from that and what James has done at Winedale has given us all a chance to explore something new. Some I talked to after the performance I saw thought that the play was a travesty of Roman values, a sort of "mock-heroic" effort. Several thought, like myself, that it was irony, satire. Several were simply confused. Some thought that it was absolutely wonderful. The latter prompted deservingly, I think, by the spirited effort of the class. The e-mail exchanges brought forth some very valuable critical and personal insights. All of this suddenly made me think of Wallace Stevens and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."
Well, after it all, I still have problems with Coriolanus, the play and the man-kid. But the exchanges have opened up some very interesting approaches to everything. And that is good, I think. And it connected me with some I've not heard from in a while, like Joe Jordan!
Before your time, Matt, in the Spring '98, I took on the 1603 "BAD QUARTO" of Hamlet and then, with s group of former students, took the same "BAD" play to the Globe Theater in London where it became "GOOD," surprising not a few theater folks there. I heard the sounds and then the silence. Hmmmm.
In '08, a Camp Shakespeare group of 14 11-16 yr olds performed the same play at Winedale. Former students and the faithful Winedale audience said that the "BAD" play was the "BEST" play EVER performed on the Winedale stage. Wow!
You just have to be there.
Cheers,
Doc
On Aug 9, 2012, at 3:20 PM, Matt McNutt wrote:
Dear fellow Winos,
Please forgive this least intellectual of brainwaves inspired by the recent thread of references to "Shakespeare's Turkeys", but each time I hear that phrase, all I can think about is, in lieu of the now-ended UT/Aggie football game tradition, it seems like there could be opportunity to REALLY celebrate Shakespeare and turkey ;-)
Perhaps even an express venue FOR the "turkeys"? Some folks, some food, some Shakes and some scenes from his turkeys? Just like the first settlers when they performed Shakespeare with the natives -- a classic T-givs, if ever there was one!
I realize this may not require the Winedale property just to occur, and I imagine it may be a less exciting suggestion to those of you who actually manage Winedale and any sanctioned time there...but you know what they say about there being a Will...(that there may be students or alum happy to assist any grassroots effort? ;-).
Alas, sneakily, I am not a likely candidate for that, so long as I am not in Austin. But I do enjoy the connection allowed via ye olde internete, so consider this a "just thinking of y'all", if nothing else.
--Matt Spring '99, Summer '00
PS - I also realize informal get-togethers involving Shakes' is not a novel suggestion, here & PPS - Apparently, there IS a Turkey day football game against TCU.
On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Stromberger cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu wrote: Thank you Casey, Doc and all who've shared your thoughts on Coriolanus, the play and the performance. A wonderful conversation to listen in on. And thanks again Mike for setting up this list two years ago.
Like Kate I don't know the play well but am looking forward to giving it some attention soon. I did see one performance of it with James long long ago in London, a small-stage Kick Theatre production directed by Deborah Warner, and I must confess my only lasting memory of that evening is that just as I was nodding off about halfway through, lulled into a trance state by the incessant jawing of various indistinguishable (to me, then) plebians and tribunes, I suddenly had the strange feeling, asserting itself through the fog in my head, that something had changed onstage... oh, wait a minute, the guy playing Coriolanus... he's not wearing any clothes..... Helllllo! Oh, Calcutta! He was showing his scars. All of 'em. I was awake for at least another act after that.
I will be seeing the summer class performance Saturday afternoon and look forward to re-reading the emails afterwards. Speaking of threads, I trust none of the students are pulling an Ian McKellan and dropping trou (or toga) in this one.
Though I have nothing helpful to say about the play right yet, other than to advise you to watch out for naked people in it, I did want to tip a hat in the direction of Dr. James Loehlin, whose decision to invite some of Shakespeare's "turkeys" (as Terry put it) into the Barn made this roundtable discussion possible. Over the past few years I have sensed that James's students bring a special energy to the lesser-known plays, perhaps reflecting in part their teacher's excitement at taking on a work never before assayed in full in the Barn. And it's wonderful, as someone who's read and listened to Shakespeare performances for almost 30 years, to sit and watch a play under the cedar beams and actually not know what's going to happen next in the story. So thanks for that, James.
The well-loved plays can certainly be fresh and surprising with each approach, and the great achievement there perhaps is to make us forget, for a while, that we've seen the play before, and to lead us into experiencing it anew. Watching the Camp "Macbeth" gave me that feeling many times last month. But it's been very interesting to get a wide-angle view on Shakespeare by experiencing some of his less successful or brilliant work. You never know when those little flashes of genius will spark up, even in the turkeys. Failures are as interesting in their own way as successes.
I never could get very far into the Henry VI plays as a reader, but now have a much better sense of their possibilities thanks to James and the summer classes. Doc has done much of the same thing for all of us over the years by leading students and audiences to Pericles, Cymbeline, the first-quarto Hamlet, and other Elizabethan plays such as Shoemaker's Holiday. The lifelong learning continues.
I have heard James say he wants to eventually take on at Winedale every play Shakespeare wrote, which means, at some point before too long, Titus, Timon, Henry VIII.... Gobble gobble. Turkey sandwiches for all. I'll bring the mayo.
cs
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Hey Matt --
Your Pericles was on my mind as I wrote my email about the lesser-known plays last week. A wonderful memory, a beautiful performance.
I saw Coriolanus today and was quite impressed with the class's energy, focus, clarity, and passion. It was a fascinating afternoon. Jerald was there too. When he saw me he said with a laugh, "I had to find out what all the fuss was about!"
When I have an opportunity to read the play and the emails, I'll gaze at this blackbird for a while and see if I have a way of seeing it that is worthy of the thread. But just a quick note here to say -- if any of you within driving range have not seen it, I strongly recommend catching the final evening tomorrow (Sunday) night.
Best,
Clayton S.
On Aug 9, 2012, at 4:20 PM, Matt McNutt wrote:
Dear fellow Winos,
Please forgive this least intellectual of brainwaves inspired by the recent thread of references to "Shakespeare's Turkeys", but each time I hear that phrase, all I can think about is, in lieu of the now-ended UT/Aggie football game tradition, it seems like there could be opportunity to REALLY celebrate Shakespeare and turkey ;-)
Perhaps even an express venue FOR the "turkeys"? Some folks, some food, some Shakes and some scenes from his turkeys? Just like the first settlers when they performed Shakespeare with the natives -- a classic T-givs, if ever there was one!
I realize this may not require the Winedale property just to occur, and I imagine it may be a less exciting suggestion to those of you who actually manage Winedale and any sanctioned time there...but you know what they say about there being a Will...(that there may be students or alum happy to assist any grassroots effort? ;-).
Alas, sneakily, I am not a likely candidate for that, so long as I am not in Austin. But I do enjoy the connection allowed via ye olde internete, so consider this a "just thinking of y'all", if nothing else.
--Matt Spring '99, Summer '00
PS - I also realize informal get-togethers involving Shakes' is not a novel suggestion, here & PPS - Apparently, there IS a Turkey day football game against TCU.
On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Stromberger <cstromberger@austin.utexas.edumailto:cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu> wrote: Thank you Casey, Doc and all who've shared your thoughts on Coriolanus, the play and the performance. A wonderful conversation to listen in on. And thanks again Mike for setting up this list two years ago.
Like Kate I don't know the play well but am looking forward to giving it some attention soon. I did see one performance of it with James long long ago in London, a small-stage Kick Theatre production directed by Deborah Warner, and I must confess my only lasting memory of that evening is that just as I was nodding off about halfway through, lulled into a trance state by the incessant jawing of various indistinguishable (to me, then) plebians and tribunes, I suddenly had the strange feeling, asserting itself through the fog in my head, that something had changed onstage... oh, wait a minute, the guy playing Coriolanus... he's not wearing any clothes..... Helllllo! Oh, Calcutta! He was showing his scars. All of 'em. I was awake for at least another act after that.
I will be seeing the summer class performance Saturday afternoon and look forward to re-reading the emails afterwards. Speaking of threads, I trust none of the students are pulling an Ian McKellan and dropping trou (or toga) in this one.
Though I have nothing helpful to say about the play right yet, other than to advise you to watch out for naked people in it, I did want to tip a hat in the direction of Dr. James Loehlin, whose decision to invite some of Shakespeare's "turkeys" (as Terry put it) into the Barn made this roundtable discussion possible. Over the past few years I have sensed that James's students bring a special energy to the lesser-known plays, perhaps reflecting in part their teacher's excitement at taking on a work never before assayed in full in the Barn. And it's wonderful, as someone who's read and listened to Shakespeare performances for almost 30 years, to sit and watch a play under the cedar beams and actually not know what's going to happen next in the story. So thanks for that, James.
The well-loved plays can certainly be fresh and surprising with each approach, and the great achievement there perhaps is to make us forget, for a while, that we've seen the play before, and to lead us into experiencing it anew. Watching the Camp "Macbeth" gave me that feeling many times last month. But it's been very interesting to get a wide-angle view on Shakespeare by experiencing some of his less successful or brilliant work. You never know when those little flashes of genius will spark up, even in the turkeys. Failures are as interesting in their own way as successes.
I never could get very far into the Henry VI plays as a reader, but now have a much better sense of their possibilities thanks to James and the summer classes. Doc has done much of the same thing for all of us over the years by leading students and audiences to Pericles, Cymbeline, the first-quarto Hamlet, and other Elizabethan plays such as Shoemaker's Holiday. The lifelong learning continues.
I have heard James say he wants to eventually take on at Winedale every play Shakespeare wrote, which means, at some point before too long, Titus, Timon, Henry VIII.... Gobble gobble. Turkey sandwiches for all. I'll bring the mayo.
cs
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Clayton Stromberger Outreach Coordinator, UT Shakespeare at Winedale College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin www.shakespeare-winedale.orghttp://www.shakespeare-winedale.org cell: 512-363-6864 UT Sh. at W. office: 512-471-4726
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 19:09:20 -0500 From: w.casey.caldwell@gmail.com To: winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] Winedale-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 10
Hi all, I've always been too much in awe of all of you to post on this listserv until now, but I've been following this really interesting discussion of Coriolanus, and having just seen the Winedale performance as well I feel like I have something to contribute. I don't think I'm in any small position of informed opinion now at this point in my life either, so please forgive me those of you I haven't met.
I like Coriolanus the play and I really liked what those kids did with it out at Winedale, and I think I might be coming at this in a slightly different way than some of the discussion so far so I wanted to add it to the mix.
As to my first point though, I emphatically would NOT have liked Coriolanus when I was "younger". What I mean by "younger" is when I was still cradled in the world of my innocence (a time that extended through college)--and I was very innocent, a young soul compared to what I have always respected as the much more advanced souls on this listserv and whom I've spent years admiring and being inspired by. I had to get out in the world and get pretty beat up a few times (maybe many times) before, for example, I could even relate to true positive experience of tragedy in a play. I didn't get it. I appreciated the raw beauty of the poetry in, say, Macbeth, but I was fundamentally separated from the essential experience of the play in a positive way until, say, 6 or 7 years ago. The comedies were where it was at for me, though I have loved the Henry IVs from the beginning (considering the role of Falstaff and his rejection in those plays, I guess it makes sense put this way).
Part of what I find so compelling now about Coriolanus, and I have to be personal in order to explain this, is the fact that I can completely relate to the way he feels and I think it takes a kind of Brechtian honesty and courage on Shakespeare's part to show an audience, not a heightened or enriched version of how they like to see themselves raised or fail magnificently, but a real side of themselves they truly do not want to see. But which we need to. I recently experienced severe burn out from performing all the time--after an intense run of extremely positive experiences with Shakespeare and performance, ADing at Winedale, building my own internship from the ground up to work at the Globe, acting in countless scenes and plays at the Blackfriars in Staunton, directing shows and staged readings, I felt building up in me what I was surprised to find was an anger towards my "audience"- the people I felt expected me to keep performing for them all the time and keep achieving and for whom I felt it was never enough. All of the great things I had achieved had, paradoxically, led me to be angry, generically, at those for whom they were achievements. That was of course a side-effect of the burn out, but around that time I watched Fienne's film and turned back to the play, and I felt that when I looked into his eyes I saw exactly how I felt looking back at me. A trapped and angry, shrunken person that I had not been able to admit to myself, for all my achievements, was there--and I felt so thankful to Shakespeare for having the courage, and believing in me enough, to show that to me.
I was also born into this world with a severe inability to understand how to connect with other people (like many of us wonderful nerds), and I think I've always harbored deep down the fear that I'll never truly be able to overcome that blind spot in my soul. What I find so sympathetic in Coriolanus, too, is that his tragedy is that of never overcoming that blind spot (but like a child in man's body, he tries), of never getting it, what it is that binds all of us to life, the tissue of our living that makes it worth it, that on which if we leave a trace truly means we lived here (as opposed to great battles and impressing our mothers). To have achieved so much, and yet to never have understood that, seems to me to be the height of tragedy in a deeply human and horrifying way. I think Shakespeare understood too that maybe for man struggling with that kind of flaw, maybe the only connection he can find for a short time is with his enemy, and that really in the end he never truly became a man, for all of his achievements, out of the struggling child. He died his mother's son. And god help me but I fear the same fate.
As for some of the more technical complaints scholars frequently levy against the play, I'm also less sympathetic. I think there are plenty of great early modern plays that do not contain much sign of "inner life" at all- see the entirety of Ben Jonson's oeuvre, for example. I directed Shoemaker's Holiday for my MFA show at the Blackfriars, so obviously I love that play, and while Simon Eyre shows some inner life, the merits of that play (and I do think it's a great early modern play) need to be sought under rubrics other than those of delving into the subjective depths. Where I think Shakespeare tops Ben Jonson in this vein, though, is that he could move away from interiority and still write a tragedy, while Jonson for me was only really successful with his comedies. I know some of this is a matter of taste, but I thought it was also worth throwing in. Tis Pity, Revenger's Tragedy, Michaelmas Term, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Alchemist, The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Dido Queen of Carthage, a lot of what is great in these plays is not what we love in Hamlet, though a lot of what we could love but miss in Hamlet is expanded upon in these and other plays in the period.
And what I loved about those kids performing Coriolanus out at Winedale, is that they were honestly, and with ability, preparation, and dedication, facing what in that play, when I was their age, I was too afraid to face myself--in art, or otherwise. I couldn't have done what they did, and any time a group of human beings comes together and gives me the opportunity to admit that to myself through the thick veil of qualifications and scars and ego I've built up, I'm grateful. A lot of the people on this listserv did that for me--Winedale changed my life and it was meeting so many of you that taught me to believe I was capable of more than I believed I was--Doc did that for me in 2003 in the Spring Class, James did that for me over four summers, a lot of you were at Doc's 70th birthday party the day I realized I had to devote my life to that patch of ground out there that could bind people the way I saw all of you were bound, and just after that James took me into my first summer after I had applied too late after the deadline. And those kids did it for me with Coriolanus on Saturday night.
(On a side note, I thought that technically their execution was pretty damn good as well, and had great pace--something I appreciate more and more having lived almost exclusively-between Winedale, the Blackfriars, and the Globe--in early modern drama for my daily life for the past four years. I heard a lot of the beautiful, odd language in that play as well, and bejesus did Robert Faires' daughter embody Volumnia. The young man that played Coriolanus knew where his enjambments were upon quizzing, so his courage and generosity with that part extended beyond his work with his classmates on stage to really knowing the text for himself as well. And something else they picked up on as a merit in the play- the lack of a real "B plot" means Coriolanus is an opportunity to drive through that barn like a train. And they did.)
I apologize to those of you I haven't met for sharing something so personal by way of explanation, but I truly felt I had something unique and contributory to add to this already rich discussion of the play. In the end, maybe it's too personal to be applicable for others, but I think Shakespeare's the one that helped me see that very personal thing (and maybe live with it as well).
I love you guys, and I love Coriolanus too. Cheers, Casey Caldwell
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Steele, William B. wsteele@lockelord.com wrote:
Fiennes was born for the part. Has he ever smiled in a movie?
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1. Re: NYT (Mike Godwin)
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Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2012 00:15:46 -0700
From: Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com
To: Michael Saenger saengerm@southwestern.edu
Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums
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Subject: Re: [Winedale-l] NYT
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In light of this discussion, I watched Ralph Fiennes's film adaptation of CORIOLANUS today. Emphasis, of course, on "adaptation" -- the text is radically reduced from the source. Fiennes does an amazing job as a screen actor of attempting to fill in the gaps that the text does not fill regarding Coriolanus's -- by my count, he smiles only at one moment in the whole film, when we first see him with his "sweet silence" of a wife and his child after his return from routing the Volscians. His performance doesn't make fix the problem that the text leaves us with -- too little information about his inner life, what drives him, how he got this way, and what changes in him. But it is certainly watchable.
What I really liked, though, is Brian Cox's take on Menenius. Here's a good interview with Cox in the Telegraph that underscores Cox's and Fiennes's interpretive choices with that role:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9027156/Brian-Cox-in...
.
--Mike
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Casey: thank you SO much for your incredible insights into not just the play but to human nature in general (so often missing in prductions of Shakespeare and other productions of the classics). You are brilliant! Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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