Year 4, Day 360: Shakespeare Institute -- [REVIEW] A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Globe Theatre in London

Standing at the front of the yard, leaning against the stage just off-centre (with the requisite number of selfies having been taken), the evening began as many performances do... with the all-important safety announcements being intimated to the 1500 some odd patrons that were either standing as groundlings or sitting as gentry of the Globe Theatre.  I was reminded, almost immediately, that standing in the yard was an immersive, neck-craning, exciting, and survival of the fittest kind of experience.  As the announcer, Rita Quince, and her number one (not Bottom the Weaver, but Bottom the Health and Safety Manager) began their sales pitch to the audience they also announced the other members of the volunteers of the Globe (or rather, mechanicals of the Dream) standing about the yard.  Right from the beginning, the cast of this Dream was involved with me.

I could have reached out and touched Rita's feet as she tread the boards in front of me.  I could have done that several times during the show with practically every performer as they spoke, sang, and danced their way through a play I know better than I know papers and plays I have written myself.  Though I have stood at that very same spot in the yard for Twelfth Night (2002), Measure for Measure (2004), The Merry Wives of Windsor (2008), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (2008), I forgot exactly how captivating it can be to have a talented performer onstage look straight at you and just speak to you, rather than talk past you.

What followed after the health and safety announcements was one of the most immersive theatrical experiences that I have been a part of since I saw Fuerza Bruta in New York City three or four years ago.  If I'd actually had a moment to stop and think about it, I might have been upset that this production had taken so many liberties with the text (adding in songs, changing and excising some of the text), the design (this was the Globe afterall, so why were they so reliant on obvious spectacle?), the casting (Helena was Helanus), and the violent and sexual nature of the play altogether.  There were moments where the stage combat was either so well-rehearsed that I could not spot where the slapping sound or 'knap' was coming from or it was stage combat that was so passionate that the slapping sound was in fact real as actors grabbed each other and collided with one another onstage.  Also, everyone got undressed.  This is not to suggest that I mind such things, just more of a matter-of-fact observation.  As my wife has said, "I don't think I've ever been to a play with quite so many 'crotch-shots' as this one had."  I think she was observing that from our vantage point, we could see everything and from almost the same distance as a doctor might examine a patient.

Barring any objection I might have had with the no-original-practice design, the almost-gratuitous spectacle, the textual abbreviations, or any celebration of Kott-ian themes (I actually loved the choice to make Helena a man), I must say that the individual performances last night (4 September 2016) were the sum and total of one of the finest Shakespearean companies I have ever been privy to witness.  Quite simply, there was no one on that stage who was not unique in character, keen in voice (singing or speaking), or adept, agile, and possessing of pure physical prowess.  Please forgive the alliteration there, but I couldn't help myself, I was smiling the entire time.  I clapped like a fool even though my back and neck ached from standing still for so long.  It was a joy to watch, and to single out any one actor as better than another in this case would be a true disservice to this cast that has made me believe ensemble work is still alive and well in London.  I know that this review is coming late in the game (as there are only three sold-out performances left), but if I thought my body could handle standing still for another three hours, I'd do it again if only to be a part of that magic one more time.

I shall be back later with the regularly scheduled, edit-filled, blog post... but I thought this show was deserving of a write-up, if only so that I can remember it fondly later on.

EDIT:  There is some exciting news from the Globe as you can all watch this production in a live broadcast.  Read about it here.

Year 4, Day 360 - Words Written: (How long is a blog post?)

Year 4, Day 231: Shakespeare Institute -- Two sides to every story.

I have once again written about five blog posts since the last one I posted, and then either summarily dismissed and deleted them, or set them aside to be finished at some other unspecified time.  I am hoping this one will make it through my tireless need to self-edit.  I am still convinced that people, just nameless-faceless people, troll the internet looking for ideas to steal, so I am more than a little wary about posting anything anymore.  That being said, I have decided to take back my own voice and to stop being scared of expressing my thoughts, at least on here.  Edited to say: Read this one while you can because who knows how long before I delete it.

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Chapter 1:

One of my favorite quotes from the recent years of reading and writing are the first words of a philosophical treatise (read as, "book") that I had the pleasure of first picking up years ago.  It was, in fact, the first one of its kind that I picked up for my Master's course at NYU over five years ago now.  It was John Dewey's book, Experience and Education.  Several people in my life have heard me go on and on about this book on the philosophy of teaching, and fewer still have heard me speak about this idea I'm going to discuss here as briefly as I can.

"Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites.  It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities.  When forced to recognize that the extremes cannot be acted upon, [human-kind] is still inclined to hold that they are all right in theory but that when it comes to practical matters circumstances compel us to compromise" (p.17).

This idea that man and woman are inclined to believe, think, act, and educate all within the concept of creating a polarity of thought to achieve these ideals feels correct.  The added stipulation that we compromise those extreme opposites when it comes to practical matters also feels like more than just truth, but bordering on a human fact of life.  'We will always want the best for ourselves, but will be forced to compromise our ideals when we must deal with the wants and needs of others.'  This is not an academic or scientific question that I am positing here, but rather something that I feel particularly qualified to pose, a philosophical idea.

Stay with me here as I would like to build on what Dewey has already stated.  What he was talking about was our tendency to create polarities, not only to define what we think and feel about the world, but also who we are, how we vote, what food/movies/books/ideas/people we like, and how we generally treat ourselves and others.  The first step in discussing this issue is by recognizing that Dewey's statement can be taken as truth.  This is most easily exemplified by the very existence of politicians.  If one politician states that they are (for example) against overly taxing people who make more than a certain amount of money, there is an immediate (human) response in voters to either agree or disagree with that idea.  By expressing a preference, the politician has created a polarity.  In fact, I could probably posit that without polarity, politics (and newspapers) would not even exist, but that is an entirely different discussion.

The strange reality of that situation (or any) is that the answer to that question, "Should we tax people according to their income?" is never so binary as saying, "I agree" or "I disagree," though the world as we know it has come to believe it so.  Sometimes we forget that we are dealing with human beings, who are as complex in thought as we ourselves have been known to be from time to time.  It is not a binary decision that has to be made, (and here is where I deviate from my mentor, Dewey,) it is also not degrees of compromise that we must consider as our alternatives to thinking decisions must be made one way or the other.  Though humankind "is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Ors", the mechanics of thought are not as two or even one-dimensional as believing one answer is the complete opposite of another.  Rather, think of the decisions that are expected of you on a daily basis as more organic than the choices that are made up or given to you by those roles or people in life that are served by creating polarities (politics, news, religion, interior design, etc.).  Put simply, and in parlance to those that might one day read this blog, think of these decisions as items on the menu at Starbucks.  One decision does not discount the validity or undo the decision made at another time or by another person.  These decisions you make at Starbucks (1-pump, half-caf, extra-shot, grande skinny vanilla mocha with a scoop of matcha) are as personal to you as your politics should be, your taxes should be, and your opinions on life should be.  We forget that the people we meet in life are as nuanced in their emotional maturity as we are.  That getting turned down for that job seemed like a binary decision on the part of that guy in the interview, but it was (and always will be) far more complicated a situation than just, "he didn't like you" or "the guy they hired was best friends with the CEO", even though popular fiction movies and news stories would have you believe it so.

Chapter 2:

The reason I have been thinking about this is not because I want to try and make life's simple decisions (i.e. to go to the bathroom or wait for the next rest stop) more and more complicated.  It is because I believe that I can be better in recognizing those polarities and ridding my life of thinking about them in that way.  The most poignant and recognized polarities in my world these days are racism and sexism.  This is not because I identify or know anyone that identifies as a racist or a sexist (in fact, I'm trying to picture an even moderately intelligent human being walking around and saying to folks, "Hi I am a sexist/racist" and I can't imagine who that would be).  Rather, I know LOTS of people who have identified racist or sexist tendencies in other people.  The 'conversation' usually begins with the words, "Everyone is saying..." or "I'm tired of hearing that..." or "People say...", or something that amounts to the speaker being on one side of their argument and 'people' being on the other side.  Republicans and Democrats have been using this tactic for as long as there has been a reporter there to record it.  The reason that this is important at all, is that this kind of thinking has even begun to affect the way that modern artwork is portrayed and interpreted.

Most recently, a twitter-hashtag cropped up on my Facebook feed called #StarringJohnCho.  The artist, William Yu, used an incredibly intelligent manner of addressing an issue of racism in the entertainment industry, and the artwork used one of my favorite actors as the subject of many movie poster mash-ups (John Cho - whose work includes Go On and Selfie, two tragically named yet brilliantly written and acted short-lived TV shows of the past ten years.)  John Cho in a picture that replaces Matt Damon's face with his as the star of "The Martian" was amongst the number of mash-ups I saw there.  It was interesting and even at times thought-provoking.

"I'm tired of hearing from people that they can't 'see' an Asian American actor playing the romantic lead or the hero, so I created #StarringJohnCho to literally show you," he said."

See the link here.

He's not wrong and he may have indeed heard from many people on the internet, in person, over the phone, or by smoke signal that some person or another cannot physically or metaphysically see an Asian-American actor as a romantic lead.  In the circle of people this twitter-author may keep to, there might even be a thousand comments to his website agreeing or disagreeing with this idea.

Not the artwork, neither the obvious message that has been handed to us, nor even the blatant problem in the entertainment industry that this artwork addresses has tried to polarize our thoughts.  In fact, the mash-up of these photos allows my imagination to run with ideas of cultural plurality on the level of Star Trek meets Star Wars (and all of the races, cultures, and creeds that might introduce.)  It is the artist, and the BBC reporter that wrote about it, who have provided us not only with the problem that we as human beings face, but also that which so many of didn't even know we craved: the answer.  ("Here is John Cho.  An Asian-American actor.  He looks like a leading man, doesn't he? Cast him as a leading man and all will be *maybe* forgiven.")  This artist and his reporter are two pieces to this one example, and yet there is no end to the polarities we face on a day-to-day basis.

Chapter 3:

On some level or another I believe that at one point in my life I have thought these things:

I believe that I must fight racism, because I have been told that it is form of hatred.

I must fight sexism, because that too, is hatred incarnate.

I must identify those that practice racism and sexism and work to banish them from our world.

I thought I'd address these two as representative of these kinds of polarities in our day-to-day lives as there are a few things that must be noted about racism and sexism.

Despite our world history, where sexism and racism have been very nearly palpable movements in political and cultural circles (and still are today in some African and Middle Eastern cultures, from what I understand), these are not ideas based solely on hate (though some would like to believe it so, because they would like to be thought of as fighting on the side of "love").  Sexism and racism are truly the weapons of those that wish to divide our understanding of the world into two camps.  It is the human condition to try and boil down our understanding of other people's motives into right and wrong, good and bad, up and down, left and not-left, and to be or not to be... though it is easy to do so, this can not and should not be the only question left to us: which side do we fall on?

There are many old sayings that continue to segregate, polarize, and partition our ideas, and my favorite is: "You gotta pick a side," or "There are two sides to every story."  What I will begin to do in my life is no longer accept the premise of these statements.  I have to stop thinking of the world in terms of black and white, or shades of grey as I compromise between two arbitrary, so-called opposites.  I must make my thinking reflect who I am as a person: complicated, muddled, plural-thinking, and three dimensional.  There are always more than two sides to any argument and if I can't find a third or fourth answer to some fairly simple questions I must begin to refuse the premise of the argument and ask a different question of myself.  Sometimes I hear people quoting Hamlet as if it were some kind of gospel, as if "to be or not to be" were actually a question, or indeed the only question that needed answering, when there is so much more to life than asking and answering queries of whether or not life should be lived at all.  I believe Shakespeare wrote it with a suicidal/homicidal, clinically depressed Prince of Denmark in mind, so if you fit that description, well, your life has already be kind of decided for you now hasn't it?  What's the point of it all?

To be, or not to be? That is the question—

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. -- Hamlet (III.i.57-69)

Year 4, Day 231 -- Words Written: 11,259 (for this chapter).

Year 4, Day 117: Shakespeare Institute -- Red.

I have written five long blog posts since October, and published none of them.  They were accounts of my gripes, concerns, problems, questions, and observations for the past three months.  I have also put in work on a play I wrote years ago so that it might one day be shot as a short film (probably not).  I have been heavily editing myself these past few months because of what I might say in a public forum, and how that will be used against me later on in life.  I am far more important to the world in my own mind than I am in real life.

In movies and on the television, we, as a society, are constantly shown dramatic representations of the masses, or the 'red shirts' of society.  In the original Star Trek series, all of the commanding officers of the Enterprise wore gold or blue shirts, the plebes, the technicians, the less-than-officers of the ship were relegated to wearing red and were, more often than not, the ones that died in every episode, unceremoniously and without much regard from their captain or shipmates.  The 'red shirts' died as they walked into traps, or when the ship had been hit by the enemy's photon torpedoes.  They were the ones to fall about the ship or go flying out into the emptiness of space.  The crew would have a moment of silence for their 'fallen comrades' and then by the end of each episode it was onto the next adventure.

When we see the statistic on the news, in paper or on the screen, of people hurt or killed somewhere those lives are the 'red shirts' of our world.  When we see those pictures, or lists of names, we pray that we aren't living in the episode where someone close to the protagonist of our story is now no longer on the show.  Occasionally it will be someone we once met that we can then pay tribute to on our Facebook wall, and 'have all the feelings' about for a day or so, and not so occasonally and far more tragically, it will be someone that makes us disappear from the TV show of our lives altogether. Or at least for a month or two before the inevitable 'press release' announcing the death of a loved one comes out, thanking literally everyone for the love and support they have shown to us during our troubled time.  It never occurs to us that we are the red shirts, and we are the statistics, and one day, we too will be relegated to a press release, and/or an obituary, and a tear or two from the people closest to us.  How does that make you feel?

There are two, and only two, possible responses to this:

1. Well, shit.  That kind of sucks.  You mean I'm not going to star in a movie in Hollywood, or become best friends with ScarJo or have a Kardashian at my wedding?  I'm not going to cure cancer, become a famous lawmaker/lawbreaker, or live the life of a suffering artist only to be appreciated late in life when I sell one of my paintings for a million dollars?  I'm not going to do any of that?  I'm going to spend the rest of my life as a boring, and quite possibly sad, teacher of theatre in some backwater town whose students will never amount to anything beyond corporate desk jockies and gas station attendants?  I will be average?  I'm going to die without having anything to show for it?

2. Wait a second, are you telling me that there are other people out there like me?  I'm not alone?  I'm not alone.  Do you think they'd want to star in a movie with me?  I bet they do.  Do you think that their story is just as interesting as mine is, or better?  Can I tell their story?  I want to tell their story.  I want to hear their story first, and then tell it to other people.  Do they think about the same stuff I do?  Are they afraid like I am?  Where do I meet these people?  Don't I see them on the street everyday?  It can't be that hard to smile at someone who passes me, because maybe they'll smile back, and then I won't be just a 'red shirt' to them... at least for the second, or minute, or hour that I get to spend with them.  I won't be average in their eyes, and when I am gone they will remember me just like I will remember them?

Was Shakespeare a 'red shirt'?

"When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes." - Julius Caesar (II.ii.30)

"Dare'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies." - Measure for Measure (III.i.77)

Year 4, Day 117 - Words Written: More than you.