The Best Way To Speak ShakespeareIt will make you catch your breath.
Posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009, at 3:56 PM ET
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponThat's what happens in the best Shakespeare: It takes off and flies. Maybe that's why it is best in the open air.
I've had so many peak moments of Shakespeare in the Park, from Papp's all-night-long staging of four history plays back-to-back-to-back-to-back to James Lapine's Midsummer Night's Dream to Brian Kulick's The Winter's Tale. Even mediocre productions are somehow endowed with magic just by the beauty of the setting. I asked Barry Edelstein for his observation about the Delacorte effect, about what makes Shakespeare in the Park so singular. Here's what he wrote back:
For me, it's that it's such a perfect and essentially New York experience. Everybody flees NYC in the summer, and so there's always a feeling that if you're one of the ones who's stayed in town, you're somehow the real McCoy, and the city rewards you with very special charms. Shakespeare in the Park is one of them.The ritual of the all-day wait on line in the Park (even though I don't have to do it anymore, I still remember with great nostalgia my student days sitting there, hanging out with other New Yorkers, then waving hello inside the theater). The beauty of the sunset over the Belvedere Castle, the lovely summer air. Then the surprises, like birds flying in, winds whipping up, and rain falling as if on cue. It's just romantic and magical. But also, there's the Joe Papp angle, the idea that there is no problem in human society that can't be eased at least a little by having Shakespeare thrown at it.
Free Shakespeare—one of the great cultural achievements in human history, made available for all, for free: this is a powerful notion. Even when the productions aren't good, they're still Shakespeare. And when they are good, which lately they've tended to be, it's a cultural Trojan Horse: the pleasant outside makes you open yourself to it, and then, once you've let it in, Shakespeare does his devastating work: ravishing you with his love poetry, wrenching you with his strangled Desdemonas and suicidal Ophelias. You end the evening more human than when you began it. Isn't that what theater is supposed to do?
Beautiful! I like the part about the real New Yorkers being the ones who stay in the city in the summers. I love New York in the summer. The secret to New York in the summer—Cheever knew it; The Seven Year Itch captured it—is that the city in the summertime is hot in both senses of the word, sexy being one. And there's no more beautiful, hot, sexy place than the Delacorte. I'm guessing she'll do that line like the sexy joke it is.
The Hilarious Results of Slate's "Write Like Sarah Palin" Contest
Does Your iPhone Really Need a Titanium Case?
Vice Presidents Say the Darnedest Things
The Golden Scissors Awards Are the Oscars of Black Hair
Slate's Complete Coverage of the Tiger Woods Scandal
The Awesome Spectacle of Glenn Beck's Live Performance of The Christmas Sweater
I read to my son most every night. While reading the Hobbit, I noticed that it was much, much better aloud. I've gone through many of my favorite books. Shakespeare and Milton are absolutely fabulous to the ear, and even more fun off your own tongue. I have to take a brief pause at each line because of a long ago broken nose. It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one to notice how well that works for the Bard.
-- jvjester
(To reply, click here)
I'd say the line is more nuanced than you propose-- I like both meanings, and I think there is also the sense of "beard" as a sham escort who conceals the true sexual identity of someone. (Which reminds me that people used to refer to Ed Koch and Bess Myerson as The Smith Brothers.)
No doubt the way to play it is in the broad, burlesque manner you suggest, because you should never cut funny. Even so, the brilliance of the line is in the layers of ambiguity.
-- outsidecounsel
(To reply, click here)