Doesn't everyone love Shakespeare?

Seriously though, I know that isn't true and it's really sad. To me, Shakespeare is wonderful and beautiful and rich in ways that nothing else can compare to. I love to hear the lilting rhythm that comes when reciting verse so rich and vivid you are transported to another place and time even when the setting is as sparse as a desert. I have pages and pages of just quotes from Shakespeare, ones that catch my soul and make it fly or dance at a whim.

"By heaven methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honor from the pale-fac’d moon; Or dive into the bottom of the deep, where fathom-line could never touch the ground, and pluck up drowned honor by the locks; So he that doth redeem her thence might wear but out upon this half-fac’d fellowship!"
–Hotspur, from Henry 4th, part 1

"Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care."
–Macbeth, Act 2, Sc 2 37

In nature’s infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
–Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Sc 2, 9

Verily I swear ‘tis better to be lowly born and range with humble lives in content than to be perked up in a glist’ring grief and wear a golden sorrow.
–Anne Bullen, from The Life of King Henry the Eighth

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak. Whispers the over fraught heart and bids it break."
–Malcolm, from Macbeth

The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman. –William Shakespeare


You may ask what all this is leading up to, and I'll tell you: I love Shakespeare!!! Yeah, that's all. Shakespeare class has been one of the most fun, challengeing, engaging, and delightful classes I've taken at PAC. Every week I come and spend 3 hrs working on stuff by "The Bard;" Is there anything better?

For class we had to memorize and will present two Shakespeare monolouges. I like my monolouge from "The Twelfth Night or What you Will" but I love the one from "Much Ado About Nothing." Beatrice is one of the best written (or at least, the most fun) female leading women Shakespeare wrote. However, in the scene I chose she is anything but her usual merry self. Here she is frustratated and longing to transform herself into a man so that she can gain revenge on Claudio who has dishonored her cousin and basically just been an all around jerk. Benedick, the man she has spent the previous half of the play despising now declares his love for her and they have a kodak moment. Awww. In the rush of new love he tells her to ask anything of him so that he can please her. She does: 'Kill Claudio,' who is his best friend. He refuses, and this is her response:

"You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy. Is Claudio not approved in the height a villain that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman?-- O that I were a man! What! bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour, --O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place! Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying! Sweet Hero!--she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone. Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly Count-comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it.--I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving. "

The temptation is to make this entire speech a rant, and quite frankly, its more fun for me as an actor to do it that way. Really, it is! Screaming, yelling, cursing people, is there anything more fun? ;) But that's a trap. If she's angry all the way through then how do you get to the last line? 'I cannot be a man w/ wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.' If that whole monolouge is a screaming rant then why is she grieving? Yes, grief can breed anger but a temper tantrum is only interesting for about 5 seconds before the audience starts thinking, 'Ok, and *now* what?'

Next Tuesday we present our monolouges to the class. Time will tell whether I have found the beats correctly and employed the right tactics. It's hard, but oh OH! so much fun.

*sigh* I'm still a silly little hack, but I'm a silly little hack who loves Bill Shakespeare so back off! ;P And on that note, I'll leave with with one last quote from dear old Bill:

"Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable."
–Shakespeare



~Jack~