A tiny fragment of Shakespeare in Darwin: The Series

Darwin: The Series. By Karl Kenzler [Episodes 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] and Lynn Rosen [Episodes 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12]. Dir. Carrie Preston [Episodes 1-10] and Greg Ivan Smith [Episodes 11-12]. Created by Christopher Gerson, Karl Kenzler, and Lynn Rosen. Perf. Karl Kenzler, Christopher Gerson, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Bill Heck, Joel de la Fuente, Tarah Flanagan, Victor Williams, Peter Bradbury, Kevin Orton, Scott Aiello, Bhavesh Patel, Alysia Reiner, and Steve Small. Web Series. 2015.

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By dint of my connections with the Great River Shakespeare Festival (for which, q.v.), I learned of the quirky web series Darwin some time ago, but the first complete run of the series was only released recently.

The show itself is brilliant, intriguing, clever, and a lot of fun. A number of thrillingly odd characters are thrown together in a tale of getting a handle on life and love—a bit like a combination of Flight of the Conchords and a Woody Allen film (one of the really good ones). The basic plot involves a Life Coach named Leo Darwin whose own life is falling apart. His only client is Michael Yensbourg, a multimillionaire who suffered a highly-publicized nervous breakdown at a Wagner concert—the YouTube video of it went viral. Leo has written a self-help book called Darwin's Tree, and bits and pieces of psycho-babble advice periodically appear on the screen:  "Nobody is Superman—not even Superman," for example. But you'll learn more from the trailer than from my attempt at a summary:

I told you that to tell you this. Later in the series, in an attempt to get Michael to get out of his gaming basement ("You know what you need to do, Michael?" "Tobogganing?"), Leo Darwin tries to interest him in LARPing, but Michael considers that crowd to be losers. In the scene from Episode Five ("Digging Deep") below, Michael (played extremely convincingly by Christopher Gerson, one of the brightest stars in the firmament of the GRSF) chances upon a LARPing festival / Renaissance Faire while Leo chances upon the concept of "Rage Yoga" in an attempt to get his own life back on track. That's where the Shakespeare comes in:

"Back off, Hamlet! I'm not one of you!"  

That may be the only direct use of Shakespeare in the series, but the series itself is Shakespearean in its farce, its parody, and its use of language. Give it a try.

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Links: The Official Web Site of Darwin: The Series.

Bonus Image:  Christopher Gerson, as Michael Yensbourg, 
finds that speaking to a beautiful woman isn't really that bad.

Warm Bodies: Now with the Balcony Scene from Romeo and Juliet

Warm Bodies. Dir. Jonathan Levine. Perf. Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, and John Malkovich. 2013. DVD. Summit Entertainment, 2013.

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Some years ago, I wrote a post on the novel Warm Bodies (for which, q.v.). It's taken awhile, but, thanks to a student who presented on the film (students are wonderful, aren't they?), I've finally gotten to the film.

Essentially, the student got me interested again in noting that, at the end (spoiler alert, people), R (the Romeo analogue) takes exactly the opposite course from that which Romeo (of Shakespeare's play) takes.  Romeo goes from life to death because of love; R goes from death to life because of love.

Yes, it's cheesy, but it's also interesting. The film attempts to rise above typical zombie movie fare, for a time looking more like an allegory than a zombie film: we're all the walking dead without love.

In any case, it's still not my cup of tea (the subtitles in the clip below are a clue to my having watched the film at three times the speed with the subtitles on), but I would be remiss if I didn't present the balcony scene from the film, with its touch of Julie (the Juliet analogue) delivering a modernized version of this speech from Romeo and Juliet:

How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here. (II.ii.62-65)

Enjoy!

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

A Return to Prince of the Himalayas

Prince of the Himalayas [Ban dao yin xiang; a.k.a. Ximalaya wangzi]. Dir. Sherwood Hu. Perf. Purba Rgyal, Dobrgyal, Zomskyid, Sonamdolgar, Lobden, and Lopsang. Hus Entertainment, Shanghai Film Studios. 20 October 2006.

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Every other year, I try to incorporate Prince of the Himalayas (for which, q.v.) into my Shakespeare and Film course. I'm always hampered by the film's distressing lack of availability. But I'm going to throw caution to the winds this year and explore this film in some considerable depth.

For one thing, it's the only derivative of Hamlet covered in Simon Crowl's Screen Adaptations:  Shakespeare’s Hamlet:  The Relationship between Text and Film, which I've adopted as a textbook for the course this year.

For another thing, it's quite an incredible film. I've given a fairly-extensive plot summary here, but I didn't provide more than a trailer at that point. I was still (and am sill) desperately hoping for a theatrical or DVD release of the film. But, since I haven't heard any rumblings for several years, I think it would be all right to give a sample here.

In this scene, Lhamoklodan, the Hamlet analogue, has returned to ask one simple but enormous question: "Why?" His mother thinks he means "Why did my father have to die?" but he really means "Why did you bury my father before my return?" You can observe the answer to that question in the clip. You'll then also see Odsaluyang (the Ophelia analogue) welcoming Lhamoklodan home.

Finally, you'll see the pomp and circumstance of the installation of Kulo-ngam, the Claudius analogue. As you watch it, note the response of one of the high officials:

That's Po-lha-nyisse (can you guess whose analogue he is?) reacting with shock to the idea of Kulo-ngam and Nanm marrying. That moment is fascinating. It gives us insight into one possible reaction to the marriage of Kulo-ngam to his brother's widow—and that reaction doesn't come from Lhamoklodan. We would expect Lhamoklodan to feel that way, but this is the Polonius analogue (had you guessed that already?), and those are usually on the side of any Claudius analogues out there.

I'm actually getting more and more excited about the prospect of taking a deep, hard look at this film with my class—and I continue to hope for a US DVD release at some point!

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

Book Note: That Shakespeare Kid

LoMonico, Michael. That Shakespeare Kid. North Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013

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I recently read this book, having heard of it through a Kickstarter campaign and Shakespeare Geek's blog. It came out as a self-published book a couple years ago.

The gimmick is intriguing. A kid gets a concussion and is only able to speak in quotations from Shakespeare. As plot devices go, it has its positive side, but it does start to pall fairly quickly. It seems like it might work for a short story, but it does tend toward the tedious.

I think a good example of this comes in a scene where our narrator and the Shakespeare Kid end up at a Mets game. During the course of the game, the Shakespeare Kid provides a running commentary drawn from every quote that could apply to baseball. Click on the image below to enlarge it and to give it a try:

It's a tour de force of the genre, and it does demonstrate the cleverness of the author—I'll certainly give it that! But it does carry on. The possible monotony is broken by a couple devices—the Shakespeare Kid is able to text the narrator in modern English; later, he can use a whiteboard to communicate with her and with his teachers.

Apart from the overuse of the gimmick, the novel was interesting enough, giving us some colorful characters, some romance, and some tension that carries the book through to the end.

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Links: A Review of the Book at Shakespeare Geek.

Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Juliet on the Couch in "Shakespearean Therapy"

"Shakespearean Therapy." Studio C. BYUtv. BYU Broadcasting. 14 February 2013. Web. 4 February 2015.

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The students are at it again, finding me terrifically interesting material that I had never encountered before.

A student in my Modern Shakespearean Fiction class (yes, it's amazingly cool that I have a class like that) presented a sketch from a comedy group called Studio C. In the sketch, Juliet is on the couch visiting her psychologist. Both characters speak a form of Renaissance English—except when they interestingly deviate into modern language choices (e.g., "Thou lovest him . . . a lot?" and "Dost thou hear thyself?"). And the language is done well enough that it (mostly) doesn't become annoying (which is always a danger in "Shakespearey" talk).

What I particularly admire about the sketch is its defamiliarization of the narrative. We're taken to an outsider's perspective on the events of the play, and that enables us to see and think about the play in a new light. Here, it's a comedic light, shining on just how ridiculous the plot of Romeo and Juliet is.

One other line I like involves the different uses of a word available both to Shakespeare and to a modern audience—and how the sketch nicely helps us see the different meanings. A little more than halfway through, Juliet's psychiatrist says, "This man seemeth to me a player—and not the kind on the stage."

I'm embedding the sketch below, and I'm also including a blog-native version in case the YouTube embedding fails or falters. Enjoy!

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Links: The Sketch on YouTube.

Fight Scenes in Richard III

King Richard III. Dir. Michael Bogdanov. Perf. Andrew Jarvis, Michael Pennington, Anne Penfold, June Watson, and Susanna Best. Wars of the Roses. 1990. DVD. Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2005.

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My students often ask incredibly compelling questions; I occasionally have answers to them. When I don't have an answer, I try to find one (rather than making one up, which is not the best pedagogical practice).

In my Shakespeare and Film class, we study the film versions of Loncraine (with Ian McKellen) and Olivier (with Olivier) fairly extensively. While doing some heavy comparison and contrast, a student asked whether there was a film version of Richard III that had more of a traditional one-on-one battle sequence at the end.

The question was quite astute and very interesting. The stage direction in the first Quarto of the play (which I was able to view at the Huntington Library—for which, q.v.) is very sparse, reading only "Enter Richard and Richmond, they fight, Richard is slain" (click on the image below to enlarge it).

[Shakespeare, William.] The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. London: Printed by Valentine Sims, for Andrew Wise, dwelling in Paules Chuch-yard [sic], at the Signe of the Angell, 1597. Huntington Library Call Number 69350. Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Digital Image by Keith Jones. Original housed in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. No copies may be made.

Such a vague stage direction allows for considerable latitude in actors' and directors' decisions. Loncraine's is to have Richard flee to the top of an abandoned warehouse; Olivier's is to have Richard, after a brief initial exchange with Richmond, attacked by the entire army. My students wanted to see some traditional hand-to-hand combat, and I was stymied—at first.

I decided to try the end of the Richard III that is part of the series The Wars of the Roses, the English Shakespeare Company's astonishing production of both tetralogies (for which, q.v.). And I found what we were all looking for.

It was a little unusual, I suppose, to find it there.  The film is largely in modern dress with modern warfare. The clip below will give you a flavor of that at the beginning (with gunfire) and the end (with an address to the nation that gives the events of the play a very pro-Richmond spin). In the middle, however, we get knights in armor (see if you can guess which one is Richard and which was in Richmond) in old school hand-to-hand combat.

I was very grateful for the good question. It enabled us to explore this production and to discuss a number of deep reasons the production might have had for presenting this battle in this way.

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Links: The Series at IMDB.

Click to purchase
(or to have your library purchase)
the films from Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

An Honourable Murder: A Derivative of Julius Caesar

An Honourable Murder. Dir. Godfrey Grayson. Perf. Norman Wooland, Margaretta Scott, and Lisa Daniely. 1960. DVD. Danziger Productions, 2010.

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I'm always pleased when I discover a derivative film version of a play that is less-often made into derivative versions. One example is The Street King, a derivative version of Richard III (for which, q.v.). I'm still waiting and hoping for a derivative version of Henry V—one set, perhaps, in Vietnam under French Colonial Rule. You wouldn't even need to change the name of the enemy! But I digress.

Encountering a disparaging remark against it, I recently learned about An Honourable Murder, a 1960 film that recontextualizes Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the business world. A business mogul named Julian Caesar—the Chair of the Board of Empire Petroleum—has been working hard for a merger with Pompey Shipping, but his motives become suspect, and Brutus Smith is reluctantly convinced to join in a vote against him at a meeting that Mark Antony has been tricked into missing.

The disparaging remark was about the film's lack of significance. No, it's not as earth-shaking as the assassination of Julius Caesar, but if it's approached more in terms of a domestic tragedy and as a business rather than a political thriller, the film will provide some interest.

To give a flavour of the film, I've excerpted the analogue of the assassination scene below:

And I don't suppose I can provide that scene without providing the debate before the citizens (here, shareholders) over Caesar's removal:

I found the film compelling but not thrilling. Perhaps it can serve as an entrée en matière for the business majors in my Shakespeare and Film class.

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

Click here to purchase the film from amazon.co.uk
(it's only available as a Region 2 DVD).

Hamlet, the Vampire Slayer: Not a Mockumentary

Hamlet, the Vampire Slayer. Dir. Jason Witter. Perf. Kevin R. Elder, Leslie Nesbit, and Doug Montoya. 2008. DVD. N.s., 2011.

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On the other end of the Hamlet and the Undead spectrum from Zombie Hamlet (for which, q.v.; see also Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Undead and Romeo and Juliet vs. The Living Dead) stands Hamlet, the Vampire Slayer. But I think it might as well lie back down in the coffin and have a nice rest.

I tried to enjoy this film—I genuinely made an effort—but it's so dull, awkwardly shot, and (for lack of a better term) bad that I couldn't get much out of it.

The essential plot is that Hamlet, aspiring male cheerleader, is upset at his father's death and his mother's o'er hasty marriage to Hamlet's Uncle, Enrique Claudio, who is a Vampire who only speaks Spanish. As a trope, it gets quite old quite quickly, as does the device of a vampire slayer with a mostly inexplicable Scottish accent, a Buffyesque character, two frat boys named Rosenchad and Guildenbrad, the frequent obscenities, and a rap version of the play-within-the-play.

The best (and least inappropriate) sample I can show you is the analogue to Claudius at prayer.

There you have it. Aren't you glad I watch these films in their entirety so that you don't have to?

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

The Mockumentary Zombie Hamlet

Zombie Hamlet. Dir. John Murlowski. Perf. John Amos, A.J. Buckley, K.C. Clyden Brendan Michael Coughlin, John de Lancie, Vanessa Evigan, June Lockhart, Shelley Long, Travis Wester, and Emmalee Wilson. 2012. DVD. Level 33 Entertainment, 2013.

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I should have viewed this sooner. The title misled me into thinking it was going to turn out to be something on the lamer side of Hamlet derivatives. Had the term "mockumentary" been mentioned, I would have been much quicker to draw the remote and give it a try. That's the reason for my foregrounding the term, in fact.

Zombie Hamlet—or, really, Bringing the Undead to Life: The Making of Zombie Hamlet, as the documentary detailing elements of the production of Zombie Hamlet—is a clever, well-acted, surprisingly well-cast film (they got John Amos, the dad from Good Times and John De Lancie, Q from Star Trek in this film!) that tells the story of what two filmmakers do when they learn, in the middle of a location hunt, that their $24,000,000 budget has been cut. The helpful old lady who owns the location (played by June Lockhart!) offers $300,000 to fund the film; reluctantly, they abandon their plans to make a tasteful, thoughtful Civil War Hamlet and go with a low-budget zombie film version instead.

My favorite parts of the film are those that make fun of different auteurs and their typical style. In the following clip, the director and one of the producers discuss ideas for Zombie Hamlet, contemplating following first the style of Stanley Kubrick (the image above is from that imagined version), then Stephen Spielberg (with some intriguing and Spielbergian camera work), and then Michael Bay (director of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor).

I suppose I should have expected such interesting parody when, earlier in the film, we learned that the director had been responsible for the following commercial:

There's not too much actual Hamlet in this film, but it does appear from time to time—most often when the mockumentary focuses on the production of the actual film. This clip will give you a flavor of that—as a bonus, it includes the following tag line (which also appeared in the trailer for the film): "To not to be or to not not to be: that is the question."

The fast-paced plot (including some Weekend at Bernie's material) wraps up, leaving some room for commentary on the documentary. I appreciate the gentle mockery of critics like me in the following clip. And I also appreciate (but do not share) the distain of the "Shakespeare Purist" at the end of the clip:

Finally, when you least suspect it, this:

Yes, that's Hulk Hogan as a Weïrd Sister (using the word "brother").

The film will, at least in bits and pieces, make its way into my Shakespeare and Film course this year. Watch this fun, frantic film for lighthearted jabs at the film industry, a speculative take on Hamlet, and an interestingly-constructed plot.

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Links: The Film at IMDB.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Book Note: The Bible in Shakespeare

Hamlin, Hannibal. The Bible in Shakespeare. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2013.

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This book fell into my path last summer, and I read it on and off that summer and into the fall semester. It's enthralling.

Hannibal Hamlin’s book is the most current available on the topic of the Bible in Shakespeare.  Filled with incredible, well-researched information, the book doesn't attempt to catalogue every quotation or biblical allusion in Shakespeare, but it does offer intriguing scholarly commentary on a wide range of different uses Shakespeare makes of the Bible.

Hamlin's introduction presents a good apology for the study:

This book is about allusions to the Bible in Shakespeare's plays. It argues that such allusions are frequent, deliberate, and significant, and that the study of these allusions is repaid by a deeper understanding of the plays. A supplementary argument, or perhaps a presupposition, is that Shakespeare's culture as a whole was profoundly and thoroughly biblical, a culture in which one could assume a degree of biblical knowledge that is difficult to imagine in today's mass-media global culture. One grips for a modern analogy, but there is none. Imagine a television program that everyone in the country has been watching every week, sometimes more than once, for their entire lives, having seen some episodes dozens of times. Suppose your parents and grandparents had watched all the same episodes, and suppose further that millions of people in other neighboring countries had watched these episodes too, dubbed into their own languages. Suppose that it was illegal not to watch this show and, moreover, that your eternal salvation was understand to depend on it. Suppose that this TV show was the basis for your country's literature and art, its political theory, its history, its philosophy, its understudying of the natural word as well as human nature, and essential to most other fields of knowledge as well.  In sixteenth- and seventeenth--century England, the Bible was that show; it was always in reruns, and it never went off the air. (1)

That's a good argument, in fact, for reading this book as well as for developing much greater familiarity with the Bible.

Hamlin stages his examination of Shakespeare's plays well with three sections on the culture of Shakespeare's day as it relates to the Bible, the way interest in Shakespeare's use of the Bible has waxed and waned (and its reasons for doing so), and Shakespeare's general practice of allusion.  He then provides five well-reasoned sections dealing with the specifics of Shakespeare's use of the Bible. A section on Shakespeare's use of Genesis 1-3 is followed by one on allusions in the Roman plays. Sections on Falstaff, Macbeth, and King Lear follow.

I don't agree with everything Hamlin has to say, but his book is a phenomenal study of the significance of biblical allusion in the works of Shakespeare.

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Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

I, Robot Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth. Dir. Dan Gallagher. Perf. Mirai Booth-Ong, J. A. Curcione, and Dan Gallagher [The Robot Shakespeare Company]. DVD. Bright Red Productions, 2012.

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A few years ago, I spotted a Kickstarter request proposing to film an all-robot Macbeth (for which, q.v.). Well, they got their funding, and they made their film!

The film is . . . mildly interesting. The animation is adequate, and the film angles are often quite interesting, but I was hoping for something a bit less straightforward. I'm now wondering how to use it. Would it be good for introducing the play to kids? To robots? To robot kids?

I'm a bit ambivalent about another aspect of the film. They've provided modernized subtitles (as in the image above) for the entire play. I suppose this, too, could be useful to viewers who are having trouble with the language, but they're a bit too simplified. They might be a good crutch, but they would be a bad stick.

As is my wont, I'm providing the dagger speech here to give you a sense of how they handled it—and, by it, a sense of the rest of the production.

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Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
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The Swan Theatre, The Isle of Dogs, and The Interview

Jonson, Ben, and Thomas Nashe. The Isle of Dogs. N.p.: N.p., 1597.

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In the summer of 1597, Ben Johnson, Thomas Nashe, and a number of players got in very hot water indeed. They had just performed The Isle of Dogs, and such was the furor over it that the Swan Theatre, where it was preformed, was closed—permanently.

No one is quite sure what specifically gave so much offense, but it is clear that it deeply offended the government in general and Queen Elizabeth I in particular—indeed, it may have made fun of the King of Poland (and / or his ambassador) and Queen Elizabeth herself. The Lost Play Database has complied a number of important documents relevant to the case, and they give the feeling that people are even afraid to talk about the play, much less provide specifics about the outrage it spawned.

As my grandmother used to say, I told you that to tell you this.

In the winter of 2014, a film called The Interview was cancelled by Sony Pictures. About that film, we know a great deal. Its plot involves coercing talk show hosts who have landed an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un into attempting to assassinate him in some way during the interview.

What's fascinating is that the film would probably not have caused such a ruckus if its subject had been a non-contemporary world leader. What if the show were set in the 1940s and the interviewers were asked to assassinate Hitler? How about setting the play in the future and having a more generalized world leader as its subject? What about making the conspirators Elizabethan Catholic plotters interviewing Queen Elizabeth I as a pretext for an assassination attempt on her?

The contemporaneity of the two works caused the trouble. Shakespeare occasionally got himself into warm if not hot water (cf. the "I am Richard—know ye not that" episode), yet he largely avoided it by what we Shakespeare scholars like to call "The Thin Veil." By thinly veiling contemporary issues, Shakespeare was able to address them without causing such turmoil. After all, Shakespeare himself wrote a play about the assassination of a world leader whose succession was in question, yet 1599 (the year in which it was written and first performed) did not see the closing of the Globe Theatre; instead, it was one of Shakespeare's most successful years.

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Links: The Play at The Lost Plays Database.

Banquo's Chair: A Play in One Act

Croft-Cooke, Rupert. Banquo's Chair: A Play in One Act. London: H.F.W. Deane & Sons, 1930.

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You may recall the episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that dealt—not altogether obliquely—with Banquo's ghost (for which, q.v.).

With the help of an excellent librarian, I was able to track down the source material. It turned out to be a one-act play with the same title. The story is roughly the same, including the same cleverly twisting ending—but the ending works itself out slightly differently in the play.

I'm attaching images (click on them to enlarge them) of the last four pages of the play so that you can see the difference for yourself. And if you happen to direct any amateur dramatic societies, you might consider putting on this play—I think it is quite likely to please an audience!

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More Shakespearean Monkeys—Baboons, to be Precise

The Okavango Macbeth: A Chamber Opera. Libretto by Alexander McCall Smith. Comp. Tom Cunningham. Dir. Nicholas Ellenbogen. Perf. Mr. McFall's Chamber Orchestra and Edinburgh Studio Opera Chorus. 22-23 April 2011. Delphian, 2011. CD.

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No, I'm not on about the infinite monkeys alluded to in Douglas Adams (for which, q.v.). Nor do I refer to the Monkeys that did Romeo and Juliet (for which, q.v.). No, I'm talking about The Okavango Macbeth.

"What's The Okavango Macbeth?" I hear you asking. Ah, well, there's the rub. I chanced upon our library's holdings of an audio recording of this opera (for it is an opera) while teaching the English majors at my institution the finer points of research. Why I was trying the search term "baboon" (for it is about baboons) escapes me for a moment, but it may have had something to do with Romeo and Juliet: A Monkey's Tale, about which we had just been talking. How Macbeth got in there (for it is about Macbeth) is also something of a mystery, but I had Macbeth on my mind and was showing the class how to use some of the Boolean operators to reduce a result list of thousands down to a manageable few dozen.

In any case, we chanced upon a title that seemed to have to do with Macbeth even though the Library of Congress subject heading was "Baboons -- Songs and Music." My jaw dropped as I realized that I had once heard of this show and that I could (if I wished) listen to it right then and there with my entire class.

I didn't, of course, but I did manage to put in on later. In fact, it’s quite good—both the libretto and the music are fairly deep and haunting. The author of the Libretto is Alexander McCall Smith—he of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The work is set in Botswana—that of the Okavango River Delta and the Moremi Game Reserve.

Here are the program notes' summary of the first three acts (there are four in all):

Act One
The animals recall the time when all lived together in peace but then came drought and famine—greed was born.  The animals blame the baboons.

Act Two
The primatologists set up camp in the delta and agree that they will watch the baboons but never interfere.  The baboons then emerge and observe the humans–such strange, unfinished creatures–and agree that they will watch but never interfere.  Two of them, Lady Macbeth and her friend, complain about the males and start scheming.  When Macbeth arrives, she flatters him, but he reminds her she must marry Duncan according to Baboon Law.  She urges Macbeth to kill Duncan.

Act Three
As evening approaches, the primatologist reflect on the nature of animal behavior.  Lady Macbeth consoles Duncan whose kingly responsibilities fall on his weary shoulders.  She lulls him to sleep.  With some difficulty, she encourages Macbeth to kill him.  The following morning, the primatologists come across the body of Duncan and discern evil in nature’s paradise.

There are a few scattered videos of pieces of performances available on YouTube. Here's one of an Act Four song entitled "Grubs First, then Ethics."

"Grubs First, then Ethics"

Affairs of state
And love and hate,
That keep the great
Awake at night,
Are from our sight
Concealed:
Grubs first, then ethics.
Beneath the ground

All fat and round
The grubs are found;
Prepare to eat
This lucious treat
Uncooked;
Grubs first, then ethics.
The primate way
Can give no sway
To those who say
A leader strong
Will last for long
Unchallenged.
Grubs first, then ethics.

That's great, and it gives a good sense of the production. There's quite a bit of good humor there—and some particularly good voices.

A more serious scene (and one for which I can't find a video counterpart) involves an exchange between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth.

Macbeth arrives.  Lady Macbeth’s friend withdraws discreetly.

Lady Macbeth:
My lord Macbeth is come,
The one who is all glorious,
In my eyes, O georgeous one,
My lover bright, in courage spun;
Who sends the leopard to his cave;
And in whose presence weak are brave,
Who takes the sun from out the sky,
And plucks the eagles as they fly
With talons drawn, and dashes them,
And dashes them, and dashes them.

Macbeth:
Is that me whom you describe?
Am I so brave who once was . . .

Lady Macbeth:
Brave, and always was.

Macbeth:
A man may think he’s
Something other
In the generous praise
Of a lover.

Lady Macbeth:
A woman sees the best in men,
A woman finds those depths often
Unseen by man himself.

Macbeth:
Still, I am only . . .

Lady Macbeth:
Only one; you are the one and
Only one I think of
When I’m lonely.

Macbeth:
I cannot be your suitor,
No matter how much
I love you;
No matter how much
I want you.
You cannot bear my children
Against baboon law.

Lady Macbeth:
Baboon law?  What is the law
But the way people have done things
They could have done
Otherwise if they had thought?

Macbeth:
It is the law;
there is no more
to be said about it.
We cannot break
Nor lightly take it
Another way.
It is the law.
And the law says
Duncan, it is Duncan
Who will be your mate;
Duncan, the powerful,
Duncan, your destined
Husband.

Lady Macbeth:
But I want you.

Macbeth:
Me will kill a rival:
Do not ask me
To put my head upon a block.

Lady Macbeth:
Then kill him first, my lovely,

Macbeth:
He will kill me.

Lady Macbeth:
Then kill him now, my honey,

Macbeth:
I cannot do it.

Lady Macbeth:
Then kill him now, my darling.

Macbeth:
He will kill me.

Lady Macbeth:
But he must sleep, all creatures sleep,
The mighty lion must also sleep
The leopards may by moonlight creep,
But they, too, sleep; but they, too, sleep.
And in this sleep where is his strength,
If in his sleep through night-time’s length,
He cannot see, he cannot hear?
And one who strikes need never fear
The strength of one who isn’t there.

Macbeth:
I am not sure.

Lady Macbeth:
But I am sure, and you are strong;
This thing is not the act of one,
But that of two, of me, and you.
(Repeat as a duet)but he must sleep, etc.
and he must sleep, and they must sleep, and we must sleep.

I would really like to see a production in its entirety. And, with my preoccupation with Shakespeare in Africa, I'd like to explore any particularly African resonance that might be there (if any). In the meantime, it's astonishing to know that this exists and that, for at least some university libraries, a recording of the entire opera is only a click away. 

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Click below to purchase the CD from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Book Note: Y is for Yorick

Adams, Jennifer. Y is for Yorick: A Slightly Irreverent Shakespearean ABC Book for Grown-Ups. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2011.

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I want to take a little time out from grading papers to call attention to a little volume I just obtained. I saw this in a used bookstore, and I just couldn't resist.

Y is for Yorick is a deliciously tongue-in-cheek Shakespearean alphabet book. Indeed, I think Yorick himself, known to be a fellow of infinite jest, would have been set on a roar by some of the pages—such as the image to the right. Any guesses as to who is illustrated there?

The book runs through the entire alphabet, repeating irresistible letters like O (Ophelia and Othello) and H (Hamlet, Henry V, and Henry VIII).  Even though it takes a few easy outs with Q (why Queen rather that Quickly, Quintus, or Quince?), X, and Z (ah, that whoreson Zed—that unnecessary letter!), it's quite enjoyable.

To give you a feel for the book, I'm providing the pages for B, I, and J.

There you have it—except to add that there are holidays coming up . . . and there are Shakespeare lovers out there . . . and people have a lot of wallets and purses . . . and they gotta buy something.

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Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).