"My heart concealing it will break, and rather than it shall, I will be free" (On "The Taming of the Shrew"

Hynnhrnnnggggghhhh...

I'm behind on the Shakespeare bit, due to some personal stuff going on last week combined with the fact that I have SO MUCH TO SAY about "Taming of the Shrew" and couldn't figure out how to condense it to a readable entry. So I'm going to try something a little different, and just put out the evidence first, and then my conclusions, in somewhat of a bullet-point fashion rather than essay format. Shall we begin? (There will be LOTS of caps lock.)

Point #1: The Christopher Sly frame story is just SO AWKWARD. The Lord literally has his page dress as a woman and pretend to be the drunken Sly's wife, the page GETS GROPED and has to giggle about it and fake being THRILLED about this, and the assumption is that after the play is over, they are going to BOWCHICKAWOWOW, but of course we never return to the frame narrative to see that nasty little business play out. What are we supposed to feel about this? The whole thing is just icky. I don't care that it's a joke on Sly. The page has no power in the situation and is forced to do his master's bidding in this.

Point #2: Lucentio falls in love with Bianca at first sight, but not only that, he literally FALLS IN LOVE WITH HER SILENCE. "...in the other's silence do I see / Maid's mild behavior and sobriety" (I.i.70-1). Not only that, he's so struck by her silent beauty that he fails to notice anything else going on in the scene. In fact, when Katherine DOES speak, he doesn't hear a word she says. "I saw her coral lips to move, / And with her breath she did perfume the air. / Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her" (I.i.174-6). So he falls in love with a woman specifically for her silence, and can't be bothered to hear a woman who DOES speak.

Point #3: Why are we just to accept that Katherine is a shrew, on the word of her father and Bianca's suitors? The evidence points to otherwise. She is in fact loud, demanding, and even violent, but at no point does she ever point her ire at anyone that hasn't earned it. She is angry at her father for clearly attempting to foist her off onto the greedy, grasping, elderly, and slimy suitors of Padua. When we see her strike Bianca (and perhaps she has Bianca tied up, though it's not actually in the stage directions, which means it might just be metaphorical,) she is interrogating her sister, and accuses her of lying. At this stage in the play it seems drastic and tyrannical, but we discover late in the play that Bianca actually IS lying and scheming, and that her submissive front is just that - a front. Later in the same scene, Katherine flies at her father: "Nay, now I see / She is your treasure, she must have a husband; / I must dance barefoot on her wedding-day, / And for your love to her lead apes in hell. / Talk not to me, I will go sit and weep" (II.i.31-4).

Point #4: Her father replies to this outburst by focusing on his own feelings, rather than the daughter he will force into an abusive marriage just to get her out of the way: "Was ever gentleman thus griev'd as I?" (II.i.37). Is man's grief over being inconvenienced worse than a woman's grief over being used as an object?

Point #5: Petruchio is a nasty bit of business. When we first meet him, he's beating his loyal servant. He's excited at the prospect of marrying a shrew - why? And when he first meets her, he pretends to misunderstand everything she says, or not hear her at all. He then proceeds to sexually assault her, and the audience is expected to find this funny and titillating. Ha ha. Look at the funny double entendre. Lots of productions love this bit, because they can make Kate seem attracted to Petruchio regardless of his boorishness and cruelty - "see, look? It's okay because she likes it!" But I can't think of a single woman I know who likes to be groped and have sexual remarks made to her on the first meeting. Not to mention he tells her that she's been sold into marriage to him.

Point #6: Kate breaks Hortensio's lute, and it is held up as evidence of her shrewishness. However, later we discover that he knows nothing about teaching music. Could it be that she just knew that and was angry at the deception and being treated like an idiot? Did she see through his ruse to get to Bianca?

Point #7: Baptista literally tries to sell his daughter Bianca to the highest bidder once Katherine is out of the way. Just, ick.

Point #8: Act III, scene i is literally just a bunch of men yelling at each other, acting, truly, like a bunch of shrews. Why are men allowed to yell and snipe at each other with impunity, but not women?

Point #9: Many scholars apologize for Petruchio's abuse of the servants and people around him by saying that it's meant to be an example to Kate, to embarrass her by showing her how her previous behavior appeared. However, Kate knows the difference. Kate's shrewishness was ALWAYS directed to those who abused their power over her, or made her life miserable, or attempted to deceive her. By contrast, Petruchio abuses those who are doing their best to please him, such as his servants, and Kate defends them: "Patience, I pray you, 'twas a fault unwilling" (IV.i.156, in response to Petruchio's striking of a servant bringing him water.)

Point #10: Act IV is just one giant trigger warning. Petruchio literally starves Kate, deprives her of sleep, and gaslights her in nearly every line. He forces her to say that it's night when it's day, and vice versa. And then he creates a genuine trauma bond by being the only person that can feed her or allow her to sleep. It's a nightmare of emotional abuse. He forces her to be grateful for the barest of necessities, and to thank him for them.

Point #11: Petruchio forces Kate to kiss him in the street, against her will, before he will allow her to see her family at Bianca's wedding.

Point #12: When the women leave the room at the wedding celebration, the men immediately begin describing them as animals: greyhounds, curs, deer, birds, horned beasts (referring to their sex drives.) It's "locker room talk," I guess.

Point #13: The women are played off of each other in a competition. Bianca is scornful, the widow (who I adore,) is honest but firm, and Kate...is broken.

I am grateful to the theatre professor in college who told me about a production he saw in which the play ended with Katherine very clearly destroyed in spirit, abused into obedience. He said it was the only version that ever made sense to him. I have to agree. I wonder if Shakespeare truly understood how close he came to depicting the truth of emotional abuse, and its cruelty. I wonder if the audiences of the time came away from the play roaring with laughter, if they went home and used these methods on their wives, or if the abrupt and uneasy exit of the actors at the end of the play was meant to drive home the problematic nature of the show. I don't have answers. I just don't want to read this play again, or risk seeing a production which depicts Petruchio in a positive light, or that implies that any woman needs to be tamed.

The next play is "Titus Andronicus," and for all its cannibalism, rape, and murder, is far less disturbing. 

"There's none but asses will be bridled so." (On "The Comedy of Errors")

I think I have to say this ahead of time: I love Shakespeare. I love his works, his words, his themes, the way he questions the world around him. I don't care how basic of an English major it makes me to wallow in his blank verse like a drunken harlequin at Carnevale.

But I also know that you can criticize something and still love it.

In his early years, Shakespeare was writing for a particular audience, with particular expectations about what they would see upon the stage, and was borrowing from ancient traditions, just as writers of sitcoms do today. They are shortcuts that allow viewers to skip to the interesting bits, because everyone already knows what is expected.

"A Comedy of Errors," like "The Tempest," is a rarity in Shakespeare's canon in that it follows the unities of time, place, and action. (Ben Jonson wrote scathingly that Shakespeare lacked art, though not nature, implying that his failure to follow the traditional unities was just that - a failure.) "Comedy" is also based heavily on the Roman playwright Plautus' Menaechmi, and follows the plot fairly closely, with the exception of adding the twin servants as further comic relief, and the reunion and frame story of the parents. This is important because Shakespeare is both working within and playing with the idea of tradition and stock characters.

The problem is, as with so many of the Bard's early plays, what his stock characters tell us. Unlike the Henriad, there are several female characters in "Comedy." Unfortunately, I wouldn't want to be any of them.

The cast list for women characters is as follows:

Adriana: Wife to Antipholus of Ephesus. She is depicted as materialistic (in her pursuit of the golden chain, described before we meet her,) scolding, possessive, and domineering (the "venom clamours of a jealous woman.../Have scared thy husband from the use of wits." V.i.). She is the stock wife character, still evident in sitcoms today, always suspicious, always talking, where the husband ducks away from her nagging. Her name brings to mind the Adriatic Sea, and there is much imagery of fishing and oceans. But the "fishwife" is the most common stereotypical nagging wife of the time, and Shakespeare names nothing by accident. 

Luciana: Adriana's sister, as yet unwed, but beloved by Antipholus of Syracuse. She is the epitome of virginal and meek, waiting for a husband who will master her, who claims that "headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe" (II.i). Her name means "light." (But hm. Shakespeare uses "light" otherwise in the play in its vernacular, mocking term, meaning "a loose woman." Is he making a point?) 

Nell: Also called "Luce," to some confusion, Nell is the servant of the Ephesian Antipholus family, and is never seen onstage. Here we see the most brutal tactics of relying on the stock character tropes: one can almost picture the Elizabethan crowd roaring on its benches at Dromio of Syracuse's description of Nell as fat ("spherical like a globe,") dark ([s]wart, like my shoe,) sweaty, grimy, balding, with a runny nose, stinking breath, and with an acne-covered nose, "all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires" (III.ii). She is also sexually deviant and seeks to make the Syracusan Dromio her sexual slave and husband, regardless of his wishes. (I'm reminded
of the old version of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride, where the pirates yelled out "We wants the redhead!" while the fat woman in blue chased her own pirate.)  

Aemilia: Abbess and (surprise!) mother to the twins and wife to Aegeon. She's the most NLOG character I've experienced so far in the Shakespeare 2020 Project, but I guarantee she won't be the last. She protects her precious Antipholus(es) from the pesky wives and other women who would seek to hold them accountable for their cheating and street fighting and otherwise mad behavior, blaming Adriana's (legitimately held) jealousy for Antipholus' (it doesn't matter which one's) angry behavior. 

The Courtezan: Sexy, has a great big gold ring that she pawns for a later chance at a larger gold chain, there just for the entertainment and general sexytimes aspect. 

Anyone else see the problem here? Would any woman I know actually want to be any of these women? Are these the only options available to us? And before you say a word, the rest of the men, particularly our two heroines, are typically considered "Of very reverend reputation, sir, / Of credit infinite, highly beloved, / Second to none that lives here in the city: / His word might bear my wealth at any time" (V.i).

When we talk about "the media" and "stereotypes," we are not just talking about the wealth of information available to us in the 21st century. We are talking about centuries of stock characters played for laughs, where women are played as objects with singular desires; a menu of undesirable options from which to choose, while the male characters are shown as the default, fully-fledged characters robust with humanity, forgiven for their cheating and their stupidity (really, Antipholus of Syracuse? You come to Ephesus specifically to look for your twin, and then are surprised when you are mistaken for him?) 

Shakespeare does push back a bit against the establishment. Luciana defends her sister against the stalwart Aemilia's criticism's with "She never reprehended him but mildly, / When he demean'd himself rough, rude and wildly" (V.i). But it seems that reprehending him at all for cheating, despite the fact that he did, in fact, attempt to cheat on her, is worse than the actual cheating. 

After all, it's nagging.

Laura Rook as Luciana and Melisa Pereyra as Adriana in the 2016 American Players Theatre Production of "The Comedy of Errors," Spring Green, WI. 

"Keep our course, though the rough wind say no..." (On "Henry VI, Part 3")

Much as in Part 2, I found myself somewhat at a loss to find an entry point to discuss my thoughts on "Henry VI, Part 3." Not for lack of thoughts, mind you - those were legion - but for lack of time and clarity, I struggled to hone in on one particular theme that I could wrap around a single coherent blog entry.

And then last night's State of the Union address occurred.

And I thought...WORDS.

What weight do words hold? 

"Henry VI, Part 3" is, at its core, a play about a king who is all words, and the opposing side, who are all action. 

The scene opens with the son of aspiring king, Richard (who would later become King Richard III, of crooked back and "winter of our discontent" fame,) bringing a severed head onstage and instructing it to "[s]peak thou for me and tell them what I did."

Of course, a severed head can speak to no one, but its very existence attests to the existence of action - in this case bloody, brutal action. 

The ensuing scene is one in which the Duke of York (the aspiring king) challenges King Henry for his throne, and involves the negotiations therein. Eventually, Henry agrees to give up his throne to York at the end of his natural life, essentially disinheriting his own son in favor of York, enraging Queen Margaret on behalf of their son. 

But throughout the negotiations, the question of the value of words repeats. Henry appeals to York's sense of duty to the previous king, the nearly-sacred Henry V, by bringing up his victories in France. Warwick, the "Kingmaker," in support of York, caustically bites, "Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all." The contrast between speech and action is clear; Henry speaks of victory in France, but the reality is that his own inaction and choices have lost all of the lands that his father gained.

The following are just a few snippets of Act I.i:

KING HENRY VI: Peace, thou! and give King Henry leave to speak. 

WARWICK: [York] shall speak first: hear him, lords;
And be you silent and attentive too,
For he that interrupts him shall not live. 

Here, Warwick admits the power of words to sway, as he importunes the nobles to ignore Henry's words in favor of York's.

KING HENRY VI: [Aside] I know not what to say; my title's weak.--

Here we see a connection between how, as Henry's words falter, so does his claim to the throne.

KING HENRY VI: O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart! 

YORK: Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.
What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?

King Henry is revived by words; they bring him hope, and can therefore inspire. However, York is annoyed by words, as his frustration over the muttering and conspiring of the nobles shows. 

YORK: This oath I willingly take and will perform.

Here we see the marriage of words and deeds: York agrees, via an oath, to wed his future actions (to avoid conflict with Henry VI until the king's death) to his word. 

WESTMORELAND: I cannot stay to hear these articles. 

NORTHUMBERLAND: Nor I.

Here again, we have words, we have actions tied to words. The king's words of abdication to York are so loathsome to some of his supporters that they leave the scene and the play entirely, never to be seen again onstage.

QUEEN MARGARET: Enforced thee! art thou king, and wilt be forced?
I shame to hear thee speak.

KING HENRY VI: Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak. 

QUEEN MARGARET: Thou hast spoke too much already: get thee gone.

And Queen Margaret enters the fray! Despite one later scene (the brutal and humiliating murder of York,) Margaret comes across as rather a rare gal in this play, particularly in comparison to Part 2. Her speeches to Henry are full of fire and dismay as she fights for her son's inheritance. Towards the end of the play, it is clear that the opposing side considers her the real usurper of Henry's power, while Margaret blames Henry for his lack of backbone.

QUEEN MARGARET: (To her son) Ah, that thy father had been so resolved! 

[RICHARD]: That you might still have worn the petticoat,
And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster. (Act V.v) 

But Margaret, unlike Henry, weds action with words. She rages in speeches, and then gathers her troops and attacks. York (and after his death, his son Edward,) with one exception (at his son Rutland's murder,) avoids stirring speeches about his rights or intentions. Henry, by contrast, is ALL speech, and when he briefly re-attains the crown in Act IV, he immediately abdicates all responsibility for it, and places two protectors (Warwick and Clarence, both of whom had only recently been his enemies,) in charge of the kingdom's affairs. His speeches are often beautiful, and you can really get behind his wish to leave the squabbling of nobles and brutality of war behind. (It's not even clear whether he really believes in his own right to the crown.) But his speeches are just words - there is no threat or action behind them.

There are dozens of other quotes I could pull, in which Richard speaks aside to the audience of his own intentions to smile now while plotting the deaths of his brothers and nephew in his own reach for the crown, in the York brothers' convincing of their father that an oath not given before a magistrate is ineffectual, in the constant flip-flopping of allegiances between Clarence and Warwick and others, or of King Edward's marriage to Lady Grey after first betrothing himself to the sister of the King of France. The examples fill the pages.

The play ends as it began - first with a brutal, violent act by Richard. He murders the captive King Henry in the Tower of London, interrupting him in mid-speech:

[RICHARD]: I'll hear no more: die, prophet in thy speech:

The following scene is one that should be a celebration of Edward's coronation and the birth of the prince. But it feels ominous, with the spectre of Richard's coming betrayal hanging in the sidelines. And there is no one the audience can truly feel good about supporting in the last scene. The king has betrayed oaths and looked aside at the murder of innocents to achieve his throne. Clarence has switched sides twice, and will again. Richard lurks, waiting for his chance to steal the crown. Even Queen Elizabeth has been shown to be scheming for the benefit of her brothers and sons rather than for the good of her country. King Henry may have been weak and ineffectual, but with his death, it feels as if the last light of true morality in England has died. 

Which brings me to the State of the Union address. Anyone who's been paying attention for five seconds knows that most of its contents were not only false, but dangerous in the way that they chose to spin the president as some sort of moral leader who has the ability to raise up followers and cast down opponents. Seeing a man like Rush Limbaugh given the Medal of Honor while simultaneously degrading immigrants and Muslims sends a message about who Trump believes belongs in this country and who doesn't. 

But then we saw the power move of the night: Nancy Pelosi shredded her copy of the address. It was a striking statement that expressed without words her opinion of HIS words: that they were nothing. 

Not all of the morality in America has died, though I'm betting after today's impeachment vote, it will probably feel like it for a bit. We might do well to remember Queen Margaret's speech from Act I.i in thinking about the shameful deeds of the Republican party:

I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!
Thou hast undone thyself, thy son and me;
And given unto the house of York such head
As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.
To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,
What is it, but to make thy sepulchre
And creep into it far before thy time?