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129 Shakespeare Quotes and other Thoughts on Language

9/21/2018

Anyone who knows me, or who has followed this blog much, knows that I very much enjoy the clever use of language.  This often takes the form of humor (see #120 & 121 in the archives, among others), but that is not essential for my pleasure.  Puns, malapropisms, clever turns of phrase; almost any form of wit is something I am likely to enjoy.

Now, as most people also know, I am a Shakespeare “nut.” I suspect that this is at least partially a product of the fact that old Will got a lot of mileage out of clever use of language.  You can’t get very far in any of his works without running into some interesting use of language.  That’s certainly not a profound observation on my part, people have been talking about that for a long time.  It is even widely believed that Shakespeare was unusually inventive in terms of creating new words, as well as coining new expressions.

When Maggi (my younger daughter) and I were in England in 2009, she bought a poster entitled “Quoting Shakespeare” by Bernard Levin in the shop at Shakespeare’s Globe, the reconstruction of the theatre on the South bank of the Thames, just across from the old city of London. (It’s actually quite close to the original site of the Globe Theatre, but much of the actual original site is under the approaches to Southwark Bridge, so it couldn’t be built there.)

Anyway, I should have bought a copy of the poster for myself, but I decided to just get a copy of the Shakespeare timeline which I had in my office at WCU from my return until I retired.  It’s currently in my “office,” not far from my desk, and near the bookshelf which holds my “Shakespeare Collection” of books which relate to what I suppose could be called “Shakespeare Studies.”  That collection currently numbers about 116 books and does not include collected works, single scripts, recordings, or videos.

In any event, the Levin poster reads as follows:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare it’s Greek to me, you are quoting Shakespeare.  If you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare.  If you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare.  If you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied -- a tower of strength -- hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows --  made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play -- slept not one wink -- stood on ceremony -- danced attendance on your lord and master -- laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift -- cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise, why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are as good luck would have it, quoting Shakespeare.  If you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think t is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out, even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge at one fell swoop -- without rhyme or reason, then to give the devil his due if the truth were known for surely you have a tongue in your head, you are quoting Shakespeare.  Even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a doornail, if you think I am an eyesore -- a laughing stock-- the devil incarnate-- a stony-hearted villain -- bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then --by Jove -- O Lord -- tut, tut -- For goodness’ sake -- what the dickens! -- but me no buts -- it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

I’ve indicated quotes in italics, although the actual poster separates the Shakespeare quotes from Levin’s insertions by the use of color, but I think the point is pretty clear.

Others have also noticed how many expressions used by Shakespeare have become commonly-used and have produced posters (and other stuff) celebrating this fact.  A while ago, I saw a poster on the web site of the Folger Shakespeare Library shop (I really have to get there some time, it’s on my “bucket list.”) which listed a few of the same ideas as Levin, but some others, as well.  It reads:

When you say. . .
elbow room
budge an inch
a laughing stock
a tower of strength
too much of a good thing
in a pickle
for goodness sake
vanish into thin air
foul play
your own flesh and blood
dead as a doornail
stood on ceremony
as luck would have it
without rhyme or reason
as white as driven snow
seen better days
hold a candle to
green-eyed monster
not a mouse stirring
one fell swoop
you’re quoting Shakespeare!
Shakespeare is often credited with being the first to use these words.

The words were, of course, more decorative than this and used a variety of colors to make the poster more attractive, but, again, I think the point is pretty clear: a fair amount of what makes up standard, educated English these days comes from Shakespeare.  I know that there are people who claim to have studied the question who will argue that the vast majority of Shakespeare’s language (Early Modern English), which so many students claim is so difficult to understand because it’s so old, is actually composed of the same words with the same meanings as are used today by educated people.  I suppose that if your idea of language usage is limited to tweets and texts, it might pose some difficulties, but I would also argue that that sort of language usage provides a pretty poor standard for the language.

Oh well, I suppose that texts (and even tweets) have a place in the world, even if I don’t see them as being adequate for all but the simplest usage.  I wonder how the Bible would read in “text/tweet” speak? Would the Lord’s Prayer begin, “Our Pop, who’s upstairs, his name has pull”?  I hope we never find out.  I still like the Early Middle English of the King James version a lot better.

LLAP

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128 Play the notes or make the music?

9/8/2018

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Not long ago, I ran across a rerun of an old episode from the M*A*S*H TV series and it got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing). It happened that this was episode 19 from season 8; one of my favorites and one which influenced me quite strongly. I found the ideas in it important enough that even though I couldn’t quote it exactly (a lack of adequate research, perhaps), I used to tell the story of it in my Dramatic Lit./Crit. classes. Now I’m reasonably certain that most of my students probably didn’t find this story all that important, or worth thinking about. After all, it wasn’t going to be on a test, so it was just “Beam spouting off.” Anyway, I did (and still do) think that it says something of some importance which is worth thinking about, even if it doesn’t address theatre directly. So, I thought it was worth a blog post to try to explain why I think it ISimportant that theatre people understand what I believe was being said.

In this episode, Charles has gone to considerable efforts in the operating room to restore the leg of a GI who was wounded by mortar fire. This GI’s right hand was slightly injured in the same incident, but, as it was not his major injury, Charles did not go to extreme lengths to restore it, leading to “… a slight loss of dexterity in three fingers.”  When the GI (Private Sheridan) wakes up after the surgery and learns this, he is devastated as he is a Julliard piano graduate and had been starting on a career as a concert pianist before he was drafted.

Charles was (reasonably enough) very upset by Sheridan’s conviction that his career was over and that, therefore, his life had lost its meaning.  To try to relieve his guilt, Charles obtains a copy of the score for Ravel’s "Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major" (written by Ravel for a pianist who had lost his right arm in World War I).  When he gives this music to Sheridan, he is rebuffed by him for thinking that a meaningful career could be based on playing such “freakish” pieces.  To this, he responds:

Major Charles Winchester: Don't you see?  Your hand may be stilled, but your gift cannot be silenced if you refuse to let it be.
Private David Sheridan: Gift?  You keep talking about this damn gift.  I *had* a gift, and I exchanged it for some mortar fragments, remember?
Major Charles Winchester: Wrong! Because the gift does not lie in your hands.  I have hands, David.  Hands that can make a scalpel sing.  More than anything in my life I wanted to play, but I do not have the gift. I can play the notes, but I cannot make the music. You've performed Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Chopin.  Even if you never do so again, you've already known a joy that I will never know as long as I live.  Because the true gift is in your head and in your heart and in your soul.  Now you can shut it off forever, or you can find new ways to share your gift with the world - through the baton, the classroom, or the pen.  As to these works, they're for you, because you and the piano will always be as one. (quote from IMDB, retrieved 08/27/18, emphasis added by RSB)

What does this have to do with theatre, or other arts? I’m not sure that I can discuss anything other than theatre with any real degree of authority, although I suspect that the idea is equally valid in other arts.  But, let’s look at theatre.

A theatre person, like a musician, usually begins with material created by someone else; music is written by a composer, playscripts are written by playwrights.  The job of a musician is to translate the composer’s written score into “the music” conceived by the composer.  The job of theatre people is to translate the playwright’s script into a work of theatre, in much the same way.   I find this to be a very comparable process.  I think it is quite reasonable to compare a theatre company to an orchestra.  Both, after all, are sometimes referred to as an “ensemble,” and both are usually guided by a “conductor,” although in the theatre we generally call that person a “director.”

Now, the conductor doesn’t play all of the instruments, any more than the director plays all of the parts, does all the designs, etc. But, the conductor/director guides the entire creative team.  Hence, while there is one leader, there are many interpretive-creators, working together to achieve the goal of a successful performance, since notes on a page are (probably) even less meaningful than words in script form. After all, many people can read a script, but reading the script is NOT the same as attending a performance.

I believe that in order for a theatre company to achieve success, it requires not only that each of its members must have the requisite talent to accomplish that member’s function, but that each have at least some understanding of the desired goal, the exact “music” which they are attempting to play.  Here the conductor/director analogy may break down a bit as the conductor will remain at the podium leading the performance in a way that theatre directors could only wish for, but this doesn’t mean that the analogy falls apart completely.

While both sorts of groups rehearse, in order to overcome the challenge of not having the director conduct the performance, theatre companies spend many more hours working together in rehearsal.  And, at the appropriate point, the contributions (“notes”) of the designers and technicians are added into the “music” of the complete production.  Only then can it become a finished performance.

I believe that the propose of theatre education is to assist in the process of preparation for this end because, as previously stated, I believe that “making the music” requires all of the participants to understand the “music” being performed.  Acting is more than just memorizing lines and walking about the stage.  Scenery, costumes, lighting, sound and props should be created to do more than just fill up the space; they should make a positive contribution to the production (they have their own “notes” to play).  No director can do everything, no matter what Gordon Craig might have wished.

But, the talents required to fulfill the various positions in the theatre are as varied as those need to fill the various chairs in an orchestra, perhaps more.  How can one educational process possibly help accomplish all of these requirements?  Obviously, some technical skills work (technique) is necessary, so there are classes for that, be they in acting or tech/design. Similarly, a Music education requires fairly extensive work in solo, or group lessons and ensemble work, just as Theatre programs require/expect appropriate production participation. However, all (I think) Music programs also require at least some course work in music theory, history of music, conducting, basic piano, and orchestration/arranging, etc.  In the same way, Theatre programs require some dramatic lit./crit., some theatre history, some basic acting and tech work, and some directing in addition to specific advanced skills classes.  The question, which I have heard from many students, is “Why do I have to take this stuff which doesn’t relate to what I intend to do?”

I have heard that from any number of students over the years in relation to the basic theatre studies classes, which I did try to teach many times over the years; the implication being that such studies were less important than the “skills” classes which the students enjoyed more and which they felt were keeping them from taking the more “important” classes they really wanted. I disagree!  Over the period of time from, roughly 1962 (when I started to study theatre seriously) to when I retired from teaching in 2014, I never engaged in a theatre project (and I served in some capacity in about every area of theatrical production during that time) that I didn’t gain some greater understanding of what I was doing and how to make it better from the knowledge I had (slim though it might have been) in theatre history, literature and the other areas of theatre studies.

One can’t always know exactly what it is which makes a production element (or an entire production) “work,” but one can usually tell when it does.  I found that much of the work of a director lies in trying to assist the entire team to know (recognize) how to understand when it does.  Note: The entire team HAS to understand not just “when,” but “how,” because, unlike the orchestra (which has a conductor), the director will NOT be present “conducting” the theatrical performance, so the cast and crew have to be able to do it without her/him present!

One of my greatest memories in the theatre was at the end of the first read-through of Becket’s Waiting for Godotwhen I directed it in the Niggli in 1977-78.  As we came to the end of the script, a complete silence fell over us as if to say, “What the hell just happened?”  As that silence continued, I believe that we all came to the realization that that was exactly the reaction we wanted from our audience; that, in some sense, we had made Beckett’s “music.”  Then, of course, our challenge was to try to translate that sensation into a fully mounted production and achieve the same end for the audience.  I know we were not fully successful for everyone who attended, but I think we got there for some people, which is probably all one can hope for.

I’ve learned that theatre is always the pursuit of perfection while knowing that it will never be achieved.  While I always strove for the absolute best from myself, my students, my casts, crews, etc., I was always conscious that what we created would never be “perfect.”  And that that was okay.  After all, once perfection has been achieved, where is there to go?  One might as well just quit.  I never wanted to do that, I wanted to keep fighting to get as close as possible, and on a few occasions, I think I/we got pretty close.  That’s what I wanted for my students, too; for them to understand that it’s not enough to just “play the notes,” you have to continually strive to “make the music.”

And, then you have to do it again. For that, one has to have more than just basic talent and technical skill or “technique.”  Ultimately, it demands everything which one can give to it in the way of knowledge, imagination and dedication, too.  But, I think the fight is worth it!

LLAP

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129 Shakespeare Quotes and other Thoughts on Language

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128 Play the notes or make the music?