VENUS AND ADONIS –SIZZLINGLY HOT!

Most people today think of Shakespeare as a dramatist –the dramatist, and just about everyone knows something about his plays, even if they have never seen them. But relatively few people outside of us ”Shakspeareholics” know that at heart he was perhaps first and foremost a poet –and it was as a poet he really gained his reputation in his own time. Ok, perhaps (hopefully) you know he wrote sonnets –154 of them according to my collected edition– and that these are some of the finest, most beautiful love poems ever written, each 14 lines long. But he also wrote much longer poems – almost works of drama in themselves. The first of these is Venus and Adonis –and I’ll bet only a handful of you have ever read it. Yet, it was enormously popular in Shakespeare’s day, with at least ten reprints in his lifetime alone; in fact it was the most frequently printed of all Shakespeare’s works while he lived. Nowadays, you probably find it stuffed at the back of a ”Collected Works” where it is left unread by all but the most dedicated of readers –and admittedly, I too had never encountered it before, knowing it only by name, and assuming its obscurity meant that it was difficult and possibly not very interesting. How wrong I was!

For Venus and Adonis is a delight! And I want you all to go away and read it through, right now, aloud! It will take less than an afternoon, but it will fill you with the same experience as seeing a Shakespeare play, for this is drama –a drama poem– that is both simple and wide-ranging, comic and tragic, and oozing with lust, desire, eroticism and life! It has some of the most explicit sexual language in all of Shakespeare (which may partly explain why it has been pushed to the back of the collected editions ever since Victorian times), and some of the juiciest reflections on everything to do with ”love” that is found anywhere in literature. And its language is brilliant –this is Shakespeare discovering and cherishing his love of sounds, words, ideas vocalized and sheer poetry. This is why I urge anyone who reads this to read it aloud; so much of what makes this piece delightful is in the rhythm of the lines, and one is constantly astounded by the sheer creativity and sharpness of thought at work.

The story itself comes from Ovid –Shakespeare’s favourite writer, it would seem– and is a simple enough ”two hander” without the intricacies of plot that we find in the plays; yet it is easy to see this being performed as a stage drama –much of it is in dialogue, and there is something very theatrical about it. Apparently it was written during a time when the theatres in London were closed due to the plague, so there was no outlet for the young Shakespeare’s dramatic works –and thus he wrote a pair of dramatic poems that people could read for themselves (the other being The Rape of Lucrece). I would love to see it presented on stage in some way today.

Interestingly, there are echoes of the play that preceded it –Richard III– in the central role played by a boar in the poem, and the theme of a determined woman lusting for a young, beautiful man is something that clearly appeals to Shakespeare because the comedies that follow use similar elements of desire, sometimes to great comic effect –such as the poor Dromio in The Comedy of Errors being ”cornered” by the determined kitchen wench. But Venus and Adonis has some great comic moments too, that made me laugh out loud and whoop!

So for richness of language, incredibly creative imagery, and sheer delight, Venus and Adonis deserves to be FAR better known that it is. Though I said it could be read in an afternoon, I myself spread the reading of it over a couple of days. It is not difficult to tackle, once you grasp the ”tune” or ”metre”, but it needs a bit of concentration and plenty of time to savour each verse, for this is a meal with many delicious courses. Enjoy!

Favourite lines:

Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast.
Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

SHAKES-SCREEN: Richard III (1955)

Courting the Camera.

Of the three Shakespeare plays that Laurence Olivier directed and starred in, Richard III is my favourite, though I think both Henry V (1944) and Hamlet (1948) are more filmic and wide-reaching visually. Richard III is more stagey, more theatrical. This is not necessarily a bad thing, for it captures probably one of the finest, most delicious performances ever in a context that respects its theatrical heritage (Olivier famously played Richard on stage earlier). And there is something about the very construction of the play that is very theatrical –essentially it is a series of small dramas or set pieces: scenes that in themselves are works of art, and beautifully crafted that way by Shakespeare. The staginess works best when Olivier speaks directly to us, because then he is using an unconventional film device (actors don’t normally talk to the camera) to improve upon a common theatrical device, creating a bond between role and audience. That this is not employed throughout the play is as much Shakespeare’s fault as Olivier’s, because it is written that way –we get no direct address from Richard in the crucial demise at the battle, and are thus relegated back to being observers rather than “confidents”.

Upon rewatching it, I was struck by how much what seeing was itself an historical document –of a style of acting and staging that perhaps to us now seems dated, but which at the time was perfectly relevant and true. When diction counted for something and clarity of expression and utterance was all important. Some of the performances come across as more dated than others, perhaps because of their shameless heightened theatricality. This is particularly true of some of lesser characters whose have no star appeal to buoy them up and are dependent merely upon their craft. Yet someone like Ralph Richardson is such an interesting screen personality that his performance –like that of Olivier’s– remains fresh and vivid. Michael Gough does wonders with his small part, and Claire Bloom is marvellous –the scene in which her character is wooed by Richard is one of my favourite in both the film and in all of Shakespeare.

People have remarked upon the unevenness of the final act, with a sunny Spanish landscape so clearly standing in for soggy England that it distracts our attention away from the narrative; the theatricality is gone and we are suddenly made of this being a film location. The way this necessary shift from studio to outdoors is handled is much more deftly achieved in Olivier’s earlier Henry V, which also has a more satisfying battle scene, but that was written more precisely too; the battle scene in Shakespeare’s Richard III only has a few lines and few directions so any film version will have to expand upon these. I think in this case there must have been many logistic difficulties with the location filming because this section of the film is sadly not on par with what has come before.

Yet, though I may seem negative, I am merely pointing things that I feel could have been better. They do not affect my enjoyment of the film, nor my high regard of Olivier as a director and performer. And of all Shakespeare films, this is the one I return to again and again.

Richard III (1955)
Director: Laurence Olivier
With: Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Claire Bloom, Cedric Hardwicke

RICHARD III –The One With the Hump!

I’ll admit from the outset that this is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, and one I know it quite well, having made and performed a condensed version of it some years ago. In that version, I played Richard as a kind of puppeteer –the other characters represented by pictures, dolls etc. Re-reading the play, I am again struck by how much of a manipulator or puppet-master Richard is –and by how absolutely his character dominates the play. Though many of the other characters are finely drawn by Shakespeare, they are doomed to be mere marionettes; their strings being pulled by Richard exactly as he want, and we never really get under the skin of any of them to anywhere near the same degree that we do Richard. And unlike many of the other historical plays, that have numerous sub-plots and intrigues and battles of wills, here it is really ALL about Richard and what he wants. He dominates and drives the story so absolutely, and in such a horrifically charming way, that one is hardly aware of the relative simplicity of the play’s plot. Yet it is brilliant theatre, and a brilliant study of power and intrigue. It is all about what Richard wants, and how he goes about getting it. And the great thing is that right from the start he is so honest in telling us what he is about to do –he charms the audience (or reader) as much as he charms those who he manipulates on order to attain his goals. And he is a great convincer –the wooing of Lady Anne is the most audacious wooing scene in the history of drama, yet it is contrasted by the failure of others to be equally convincing: witness Clarence’s failure to convince the men sent to kill him of sparing him –even though one of them is reluctant to go through with it. Or Buckingham’s untimely request for his reward. In this story, things are done one way: Richard’s way!

I read the play primarily as a series of ”set pieces” –the above-mentioned scenes being prime examples. Shakespeare must have hugely enjoyed writing it, because no scene seems at all forced or heavy –the lines burst from the page, and he would have known that the audiences would be expecting something extraordinary when it came to presenting such a notorious king. Baddies are always intriguing, but no other baddie in Shakespeare comes close to Richard. Or is half as fascinating. Personally, I find the most intriguing and illuminating part of the play to be the dream sequence in the last act: This has a naked rawness about it that reveals much more about the character of Richard than we have seen before –it is a man of action suddenly introspective –seeing himself for what he is. It has a very modern edge to it, and this was the part of the play I most enjoyed working on and performing when I did my condensed version. Shakespeare brilliantly puts this BEFORE the battle, so that when he starts fighting we have already seen the depths of his soul, so there is something quite pathetic about his demise, with those most famous of famous lines: ”A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”. Other than this the actual battle sequence as written is a bit of a let-down – it’s dispensed with in a mere few lines, and is far inferior to the battle scenes of some of the other history plays. It could be Shakespeare just wanting to round the story quickly (after four very long acts), but its low-keyness may be intentional: the build up to the battle is of far more concern and interest, in the same way that the fight to GET the crown is far more important than having it. Richard has nowhere to go once his goals are achieved. When I played Richard in my condensed version I chose to show this by having him literally deflate like a balloon –the final ”s” of his final ”horse” became the hiss of air escaping from a balloon as he crumpleed to the ground.
The discovery of Richard’s body a few years ago, and the campaign to prove that he was NOT the despotic, villainous king that Shakespeare created, has meant that Richard continues to intrigue us. I think whatever one’s view of the historical king, one can still enjoy the Richard of the play as a masterly creation.

I could write so much more about this play, but will save some points for my reviews of the three film versions I have been watching. One final thing though that I really, really like about this play is the way Shakespeare gives some of his most beautiful lines ever to the murderer of the young princes –the description of their death could so easily have been written in a direct, shocking or coarse way, but Shakespeare bravely makes the choice to go another way, and the passage is made all the more memorable for it. This is the work of a genius.

Favourite Line:

Richard:
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
(Act V, Sc.3)

Character I would most like to play: Richard (of course, of course .. !)