Another pattern that interested me is the way Shakespeare utilizes scenes that mirror each other in acts I and V. I look for patterns: for instance the word “fear” is used in almost every scene of every act of every tragedy at least once. I do whatever I can to demystify the text and break it down to what I perceive to be its building blocks and then try to build it back up. I listen to the audio of the books and work with line imitation. Things like Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and Berryman’s Sonnets. Not academically – I rely solely on Shakespeare’s words and other creative interpretations of the text: lots of stage productions, film productions, ballets, operas and symphonies. I was trying things that were out of my grasp and I felt like Shakespeare was a way to elongate my arms and legs so that I had more at my fingertips. I felt exactly like this when I was writing this book. I found myself in a position that reminded me of when I was a kid – all my friends were boys and I wanted to do everything they did and I’d wind up with bloody noses, dislocated shoulders and broken fingers– and I remember thinking how much I loved men’s bodies that I wished my arms and legs were longer and stronger. Sap and blood, all forms of the multiple reality, actions and ideas, man and humanity, the living and the life, solitudes, cities, religions, diamonds and pearls, dung-hills and charnelhouses, the ebb and flow of beings, the steps of comers and goers, all, all are on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare.īut the truer reason I find myself embarking on “Twelve Months of Shakespeare” is because I started writing a book a few years ago and I couldn’t finish it the way it deserved to be finished and I became convinced that whatever it was that was out of my grasp, if I put myself on a strict diet of Shakespeare, everything would work itself out: language, structure, character arcs, dramatic device. In Shakespeare the birds sing, the bushes are clothed with green, hearts love, souls suffer, the cloud wanders, it is hot, it is cold, night falls, time passes, forests and multitudes speak, the vast eternal dream hovers over all. When I tell this to people, they always ask me, why. And then in the fall and winter I’ll be reading the histories. Now I’m reading the comedies and sonnets. Othello: The Curious Case of Who Fucked Desdemonaįor the past few months, I’ve been engaged in what I’m calling “Twelve Months of Shakespeare.” Starting in January I read all the tragedies. Tonight, June 11, join hosts Leigh Stein and Sasha Fletcher, with special guests Micaela Blei, Chelsea Hodson, and Ashleigh Lambert, for an evening that will remind you of 3rd grade in the best possible way. The Book Report is a reading series that promises to deliver exactly what it promises: reports on books by the people who’ve read them.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |