Hey everybody,
I'm resending an overly long email that I lsent long ago because I couldn't resist
trying to come up with scenes the minute we were sure we were going ahead. I'm
pasting it below. No need to read it all but I've put in BOLD the key points. Sorry
for the length but since our group is now much bigger I wanted to share my thoughts (and
excitement) with everybody.
Maybe it is too soon, but like Alice, I'm already taking pleasure in thinking about
scenes. When is it not a pleasure to think about Shakespeare?
In a weird (magical, mysterious?) coincidence, Alice, I spent a chunk of the weekend
thinking about scenes, too, and many of the ones I thought of also had a
reunion/recognition/recovery kind of theme. The only hesitation I have about the scenes
from the romances (like the end of Winter's Tale or the Thaisa return in
Pericles--both of which I cannot watch without serious sobbing) is that so much of the
emotion derives from what has gone before. It's the sense of GRACE that always kills
me, the sense that it might have, was really likely to have been, otherwise--a
near-tragedy magically averted. In the big picture, you know? Still, I love those
scenes. I'd say that the reunion of Pericles and Marina might be better than the
reappearance of Thaisa, because we have a good build-up WITHIN the scene and Pericles'
slow awakening to what is directly before him is dramatic in and of itself. In comedy,
we could find a parallel in the end of Twelfth Night or the end of Comedy of Errors.
I always want more comedy, rather than less. One scene I love and which is
all-too-appropriate for us ancianos is the conversation between Justice Shallow and
Justice Silence in III.2 of Henry IV, Part I. Reminiscing about their youths and absent
friends. It is so, so right for us. It's the scene I'd most like to see on the
menu.
The Pageant of the Nine Worthies in Love's Labours Lost would give us a great
opportunity to be very, very silly. See V.2. Hilarious costumes opportunity. Doc must
be one of the Worthies.
We could consider also scenes in which the age of the characters could be turned to our
advantage (though there's someone directing an R & J right now, even as I write,
that's set in a nursing home--I'm not making this up--in general I'd be shy of
giving young, impetuous lovers a go at this stage of my decrepitude). Beatrice and
Benedick. A younger man to play Hamlet to an older Gertrude. Or Volumnia and Coriolanus.
The old Countess in All's Well. The beautiful speech about the ship's boy in
Henry IV, part 2 (III.1). v None of these depends on youth and beauty.
You mention Lear and Cordelia's reunion. Fabulous scene. I once saw a group of RSC
actors do the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from MND and segue from that straight into
'Howl, howl, howl', transforming P and T into L and C. It knocked me out.
One of the things I love about doing scenes is the chance to juxtapose them, creating
beautiful or surprising or shocking transitions from one to another.
If we go beyond Shakespeare, surely we should do the HANDBAG scene in The Importance of
Being Earnest.
What else, what else, what else? I can't wait to hear from everybody.
Love to all,
Gail
________________________________
From: weeklong-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mike Godwin
Sent: 05 May 2010 01:59
To: weeklong-l
Subject: [Weeklong-l] Plays we've mentioned so far (my quick list)
The following plays or other works have been mentioned as sources for Reunion scenes:
2 Gents (pirates)
Comedy of Errors (knocking at the gate, Dr. Pinch)
Taming (servants at Petruchio's return)
Much Ado (Dogberry and the great chase, Kill Claudio (done in 2005))
LLL (play with the play)
AYL (Ducdame)
MND (Blame Clayton! Bottom's Dream)
Cymbeline (Iachino in the trunk, funeral song)
Winter's Tale (Paulina shows Leontes his infant child, dance of the 12 satyrs, final
scene)
Lear (Lear-Cordelia reconciliation)
Pericles (final scene)
"Brats of Clarence" by Paul Menzer
Hamlet (advice to the players, grave diggers)
Sonnet 30 (remembrance of things past)
Henry V (muse of fire)
3 Henry VI (Duke of York: "o tiger's heart....)
Othello (how 2 win Desdemona)
Sonnets 40, 116, 130, 138, 142 or others
Antony and Cleopatra -- news that Antony has married Octavia, also: II.vii.
song-and-dance
Measure for Measure -- Angelo wants only one thing: Isabella's virginity.
Macbeth: porter's scene, weird sisters.
Tempest: drunks. epilogue.
12th Night: drunks (done in 2005)
HVIII: Wolsey and Catherine. Epilogue.
"Everything and Nothing" -- Borges (Mike says Irby translation is better than
Kerrigan!)
"Little Gidding" -- Eliot
Falstaff scenes (1 and 2 Henry IV, Merry Wives, "Chimes at Midnight")
"Kiss Me Kate" -- "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"
R&J (Nurse scenes)