Pay Attention to Consequences

The messages of Once Upon a Time have been that good always prevails, that all it—whatever  “it” happens to be—takes is belief, and, ad nauseam, that true love conquers all. However, Hemingway said, “If two people are truly in love, there’s no way it can all end happily,” and apologies to Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, but I’m gonna go with Papa on this one.

Forget, for a moment, that these messages do not accurately reflect the original messages of the large body of fairy tales, which were more like, “Everything in the world is dangerous and will eat/steal you if it possibly can.” Because, of course, this ABC family drama (distributed by Disney) is not even about to be anything but warm and fuzzy.

Let’s focus instead on how the unrelenting hammering-home of these messages affects the plot and characterization.

Everyone knows plot revolves around conflict. The creators of this show have given us plenty of conflict. The over-arching magical conflicts between the Evil Queen and the Dark One, and all of the other Enchanted Woods characters whom they enspelled. The over-arching domestic conflicts between Regina and Emma over Henry, or Rumple’s search for his son. The over-arching internal conflicts that rage within Emma, who longs to trust people but is still hurt at being abandoned and growing up without a family. Or Regina, who battles between rage and revenge, and the desire to be a hero and find happiness again.

These conflicts are, each of them, real and engrossing. (The moments they create could be, like, a billion times more engrossing if they weren’t saddled with clunky, cheesy, boring dialogue, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing.)

The plot problem is that, in their effort to make sure that the messages of “if you only believe,” and “true love conquers all,” come through loud and clear, the writers sabotage moments of conflict and drama by almost always reversing the consequences of big decisions. For instance, [highlight for spoilers] near the end of the third season, Charming has to give up his heart to re-enact Regina’s dark curse. While the couple exchange their last love vows, Snow crushes his heart, killing him. Literally two minutes later, Snow realizes that Charming’s claim that they were “of one heart” might mean that he can live again, with half of her heart. She asks Regina to “believe,” puts half her heart in Charming’s chest, and he comes back to life. Ta da! [spoilers ended]

This is just the latest and most immediate in a long series of impossible resurrections and/or immediate about-faces in destiny: Gold, Neal, the several “unbreakable” curses that always get broken laughably easily. This show does not want to let consequences last which, after a while, cuts the emotional legs out from under any fraught decision that’s being made. Regina might lose Henry if she saves the world? So what! Emma will lose her powers if she gets kissed? No big deal! This pattern makes it almost impossible to really care about any of the Life or Death moments that the show presents us with.

This pattern also gets in the way of characterization. I want to care about the Charmings—I really do. But how can I? With the (admittedly big) exception of getting to raise Emma, they get everything they want, all the time, no questions asked. For instance, [highlight for spoilers] when Hook raises the completely reasonable suggestion that perhaps Ariel can’t find Eric because he’s dead, and that encouraging her would be raising “false hope,” [end spoilers] David responds glibly, “In my experience, there’s no such thing. You just have to believe.” Of course he says that, because that IS his experience. But his experience is not only far removed from the real world from which people are watching this show, but also removed from the “real world” people of Storybrooke, who DO lose people (though at a smaller rate than you’d think) to death, to memory-curses, to heartbreaking love-triangles, etc. The fact is, the Charmings are impossibly privileged and their privilege makes it hard for me to care about them. [Hightlight for spoilers] Their later faux-humble (“just a simple potluck”) coronation ceremony for their new son [end spoilers] only serves to underscore the weirdness of a royal family in modern-day America, a family for whom the whole town will rally at a moment’s notice and to whom they will defer in moments of crisis.

With a few tweaks, the Charmings could be much more relatable, and the storyline more fascinating. For instance, was the outcome of Snow killing Cora? Her heart became tainted with spots of darkness. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any consequences of this change lately. How much more nuanced and true-to-life would it be if Snow had to struggle with a dark side? [Highlight for spoilers] And, now that Snow and David share that spotted heart, what could happen? [end spoiler] I’m not talking about a sudden and catastrophic slide into Dark One-style evil, but just a realistic internal conflict between the desire to do “what’s right” and the urge to do things an easier, quicker, more ruthless way.

But, except for a few moments of dark humor, this show shies away from representing reality—whether that be realistic character motivations, realistic plot outcomes, or even, as I mentioned above, story adaptations that stick more closely to the “reality” of what fairy tales originally offered. Which is the real tragedy of Once Upon a Time: how much better it could be if it stuck more closely to non-Disney versions of fairy tales. These stories were not originally comforting yarns told at bedtime to send children off into a pleasant dreamland; they were violent, scary, and dark. In short, they were warnings. Look no farther than the big four in the Western tradition: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast. In their depictions of imprisonment, abuse, kidnapping, rape, bestiality, etc., even our oft-repeated fairy tales strongly suggested that wonderful things like family relations, sex, love, ambition, and leadership could be twisted into frightening experiences. Here there be dragons, fairy tales said, and pointed at our daily lives. (Also, fairies be crazy. For real.)

I continue to watch Once Upon a Time because . . . because . . . because I want to. Because, at times, it’s funny. Because, at times, it gets me. Because I love fairy tales and television and pop culture. Because, let’s face it, the visuals are great. And I think it can still get better. Let’s all hope—have faith—believe that it will. Regina’s final words to Emma in Season Three leave me with such hope: “You’re just like your mother—never thinking of consequences.” If “pay attention to consequences” becomes the new mantra, both for the characters and the writers, Season Four should be pretty sweet. 

The Goblin Emporer: A Review

A few weeks ago I finally finished with revisions to my dissertation, and rewarded myself with a read of The Goblin Emporer, the first book published under the name of Katherine Addison (which is really the pen-name for Sarah Monette, accomplished spec fic author).

Not since reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians have I experienced such pure undiluted reading enjoyment; I was thrilled on every page that this book even existed, and that Addison is a young writer so that I, perhaps, had much more to look forward to.

One of the reasons The Goblin Emporer is so enjoyable is that the world Addison describes is jewel-like in its uniqueness and detail. In the elvish kingdom of Ethuveraz, airships cruise the skies (and sometimes crash), rivers are bridged with retractable bridges, and clockmakers craft fine timepieces for their rulers. Tea ceremonies and dances and imperial funerals are so tightly scripted that they run like the aforementioned clockwork. Meticulously-planned public appearances and elaborate ceremonies hem in the world of Maia, our protagonist, the half-goblin heir to the elvish throne after an airship disaster kills his estranged father and brothers.

These aren't Tolkien's elves and goblins, though. Addison's world (reflecting, perhaps, Monette's background in Renaissance literature) is, in many ways, indistinguishable from a human society. Elves are fairer, with finer features, than goblins--and something's different about their ears, natch. Maia's racial difference is marked, primarily, by his skin color. But Addison's aren't inherently noble, or wise, or magical, or immortal, just as the goblins aren't inherently stupid, noseless, warty, or evil. The elves and their interactions with the visiting goblin king, the Great Avar of Barizhan, reminded me of nothing so much as one of those "classy" (read: snobby) European kingdoms--the French, perhaps, or the Germans--treating with a Russian tsar or a Hungarian king.

And the book is almost wholly devoid of magic. There is one characters who seems to be able to commune with the dead, but all of that work happens off-screen, as it were. The whole narrative includes only one spell, a defensive measure against a potential assassin, which gets cast by one of Maia's bodyguards. But the narration rushes by this detail and focuses in on Maia's shock and fear at his assassination attempt. If it weren't that every character was either a goblin or an elf--two races whose literary heritage is inextricably entwined with the concept of fantasy--this could have been a story about human politics. It's a lot like watching an episode of House of Cards set in a Renaissance kingdom. (If that reading the preceding sentence gives you a happy, please read this book. And also, call me.)

Except that Frank Underwood is no Maia. Because Maia is the fucking best. Until Maia, I had never read such a tender-hearted, honest, good character that I didn't, at some level, find unbelievable. (Think Esther Summerson from Bleak House--I love Dickens, but gag me with a spoon every time she talks). Poor, downtrodden Maia has been shelved in some backwater county of Ethuveraz, looked after by his abusive cousin Setheris. His reaction to authority is not rebellion but a withdrawal, a development of his inward self which Setheris's treatment cannot touch.

When he becomes emporer, does Maia go mad with power and order his former oppressor tortured? No. While Addison's portrayal is frank--Maia has very realistic impulses to hurt Setheris, to punish him--he fights with himself on these impulses, eventually finding a way to keep himself away from the bad memories that Setheris conjures without ruining his cousin's life. Maia's adventures with romance are similarly nuanced. The first time he sees a female elf in eight years, he almost slobbers on himself. He ends up infatuated with an opera singer; his obvious desire for her makes him the butt of jokes in his court.  But he doesn't order her to warm his bed, although he knows he could, because he understands that it would be an embarrassing experience for both of them. In all of his dealings with people who challenge him, Maia lets compassion rule him.

How is such a paragon of compassion (and a teenager, at that--Maia is 18 when he takes the throne) realistic? Because Addison shows Maia thinking through his feelings. The inwardness he developed after years of isolation and unhappiness allows for a very realistic conflict between Maia's impulses and his higher nature.

The novel doesn't end in flowers and rainbows. Maia doesn't develop a cadre of chums with whom he can confide when the crown gets too heavy, and he doesn't marry the sexy opera singer. But he makes some good decisions for the country, and begins to build a legacy he'll be proud to leave. And while responsibility has isolated him as effectively as ever, he realizes the relationships he does have, although they can't really be called friendships, are enough to nurture him as he moves forward.

Extra goody-good bits:

• Addison's political landscape is so fully-realized that, although these issues never take center stage, her book touches on LGBT issue, women's rights, and worker's rights.

• Also, her language-building rocks. No cheesy half-baked names for things here. And there's a glossary in the back with partial grammatical explanations. Love it. 

Grimm vs. OUAT

A friend of mine and I discuss these two shows from time to time. I'm of the firm opinion that Grimm is the better show. But a lot of people like Once Upon a Time. And while there's a lot to like, there's also a lot to hate. Here are my reasons.

Concept:
The concept behind OUAT is a favorite of mine--re-told fairy tales. But in this iteration, the fairy tale characters reenact their most poignant internal conflicts in the real world, intercut with scenes of them in the fairy tale world (the Enchanted Forest, Oz, Wonderland, etc.). The structure is pretty great and a lot like Lost, which was created by the same duo.

Grimm does not follow specific fairy-tale plotlines. Instead, it transposes mythological and legendary beasts into modern-day Portland as part of a hidden underground world of wesen, human-presenting creatures who possess qualities like superhuman strength, enhanced speed, animal urges, and (at times) paranormal qualities such as breathing fire or seducing with a song. These wesen are policed by Nick Burkhardt, who is a Grimm, a human possessed with the ability to see wesen and derived from a lineage of wesen-assassins (and also, coincidentally, part of the actual Portland police). The show is structured like a police procedural which is pretty exciting and usually works, although the rate at which Nick and his partner Hank are racking up the inexplicably solved crimes has to be registering in the department soon. Even if the chief of police is on their side, they close a LOT of cases with, basically, "yeah, we got the guy. Can't tell you how, though."

Characters:
OUAT certainly has the stronger female characters. It is populated with vibrant, powerful, agentive women who run the gamut from nurturing earth-mother types to brassy ball-busters (and a lot in between). Some believe in love; others fear it. Some crave power; others embrace it.

Grimm's female characters, on the other hand, usually function as victims or villains. Often they are victims of gruesome and violent crimes that Nick and Hank solve. Rosalee is starting to become pretty heroic in her own right, and her knowledge of herbs has certainly saved the day more than once. Juliette, while she started out as a victim who Nick was keeping in the dark, has started to show some agency of her own. She turned Nick down when he proposed, saying that she wouldn't commit until he started being honest with her. Now that she's in on his secret identity, she helps him out from time to time, mostly with advice, internet searches, and a listening ear. And of course there's still Nick's mom, the unknown quantity, who is definitely an ass-kicker (but whose side is she on?).

My favorite woman on Grimm is certainly Adalind, the former Hexenbiest (sort of like a witch, but her true form is a lot uglier) turned normal, turned back into Hexenbiest during her pregnancy with the uber-Hexenbiest. While she certainly has been a villain up to now (and sometimes a victim--what was with that weird tongue-bitey scene with Nick in first season?), her status as the mother of Renard's (?) child may land her on the good-guy side. No matter what side she's on, though, she's a joy to watch on screen. Her turns from bitchy to saccharine to hair-pulling frustration are completely believable.

Dialogue:
You'll notice I didn't go into detail above about my favorite female characters on OUAT. It is so hard for me to separate a character from the dialogue they're given to speak. I really like Regina, but she has some of the show's worst lines. For instance, from this past week's episode: "Never bring your heart to a witchfight." Ughhhh--my eyes are rolling back in my head and I'm gagging from how gross that line is.

The show also depends heavily on clunky old chestnuts like "Love conquers all" and "magic always comes with a price." This season it's been the idea of "evil vs. wicked," since the new villain is the Wicked Witch of the West. They hammer that in at least twice an episode. This week we were cursed (ha ha) with the following exchange, from the Evil Queen and the Wicked Witch, respectively:

Regina: "This isn't the Wild West."
Zelena: "No dearie, it's the Wicked West."

The writers also depend heavily on puns and references to Disney movies. As Adam Grosswirth notes, this all adds up to some really campy dialogue. I have no problem with camp--after all, Buffy is one of my favorite shows ever--but something about the delivery in this show seems off to me.

I much prefer the less heavy-handed writing and delivery of Grimm. There are no oft-repeated cliches here, even though the characters might bear reminding that magic has a price. Monroe, Nick's best friend/go-to wesen, delivers some very cheesy lines for a vegan werewolf. But even those are played off as part of his character--Monroe is very sincere and has a sense of humor that would look good on any middle-aged dad. And the delivery, generally, is subtler and more offhand, even in the moments where shit. goes. down. For instance, OUAT probably averages one St. Crispin's Day speech (y'know, the speech where the charismatic leader inspires their rag-tag group of friends, reminding that they are fighting for something amazing and that bravery is what counts, ad infinitum) every four or five episodes. I can't think of any in Grimm.

Which is cool by me, because (and maybe this is because I just don't get into enough skirmishes with evil warlocks) I have never personally heard a St. Crispin's Day speech in real life.

Plot and Storytelling:
The final bone I have to pick with OUAT is its lazy storytelling. I really appreciate some of the interesting plot developments that the writers have come up with; they've managed to connect several canonical fantasy worlds (LOTR next, right guys?) and have all the characters link up. Rumplestiltskin is a sort of lynchpin for all of this: he is Peter Pan's son, and "the Dark One," a sort of general villain for many stories, and the Beast to Belle's Beauty, etc. His old lover Cora is the mother of the Evil Queen, the miller's daughter who Rumplestiltskin teaches to spin gold out of straw, and the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland. And the connections go on.

But the conflicts themselves are generally resolved by some sort of deus ex machina magical implement that has not been referenced in the story yet. Characters just happen to remember the existence of this [knife/root/potion/parchment/box/cauldron] at the right moment to dispel the crisis and then, half of the time, it is never mentioned again.

Grimm on the other hand does a pretty good job of setting up major plot points well in advance. Nick's magic key, the golden coins, Adalind's crazy-magic baby? All set up several episodes (or even seasons) in advance. It probably helps that Nick has an inherited stockpile of books and weapons, each of which has helped out in specific situations, and that Rosalee runs an herb shop specifically tailored to help out with spells and magical ailments. The closest we get to deus ex machina is when Nick mentions some new kind of wesen he has encountered, and MonRosalee look at each other like "Oh, shit," and reveal that they've heard of that specific breed since childhood but thought it was a story, like the wesen version of the Easter Bunny.

The ultimate point is, I watch both shows with great enjoyment. And even though I love to trash certain aspects of OUAT, it's also contributed to honing my taste as I think about why, exactly, it drives me crazy.

Butterflies and Elder Gods

So I was listening to Radio Lab recently, and Jad and Robert were learning about butterflies. Specifically, what happens between the moment a caterpillar builds a chrysalid around itself, and the moment it emerges as a butterfly?

The answer was terrifying.*

Apparently a caterpillar does not build a chrysalid at all--it is the chrysalid. It grows the chrysalid beneath its own skin, and then sheds that skin when the time is ripe.

Inside the chrysalid is a folded-up butterfly, getting bigger and stronger, like a flower in a bud, right?

NOPE.

It is a bunch of goo, a glob of jelly, with tiny pre-organs floating around in it.

I'm not sure why I had this reaction, but as soon as I heard that, I got chills. And they kept coming as I listened to the description.

Something about the way this animal grows is so alien to me--the fact that it can be a caterpillar, then a bunch of goo, then a long stick-like animal with wings. I've always loved butterflies, but now I feel a bit afraid of them. They're a bit Lovecraftian now: an alien, insectile, inscrutable being that can seduce and frighten at the same time.

Chine Mieville gets it. His Slake Moths are among the most terrifying fantasy villains I have ever encountered in literature--and all evolved from lovely, harmless, bumbling caterpillars, transformed into gorgeous, shifting, air-borne creatures.

This guy also gets it (terrifying):

*The Radio Lab segment, called "Goo and You," was excellent. The scientists (lepidopterists FTW) answered the question that occurred to me--how do we actually know that the butterfly and the caterpillar are the same organism, and not just a dead caterpillar goo that grew a butterfly? They established that the goo is the animal, and can actually carry memories from the caterpillar phase to the butterfly phase.

Post-Dissertation Writing Projects

I sent my dissertation to my professors about two weeks ago. Since then, I've been doing another kind of writing, one that I've been putting off for a long time: fiction. Specifically, literary fantasy.

I can hear the gasps from here. But I've wanted to write fantasy for a long time. I had ideas, and I puttered around with them, and I shelved them for schoolwork, housework, travel, and play rehearsals, but mostly I shelved them because I lacked the confidence to write and the willpower to work.

But if there's one thing I learned from writing my dissertation (and let's just get this out of the way: I learned a lot more than one thing), it's that I have the willpower and ability to see a long project with a lot of moving parts through to its conclusion. Tapping into this willpower feels a bit like magic itself; it's amazing, when I look back on it, how much work I accomplished despite rarely feeling like working.

This ability to make myself do something I dread, not just once, but day after day after day, is miraculous (and largely due to the Pomodoro Timer, praise be its name). And now that I know I have it, I am putting it to use, and writing all the things! In two weeks, I've finished one short story and begun writing another, both with specific publications in mind. Once I defend, I plan to finesse a couple of things I have lying around into critical articles, send those out to journals, and then get back to writing short stories. For the next couple of years, I'm going to try to write four articles a year, and one short story a month--basically three short stories for each article I write (I respond well to the reward system).

The other thing I've noticed since finishing my dissertation is how much clearer my mind is when it comes to craft. Like I said, these fantasy ideas have been knocking around my head for a while, but mostly confined to their own room while the dissertation had the run of the house. Now that I'm letting them out to play, I find that they've developed. I have much more defined opinions now about what I want my narrative voice to sound like, about what I think makes a good story, even about the idea of magic itself.

For example, we went to a cookout today and a bunch of kids in the house were watching the movie Enchanted. I'd seen the movie before, but I watched the Central Park musical scene between Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey. I found myself admiring the tension the movie creates around the incursion of magic into the real world. Here is this cartoon princess, earnest and innocent and sparkly, whose very presence causes supernatural events like choreographed singing and dancing, and on the other side is the real-life cynical guy who comments on the fact that everyone seems to know the words to the song, even though he's never heard it, and how unnatural it is that everyone is suddenly dancing. But even he is caught up, at the end, in the magic; he bobs his head to the music before he catches himself and shakes it off. I like that; that's how magic, if it were real, would be--it would catch us up before we realized it, but it would be, should be, obviously alien. And, in a world less kid-friendly than Enchanted, a little (or a lot) scary. (Even evil magic in Enchanted is just bumbling and foolish; the poisoned apple eats through the biker's helmet and gives him an oddly placed bald-spot, cue the laugh track.)

The point is, things that used to generally annoy or delight me are sharpening in focus. I'm able to articulate more clearly what I like and don't like--in media at large, but specifically in speculative fiction. I'm not only developing my taste, I'm theorizing it. Which is fun, and which I hope to (at some point) work into a writing class lesson or two. Voice and style are really hard to teach, but they're so fun to talk about.

The Spanish Tragedy at the Blue Elephant

This performance, at a small blackbox theatre that smelled like dirty socks, was not spellbinding the way Edward II was. However, while I was annoyed at a lot of it, I found some things to like. And some of the things I don't like are, admittedly, nit-picky. 

The company really embraced their identity as an amateur company. The production began with them doing an acting exercise, throwing a ball around a circle, before seguing seamlessly into stage set-up, which was a brief chaotic segment of the cast running around the stage, placing chairs, ladders, bunting, curtains, and blowing kazoos in what was probably supposed to be some fun hijinks but ended up mostly being startling and jarring.

Once that was over, other than three white chairs and a ladder on each side of the stage, it was your typical black-box set up. The actors began with a quick tableau of troops bowing to their King, and then segued immediately (this company was very good at seguing immediately, and using quick light changes to signal narrative shifts) into the first lines of the play, in which a soldier gives a report of the battle to the King.

The King was a woman in a red skirt suit and a cartoonish red velvet-and-gold crown on her head. The actress was quite funny; she played the King as a hearty, toothy British lady who laughed a lot, a sort of jolly Maggie Thatcher type. Most of the other characters were in woolen trench coats, shirts, and trousers, apart from a couple women in shirtwaist dresses and the two noble lady characters, Bel-Imperia and Isabella, who wore floor-length bias-cut gowns. Oh, and Revenge, who was played by a woman in a slinky black dress and thigh-highs. The costume aesthetic as a whole gestured towards post-WWII, but done in that on-the-cheap manner that works well for community and small theaters.

The sad thing about this production was that I could tell they knew a lot about early modern drama and performance and were trying to sell some of those things to the audience. Direct address, for instance. But in this case, direct address was done badly. One actor pointed to different people in the audience while telling the King about dead bodies on the battlefield, which was disconcerting. Another moment happened when the King looking out toward the audience when asking where certain characters were, as if she was seeing them come through the audience towards her. But then those characters entered from the side, which ruined the illusion. I could see what they were trying to do, but I didn’t buy it.

They also made use of doubling, but particularly badly in one instance where a character, Alexandra, had been established as being in prison for a murder she didn’t commit, but magically, in the next scene, the same actress plays an ambassador speaking directly to the supposed (and not-dead) murder victim. And then back to Alexandra in prison, with very few costume attempts to differentiate between the two characters. I think they may have changed the color of her sash, if anything.

The production wasn’t heedful of internal directions in the text, either. In one instance, the king of Portugal tells his servant, “Stand up, I say,” which clearly indicates, to me, that the character should have probably been kneeling up until that point. You know, the way people do. To kings. But the character was already standing, and took that comment as a somewhat confused direction to stand . . . up . . . straighter.

In some respects, they were trying to be daring, sort of art-house-y, and I applaud the attempt. But these interesting and potentially fruitful bold efforts didn't seem to have a larger meaning to them, or to be applied with any precision. For instance, at one point, a line of women funereally pace across the stage while a character describes a battle (lots of descriptions of battles, this play has), and turn facing the back curtain, and then grasp the curtain and mime sewing. Why? The only thing I can figure is that this happened twice when Bel-Imperia was around, so maybe it was to indicate a feminine space with feminine labor? Otherwise, there was no explanation.

Another effect that was not used consistently enough to create meaning was a flickering light. At one point, it flickered during a character’s death. At another point, it flickered when the ghost of Andrea conferred with Revenge. But was it supposed to indicate death, or ghosts, or revenge, or all three? I have no idea, because there were lots of deaths, and lots of instances where Andrea and Revenge had a conversation, but the flickering light was only on in those two instances, that I could see.

My favorite part was the masque. This was well-done, except for one very glaring part. In this mask, Hieronymo, the protagonist of the play, has engineered an entertainment for the Kings of Spain and Portugal. He has created a play which the rest of the court (including, significantly, his two enemies, Lorenzo and Balthasar) will act out. It was antic, and funny, and silly, and mad-cap, and all the things a masque should be on a budget. They used bunting, balloons, and kazoos, and a jaunty tune played on a piano while the actors sang a bawdy song—yay! Then the characters stabbed each other with pencils and pens—still yay!, think the Kings of Spain and Portugal as they watch this farcical entertainment. But then people start screaming, the piano plays jangling chords, a woman is visibly strangled with bunting, and the Kings of Spain and Portugal are still laughing uproariously. They don’t get it yet. Because everyone is actually dead. Hieronymo comes on stage, delivers a brilliant monologue explaining why he had everyone killed, throws reams and reams of paper into the air, and then the big reveal: he pulls aside the back curtain and on the wall is written “VENGEANCE IS MINE,” and the ghost of his murdered friend Horatio, the reason for his spree of death, stands there.

Only we couldn’t see it because there was TOO MUCH FOG. Seriously. There was so much fog that we couldn’t see a man. Standing there. 30 feet away. It kinda killed the reveal.

Finally Hieronymo has killed everyone, Kings included, and stands with a gun, ready to kill himself, when a single piece of paper drifts down from the rafters—a happy accident, because I’m sure they didn’t plan it. He pulls the trigger, dies, and the ghost of Andrea and Revenge come out on stage and tell us what the ultimate (heavenly or hellish) reward of all the characters will be.

I will say, the ending would have been terrific if not for the fog. Other things I liked:

The vocal delivery. Those actors knew what to do with language, even with rhyming couplets, which is hard.

The actor cast as Lorenzo. He was so smooth-faced, apple-cheeked, young and eager, and completely sinister.

The actress cast as Petregana had a sort of Artful Dodger accent and look about her that I found appealing, if a teensy bit distracting.

One more note:

The play makes repeated reference to pagan gods and a pagan belief system (Proserpine, Bellona, Elysium) but also references to Christianity, i.e. “kiss this cross”. What’s that about?

Edward II at the National

In the month I've been here, I’ve seen five plays. Well, actually seven, but one of the events was a day-long viewing of Shakespeare’s Henry the Sixth, Parts 1, 2, and 3, which is three different plays. But it really just felt like one long play. 

I’ve also seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Taming of the Shrew, Edward II, Private Lives, and The Spanish Tragedy.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was not awesome. The sets and costumes were vibrant and expensive, but the songs were boring and the little boy playing Charlie was far too chirpy. The best part, for me, was at the beginning when they used Quentin Blake’s illustrations to give us a history of chocolate.

The Taming of the Shrew was in a magnificent location—the Minack Theatre (more to come on that place!)—and it was an all-female touring cast from the Globe, so that was an interesting twist. My companions did not like it because it was sloppy and there was bad casting, but other than the casting thing, I generally thought it was charming. It was loud and kind of circus-y, if that’s a thing. Granted, I didn’t stay for the end because it was nighttime, in a sea-facing outdoor theatre, and I was too cold.

Private Lives was perfect. Funny, sexy, smart. The actors had great timing, the set was opulent (Can I please live in Amanda’s Paris apartment?), and the costumes were breathtaking. Particularly Amanda’s wide-legged trouser outfit in the second act (Gallery of photos here). But it’s hard to say anything more about it because, from what I could tell, it was a fairly straightforward rendering of the play. Very good, but nothing surprising.

But the two productions I DO have something to say about . . . well, unsurprisingly, they are early modern plays. First up? Edward II at the National (gallery here):

This is a play by Christopher Marlowe, written in the early 1590’s, and its full title on publication was, “The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer.” Delightful.

On first entering, I found the set confusing, but it ended up being brilliant. All the curtains in the Olivier Theatre were up, and you could see straight back to the wall of the stage. In the middle of that space was a plywood structure like a house without a roof; from up in the seats, you could see straight down inside to the furniture, the patterned walls, etc, but the outside was all raw plywood. It was like looking into a dollhouse. Nearer the audience was a carpeted area with a throne on a raised dais in the center, and a long table to the side covered with golden objects—plates, goblets (I initially wrote giblets; glad it wasn’t giblets), ewers, etc. You know, real medievally kind of things. Like this:

Which, as we all know, leads to this:

He chose poorly. 

The play began with images of past monarchs of England flashing up onto a gold drape hung above the stage, flickering past faster and faster until they stop on an image of John Heffernan in costume as Edward II. This drape lowered to hide the plywood structure and form a golden backdrop to the throne, the scene of Edward’s coronation. He wore a gigantic golden robe, but the rest of his court were suited in an interesting mix of modern and medieval. His sister wore a black, slim-fitting suit and stilletos, but his queen wore a long gown that gestured back to medieval England while still being a bit modern. Think Cersei Lannister. (Actually, a lot of this production reminded me of Game of Thrones; but I watch too much TV.) The guards costumes echoed this conscious mishmash of eras and aesthetics. They wore plate armor, but each helmet was differently shaped—some flat topped, some with a raised visor, some shaped like bulls or wolf-heads, and one with an unsettlingly human face worked into the metal.

From the very outset, you get the feeling that Edward may not be suited to kingship; when answering the question “Will you solemnly swear to govern . . . according to the laws and customs,” Edward pauses for several seconds before saying, “I will.” His hesitance is understood when Gaveston, his banished lover, returned—played by Kyle Soller as a sexy, swaggering hipster with an American accent and a leather jacket.

 With such a ravishing playmate around, how can Edward possibly uphold the “laws and customs” of England? Edward’s rulership is further made ridiculous when he is forced to send Gaveston away again. He signs the papers reluctantly, while his courtiers stand around him singing “God Save the King” in the most melancholy acapella version ever.

Gaveston’s entrance tells us that here was a man who would not play by the rules. Seated in the audience, he begins laughing loudly in his seat before a spot highlighted him. He makes his way down to the stage by balancing on a handrail, all the while whistling, laughing, and speaking of how he will bring the king pleasure of various kinds. And it’s true; Gaveston really does know how to party. At one point, during a party, he and the king hold balloons and take giant open-mouthed gulps from bottles of champagne. Later, when the bishop objects to the king’s preferential treatment of Gaveston, he grabbs the bishop’s mitre and waggles it around like a giant penis before beating him with it. His arrogance knows no bounds; even when the entire court pleads with the king to banish Gaveston again, the two lovers sit in attitudes of carelessness on the throne, Gaveston clapping antically.

This production’s mixture of the old and the new extended to technology, as well. It made use of subtitles flashing up on screen from time to time, telling us the next chapter of action. You know, “The Queen Plots,” “Lancaster is Betrayed,” that kind of stuff. But it also made use of live-action camera footage. Most of the court’s scheming to undermine the king happened “backstage,” in the plywood enclosure, followed by two cameras. Footage from the cameras, jumpy and grainy, was shown to either side of the stage, allowing the audience to watch silent action on stage while listening to a conversation happening in other areas of the palace through the split screen device. At one point, two actors begin their scene on the roof of the Olivier Theatre, actually outside with the London skyline behind them, and the cameras follow them all the way inside and onto the stage.

Edward calls Gaveston back again, at which point the lords have had enough and decide to have Gaveston killed. A massive battle ensues and the plywood walls of the palace are all knocked down. For the second act, a new structure is erected, out of an old army bunker and the old plywood walls of the castle. This structure, covered over with magnificent rugs, and hung haphazardly with mounted animal heads, is the new court where the Queen and her lover Mortimer (you know, of “the tragical fall of proud Mortimer”?) rule while Edward and his supporters are routed and run down. Edward’s throne is there, and at one point Mortimer, played by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, dons a gold cape, perhaps to remind everyone that he has won. 

And, for a while, Mortimer has won; he controls the queen and the king's son, a tiny and lovely Bettrys Jones in a page-boy haircut (below).

Mortimer eventually has all of Edward’s supporters killed, and has Edward kidnapped, beaten, and killed, too, in the most gruesome way possible (best use of doubling ever: Kyle Soller who plays Gaveston also plays Lightborn, the paid murderer of Edward). But Mortimer and the disloyal queen are ultimately punished for their treachery by Edward's staunch young son.

In general, I thought the use of the camera was really surprising and well-done; the only part when it got a bit distracting was in Edward’s prayer, when he’s front-and-center on stage, but they still used a camera to get a close-up of his worn-down, tortured face. I loved the inventive use of interior and exterior sets; the plywood palace itself was a fantastic metaphor for Edward’s shaky kingship, which was realized during the battle when it was knocked down. The mixtures of costumes and high- and low-English (actors sometimes added bits of London patois to the ends of speeches, little tag lines like, “you know?” “yeah,” or “innit?”) really worked for me; I love it when eras clash and clang together. Kyle Soller delivered Gaveston’s lines colloquially, paying no attention to Marlowe’s “mighty lines,” the heavy and consistent downbeat of iambic pentameter that established the other actors as “speaking poetry.” In Soller’s mouth, these lines sounded off-hand, realistic, which worked for Gaveston’s careless attitude in general.

And . . . one word about the marketing . . .  this image, of the wax king, upturned and melting, was brilliant. 

The Devil Is An Ass

Okay, okay, okay, sometimes I like Ben Jonson. THIS PLAY is awesome. And really really weird.

Remember the way Marlowe's Dido begins on Mt. Olympus, among the gods? This play begins in hell. Pug, a junior devil, is asking Satan if he can be allowed to come to London to tempt people and cause mischief (classic Screwtape Letters scenario; if Wikipedia wasn't blacked out, I'd look it up to see if Lewis was inspired at all by this play). Satan says that Pug isn't ready for the kind of evil that London needs, but he eventually gives in and sends Pug to wait on Fitzdottrell, a squire of Norfolk.

So the first question is, what does the title mean? Is Pug an ass (an idiot) for thinking that he can do anything to London that London hasn't already done to itself and worse? Is Satan an ass (an idiot) for agreeing to Pug's proposition? Or is Satan an ass(hole) for allowing Pug to make a fool of himself?

Fitzdottrell's desire to see a devil is pretty funny. He's sort of obsessed with it and doesn't really tell us why, just tells us that he's been "run[ning] wild and call[ing] upon him thus in vain . . . these twelvemonth." Hilarious. What does that even mean? I imagine him out on the moors, naked, doing some sort of devil dances. And of course, he's so obsessed that he has to see the play The Devil is an Ass, which is mentioned in the play. So meta. (Also, Dick Robinson, an actor in the play, is mentioned as an actor who might do very well at playing a woman, one of the tricks that goes on in the play.)

Fitzdottrell is very gullible, though, and sells 15 minutes of conversation with his wife for a nice cloak. The wife is, understandably, outraged at this. She does not intend to cuckold him but she is dismayed by his lack of care for her and for their properties, which he is willing to sign away for any cockamamie plot to make money. As such, he is a gull, a target for "projectors" who try to sell him on such ideas. And, selling time but not bed-time, with his wife, he is a sort of wittol, too. When he sees (or suspects) signs of love for the young gentleman in his wife, he shuts her up.

This situation is a weird amalgam of testing and taming that I can't quite figure out yet. He trusts her enough to withstand being wooed, but not enough to talk back. And when she fails the test by having affection for her lover, she is punished and kept inside. Naturally, she seeks help but not by trading in her body; she persuades her lover, Wittipol, to give up his suit of her which dishonors them both, but to help her save her husband's money.

He does the right thing, and the con-men are conned, Fitzdottrell gets his wish to see a devil and realizes it is more terrifying than he thought, and the married couple are reconciled to each other, with a slight hope that Fitzdottrell will die early so that Wittipol and the wife might be married, a better match.

This play has a slight preoccupation with clothing, as some of Jonson's others have. Fitzdottrell makes sure to dress his wife in the height of finery. For himself, he is partial to fine clothing but cannot resist buying them secondhand, thinking he is getting quite a deal that way. The bit with the cloak is interesting; this cloak seems to be irresistible to Fitzdottrell, much to the amazement of everyone else. And Pug, the devil who has taken on the hanged-man's body, has stolen clothing; as a result of this theft, he is put back into the jail where the hanged-man was earlier executed. And at the end, the stolen clothes (and stolen body, clothing for Pug's spirit) is left behind.

There is also the preoccupation with women's makeup. Tailbush, Eitherside (extremely suggestive names for women), Lady Fitzdottrell, and the "Spanish woman" discuss "fucuses" for quite a while, in dizzying and disgusting detail. The Spanish woman uses a mish-mash of Spanish, French, Italian, and Latin to discuss these face-paints, interesting in light of today's lists of ingredients which might be equally obfuscated to the reader. As in Epicoene, one of the women is not a woman, but a man dressed as a woman, listening to feminine secrets.

And, at the end, Fitzdottrell has his own disguise, a madman who his wife has enchanted by devilry, by using soap to foam at the mouth.

Every Man in His Humour

Ugh. Do I like Jonson, or do I not like him? I'm just not sure! It's so hard to tell. I find him REALLY interesting, that's certain.

This play is often considered Ben Jonson's genre-defining moment. He writes a play about the humours and then everyone writes them. The introduction points out, though, that Jonson was not the first to write a play like this, that Jonson is not even that into the idea of the humours, and that, furthermore, this is not strictly a humours play, since only one character really embodies their humour.

Kitely, apparently, is the only character who is so totally defined by his personality; he is the "jealous husband". But we have other characters in this play who are defined by their theatrical type. The suspicious father (Knowell), the errant son (Edward), the wily servant (the awesomely named Brainworm), the braggart soldier (Bobadill), and the ignorant gull (Stephen). This comedy is very Plautine in nature, coming directly from Greek New Comedy through Roman. And the plot is lovely and tangled and everyone ends up going to to dinner after the marriage of Edward to Bridget, except for Matthew and Bobadill who are symbolically banished as the symbols of war and lovesick melancholy.

I think the correspondences critics have drawn between this play and the Henry IV plays are very interesting. Knowell becomes Henry IV, worried over his wayward son who eventually does him proud. Bobadill is a loud, bragging Falstaff, purely comic in nature, whose "banishment" we do not feel bad, but laugh, about.

Stephen is also funny, the country cousin who doesn't get that everyone, even the servant, is making fun of him. He is proud of his leg, like Andrew Aguecheek, and Brainworm says, "You have an excellent good leg, Master Stephen, but I cannot stay, to praise it longer now, and I am very sorry for't." Stephen fancies himself a poet but puts nonsensical references in his poems to "make up the meter"; he is also proud of his tendency towards melancholy.

A couple notes:

There is an interesting FBAFB correspondence in a reference to "Roger Bacon" and the Brazen Head just a page later.

Matthew, the bad poet, is reading a play (within this play) called "Go by, Hieronymo."