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Crazy Like the Fox

‘Drama’ Category

  1. Translations by Brian Friel

    18/03/2020 by axonite

     

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    “Thou art translated”  – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (III. i. 112-13)

     

    While Shakespeare’s play is clearly not about interlingual translation in any overt sense, there nevertheless is a respect in which it reflects the issue of what is involved in the translation from one language and cultural tradition to another, and most particularly the fact that such an activity inevitably entails a displacement and transformation as well as a potential deformation of its object.
    Oxford Journals: Essays in Criticism

     

    Because the Qur’an stresses its Arabic nature, Muslim scholars believe that any translation cannot be more than an approximate interpretation, intended only as a tool for the study and understanding of the original Arabic text.
    Just Islam

     

    Do we mean what we say?

    Language is an approximation of meaning, but as meanings change, so the language must too. However, for many people, particularly those from marginalised groups, language is an important expression of identity. To deprive a people of their own language and to impose another is a form of cultural imperialism. French was the legal language in England for 200 years, but while English survived, it emerged different, transformed – a reflection of new realities. However, some languages vanish without trace.

     

     IMG_6019Honesty in advertising?

     

    Why do we learn?

    In Friel’s play Translations, the initially innocent-seeming translations of place names are gradually revealed to have more sinister implications – but he does not stop there. As many critics note, this is not a two-dimensional play. No matter what the rights and wrongs of displacing a language, many will wish to learn the oppressors’ tongue (Hence the Latin and Norman French roots of words that survive even today in English) for practical reasons. The language of poetry or of love may be replaced by the language of commerce – and this issue strikes deep, going far beyond words to values. Do we learn to edify alone or to fit ourselves with skills for the world? And if we only learn to acquire skills, are we then missing some essential part of our humanity? Those who study purely for edification become irrelevant, whereas those who study purely for skills become philistines.

     

     IMG_7591Poor old Pete

     

    It’s a kind of magic!

    My words when they speak me

     

    Do we speak the words or do the words speak us? This is a question that has puzzled the brightest of minds (and which we will encounter again in other plays in this unit). Some claim that the concepts embedded within a language (and even the sounds of the words) shape our thoughts. Words have power over us, we are told. In its extreme form, we see in the Bible that Peter’s words condemn him – he denies three times that he knew Jesus (Matthew 26:72), then later must undo this curse that he has brought upon himself by saying three times that he loves Jesus (John 21:14).

     

    IMGP0673

    Productions

    Rose theatre, Kingston

    Crucible, Sheffield

    Syracuse University

     

    Dying Languages

    Intl Business Times

    The Independent

    BBC

     

    Language

    Structuralism and Semiotics


  2. Feedback on the recent Romeo & Juliet exam practice

    11/03/2020 by axonite

     

    The vast majority of people chose the first question. Here, most concentrated on explaining the meaning and implications of the imagery though – rather than on addressing the question of “in what ways does Shakespeare make you sympathise with Romeo and Juliet here?” Adapting your knowledge to the exact requirements of the question is a vital skill that you will need to practise.
     
    In this particular question, the temptation to explain meanings should be resisted! (in fact, you will never be asked what – only how). There is so much content that could demonstrate your understanding – but if it is irrelevant, then it does not belong in your essay. This is very annoying when it happens, but you need to prepare for just such an eventuality. Here, in this question, it is only the emotional effect that interests us. There is no need to explain in detail in this response what birds or pomegranates signify – because what is important is that each element represents separation. Night and Day, the birds of night and day, the reference to Persephone, the sun and moon, life and death are all opposites – because the lovers are being pulled in opposite directions! They are torn between their desires and the demands of reality. The main way in which Shakespeare “makes us feel sympathy/creates a sense of” invites sympathy for the eponymous lovers is through the rich language. Yes, it is performed on stage (a visual medium) but it is not a movie – much of the visualisation arises from the words that Shakespeare has the lovers speak. It is hyperbolic. To modern ears, this exaggeration may seem silly, but it was intended to create emotional intensity.
     
    The comical moments add piquancy to the lovers’ piteous parting, as they switch roles when Juliet realises the implications of Romeo staying any longer – her kinsmen will murder him. The notion of the lark “straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps” is also amusing, undercutting the seriousness of their imminent separation. Thus, Shakespeare has Juliet declaim that (usually) “the lark makes sweet division” between night and day – but not now because it heralds the morning and Romeo’s hasty flight.
     
    What of the rest of the extract? From the entrance of the Nurse, there is an even greater urgency, and they exchange intimate, highly relatable, tender assurances of love (I must hear from thee every day in the hour”). During their hurried terms of endearment, Juliet questions if they will “ever meet again.” Despite Romeo’s assurance that they will laugh about this in their future life today, the foreknowledge of their doom (from the chorus at the outset) ensures that this is a particularly poignant parting.
     
    Question 2 is the general one. Here, we need to reflect on the ways in which Juliet and the Nurse interact over the course of the play. It is comical that this rambunctious and earthy woman (with her ribald humour) should be the surrogate mother for a highborn lady! As Friar Lawrence is confidant to Romeo, so the Nurse is to Juliet. When first we meet the Nurse, she talks of how she was originally a wet nurse to the baby Juliet (after her own daughter died). She speaks fondly of how Juliet “wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed” (that ever I nursed) indicating that there had been others. She also talks of how she dreams of one day seeing Juliet married. When Juliet confides her love for Romeo, it is the Nurse who acts as go-between. Although her duty is to Lady Capulet, her devotion to the daughter overrules her sense of decorum. Moreover, when Juliet is eager for the latest news of Romeo, the Nurse teases her by withholding the information, complaining about her aching feet and how she is out of breath. Juliet is exasperated, but quickly pleads with (and manipulates) the Nurse. This is more like the joshing of friends (a counterpoint to Romeo and Mercutio). However, ultimately the Nurse’s sense of pragmatism (in her advice to marry Paris and forget Romeo) leads to Juliet rejecting her. At the close of the play, whether or not the Nurse was truly a “good friend” to Juliet is thus a matter for personal judgement.

     


  3. A View from the Bridge

    16/03/2017 by axonite

     

    Eddie, the tragic hero
    Tragedies traditionally took as their heroes men and women of high office (kings, queens, princesses etc) but Miller believed the “ordinary” man to be an appropriate protagonist for his plays. In fact, he shows us characters who are not “ordinary,” an implicit statement that there is no such thing as “ordinary.” The USA is a meritocracy (at least in theory) where the power lies with the so-called “ordinary” person (again, at least in theory). Eddie is in fact from a solidly working class environment – but his passions are just as “Greek” (as Miller terms them) as any high-born emperor. Like them, his fatal flaw drives him to his own self-destruction. “Eddie Carbone had never expected to have a destiny.” A “destiny”? What does Miller mean by this?

     

    Eddie’s self-denial
    Eddie cannot face up to the reality that he finds Catherine (his neice and god-daughter) attractive, and so he decides that “something aint right” about Rodolpho, the man she admires. His apparently effeminate attributes (and even his stature) seem evidence enough to Eddie that he is actually a homosexual and thus only interested in Catherine as a means to gaining American citizenship – the fact that he is buying luxury items seems to confirm this – “he’s here to stay,” Eddie says.

     

    Alfieri
    Like Rod serling in The Twilight Zone, Alfieri acts as the narrator. His function is, in a sense, the “bridge” of the title – he acts as a link between our world (comfortable ‘tame’ middle class) and that of the working class American Italians in their enclave. The “bridge” is not just the literal Brooklyn one (from which we may look down as we pass over) but a functional one within the play itself.

     

     

    Something’s lost, but something’s gained
    Perhaps “civilised” means ‘tamed’? Yes, it means that there is less bloodshed (no more Al Capone), but is something lost too? Miller has Alfieri call Capone “the greatest Carthaginian of them all” – a man born in New York, not North Africa! Why? Probably because Carthage fought against the rule of Rome, which Miller may be using here as a metaphor for a civilising power. Southern Italians, in particular, have long held a deep suspicion of the law – but Alfieri notes that he now feels safer. Nevertheless, this “ordinary” man sometimes yearns for an idealised past on the Mediterranean. He feels a sense of loss. Something is missing now, something raw and vital. Something Authentic. Something that Alfieri admires in Eddie. Could it be that like Carthage, Eddie too wages an unwinnable war against a younger power? He is ultimately doomed (his “destiny”) but his refusal to back down, his insistence on regaining his “name” (his honour), is an admirable quality.

     

    Poetic Justice
    Eddie dies from the very weapon with which he threatens Marco.
    This scenario is often a cliche in action movies because it clears the hero of any blame – the villain is a victim of his own evil machinations (Typically, he forgets a trap that he set earlier or…he dies from his own hand in a duel). If the universe itself is somehow responsible for the villain’s doom, it is called Natural Justice. When the punishment fits the crime, we call it Poetic Justice. Is Eddie a villain? Is the universe punishing him? Does he (and remember that ‘he’ is a fictional construct representing people like ‘him’ in the real world) deserve his fate?

     

    “…something perversely pure calls to me from his memory…he allowed himself to be wholly known…I think I will love him more than all my sensible clients.”

     

    Links
     
    BBC Bitesize
     
    Universal Teacher
     
    Tragedy and the Common Man by Arthur Miller
     
    The Arthur Miller Society


  4. Structure

    11/10/2014 by axonite

    When I was 7 years old, an author came to my school to give a talk. I remember that he said that a good story “must have a beginning, a middle and an end.” At the time, I thought that this was so blindly obvious that it didn’t really need to be said. However, I came to realise that what he meant was that a writer should consciously structure his/her work. This is true of non-fiction as well as fiction.

     

    You have probably heard of the Well-Made Play:

     

    7 Things Every Play Must Have
    The Four Stages
    TeacherWeb

     

    However, what is true of Drama is also true of novels, short stories, essays and speeches (Pay attention, those of you who have IOCs coming up).

     

    Essay Rubric
    A Guide to Writing Essays

     

    Does your essay writing resemble a stream of consciousness? If so, then you need to address your structure as a matter of some urgency. Even if you are actually writing in the style of Talking Heads, you will notice that Alan Bennett does, in fact, structure his monologues.

     

    Your structure is the skeleton around which you build the body of your speech, essay, story or whatever. In the case of the short story, the author may pose a question at the start and give his/her verdict at the end. Thus, by referring back to the original premise (without actually repeating) an author can confer upon the story a sense of completeness. This is the purpose of a conclusion – it is not a summary – it simply concludes. Too many oral exams fizzle out at the end, with the student saying, “um…er…that’s about it really.” Nothing screams Lack of Structure at an examiner louder than an oral exam that ends this way. So, before you come to talk or write, decide on the beginning middle and end.

     

    So true. Send this to your project manager.


  5. The Scottish Play

    24/04/2014 by axonite

     

    110ea

     

     

    Macbeth (or The Scottish Play, as actors call it) is pure propaganda. Your teachers repeatedly tell you that “all stories are lies,” that everything we read (or every film or play we see) is an expression of the author’s views. Sometimes this is subtle, sometimes obvious – but human beings can never be impartial in their writing. The evidence suggests that this play was the result of one particular event in British history, a defining moment that is still commemorated yearly in the U.K. – The Gunpowder Plot.

    When Protestant monarch King James VI of Scotland became James I of England too, the Catholics were hoping for a lessening in religious oppression. However, as their early hopes were dashed, many became disgruntled. A group of conspirators thus decided to take radical action – they would attempt to blow up the king by planting explosives beneath The Houses of Parliament (and killing numerous politicians along the way). The Gunpowder Plot failed – and James was determined that no one should try this crime again.

    Despite being elected king (Elizabeth I died without an heir and appeared undecided whether he should succeed her), James was convinced that God had ordained him monarch. He believed in The Divine Right of Kings (no one could question him, since above him was only God) and so to kill a king was thus a crime against God.

    In the aftermath of the Gunpowder plot, James immediately subverted an existing pre-Christian festival and re-named it Guy Fawkes Night (after one of the conspirators, whose face you may recognise from V For Vendetta and the Occupy the City anti-Capitalist excess protests). He then appears to have commissioned Shakespeare to produce Macbeth, a play that tells us in no uncertain terms that those who kill their monarchs are creatures of the devil and will go to Hell.

    arnie 

     ➠➠Hero➠➠➠King ➠➠➠Monster➠➠➠➠➠➠➠➠

     

    The play is set in Scotland and contains some of James’ supposed ancestors (who, Shakespeare is eager to exonerate from any possible blame). It charts the moral decline of a man whose ambition leads him to listen to the voices of women (another of King James’ directions for the play, perhaps?) who, in terms of the drama, act as visual representations of the temptations within his own mind. At the start, Shakespeare repeatedly emphasises that this is a brave, fearless and heroic man, equating him with Mars (The God of War). He is like an American comic book hero – and when we first hear of him, he has just literally “carved” his way through the enemy ranks to disembowel their leader! (Think Captain America with a Scottish accent) However, when he murders the king to become king, this pivotal moment sets him on a course which will ultimately change him from hero to monster. This is why the play is a tragedy – a man with such incredible potential throws it all away by allowing himself to be seduced by evil desires.

     

    In the course of the play, Shakespeare never misses an opportunity to flatter King James (“What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?” Act 4, sc1, ll.112–117) and to assert that those who (like one of the defendants in the Gunpowder Plot) “equivocate” (deceive without technically lying), cheat and (above all) murder, will certainly be doomed to “the everlasting bonfire.”

     

    “His fiend-like Queen”

    In this play, very little is what it seems (A sense of paranoia pervades all). Lady Macbeth appears to be a monster – but Shakespeare later subverts and re-frames this perspective…

    Links:
    The play on-line
    BBC Bitesize
    MacDeath!
    The real Macbeth
    The Globe Theatre: Macbeth
    Shakespeare’s Life and Times
    Macbeth on-line lesson
    Macbeth cartoon
    Thailand bans Macbeth
    Enjoying Macbeth
    Macbeth: Paranoid Killer?
    Britannica study Guide: Macbeth


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