Too much Swash in your Buckle

Just an aside re Actors especially RSC actors. There's only one performer of Shakespeare that I've been able to get past the acting with and that's Sir Ton, (Anthony Sher) . All the others, in my humble opinion, Act Too Much and are more concerned with shouting, filling their leather pants, swashbuckling, pacing the stage with a manly stride and/or behaving in a clichéd manner that would suggest a recent release from a mental institution which in turn is supposed to enable us an insight into our own tortured characters.
Annnnnnd....relax.

Just found this. OK it's from 2003 and the writer is American but hey, he writes a lot of sense. Especially...

  'Shakespeare should grab you by the throat'

7 reasons to hate Shakespeare

Comments (0)By JOEL BEERS Thursday, Jul 3 2003

Welcome to the summer of my discontent: Shakespeare time. Time for Shakespeare by the sea, Shakespeare beneath the stars, Shakespeare in the park, Shakespeare outdoors, Shakespeare indoors. Shakespeare everywhere.

A cursory perusal of upcoming theater indicates that a lot of Shakespeare is either on the boards or will be soon. How much? Don't know. Don't want to depress myself further.

There are few things as glorious as a great production of a Shakespeare play, and few things worse than a bad one. Sadly, the bad outnumber the good. Long, boring and incomprehensible, they add nothing to the Shakespearean dialogue. They neither illuminate, nor comment upon, his limitless play with language or his brilliant insight. They feel like they're being produced by people who know they ought to love Shakespeare for people who feel the same.

Long story short? Too much Shakespeare–too much boring, mediocre Shakespeare–is produced on local stages. If you're not committed to saying something new, different or provocative with your staging, if you're not committed to cutting the windee phuck, and if you're not committed to the idea that, at his core, Shakespeare was a showman who wrote plays to entertain, I present these 10 reasons to stay away from Shakespeare:

1) He's been done to death.

There is so much other great theater out there. Sure, it's not free to produce. Sure, it's not as familiar. But we're going on 500 years of ubiquitous Shakespeare. I don't think papal indulgences, Aztec virgin sacrifices or burning witches at the stake lasted as long. Remember, every time you produce Shakespeare it means you're preventing your audience from appreciating a different writer. Recall the master's own words, "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."

2) Someone else has already thought of it–and probably did it better. Richard III in Nazi Germany. Hamlet (or Macbeth) in the Nixon White House. Othello as an Uncle Tom yes-man killing other dark-skinned people for the white man and constantly berated by a black-power Iago who spouts Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver. Conceptualizing, updating and generally fucking with Shakespeare is fine. But whether your idea takes place in outer space, the old West or a rectory, it's probably already been done. So why bother? Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways.

3) He's wordy.

Shakespeare never heard–or at least never heeded–the adage that less is more. His plays are filled with unnecessary characters, scenes, jokes and rambling speeches. Case in point: the ridiculously convoluted monologue in Henry V,in which a doddering archbishop rambles about the ancient history and geography of France, is some 60 lines long–nearly twice as long as Hamlet's "to be or not to be" monologue. Shakespeare makes David Foster Wallace read like Confucius; if he'd written the begats the Bible would be a 10-volume set. It takes a long time to read him, but even longer to sit through.

"Honorificcabilitudinitatibus."

4) You don't have the meat.

The greatest Shakespeare plays I've seen locally have either featured fantastic ensemble performances (Mark Rucker's Taming of the Shrew at SCR) or towering individual performances (Ron Campbell in Shakespeare Orange County's Richard III, and the Laguna Playhouse's Othello). For the most part, however, inept actors who neither understand nor are able to deliver the words plague most local productions. Unless you have a cast, from top to bottom, that is skilled enough to speak the speech, don't waste my fucking time. "It is not enough to speak," Shakespeare wrote, "but to speak true."

5) He really isn't that good.

It's not just that everyone knows how his plays will end (Romeo kills himself, Hamlet gets stabbed, Othello chokes the white broad). It's also that he stole most of his plots, created so many unnecessary characters, and, if you take away the dick jokes and not-so-veiled homoerotica, really wasn't that funny. And even those who proclaim him an architect of the English language don't realize that a lot of the phrases he's credited with creating–all that glitters is not gold, it's Greek to me–were hackneyed in his day. "Oh, what fools these mortals be."

6) Period sucks. Period.

The worst Shakespeare is the faithful, the traditional, the kind that tries, desperately, to produce it just as Shakespeare wrote it. This is deadly Shakespeare, the worst kind of bardolatry. It is, invariably, the product of people who love him too much. As Charles Marowitz once wrote, "The people who revere him always do the worst work. Shakespeare should grab you by the throat."

7) Defining versions are readily available.

Yep, there's a lot of unwatchable crap on VHS or DVD. Roman Polanski's Macbeth, Mel Gibson as Hamlet, and the execrable Romeo and Juliet starring Leonardo De Crappio certainly can be missed. But Olivier's filmed version of Richard III, his triumphant King Lear in a 1984 made-for-TV filming, and Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 Romeo and Juliet, which is about the horniest teenage fuck film ever made, kick ass. Some will argue that Shakespeare needs to be experienced live. That may be true, but so does the electric chair. "We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves."

The French abroad...

French school children have descended on Stratford in their hordes for their yearly Shakespeare & Shoplifting (now combined) sessions. So Stratford's pavements (sidewalks) are awash with well dressed Parisian teens who insist on pushing the elderly into the road to be hit and possibly killed by the increasing number of illegal Polish/Latvian drivers who plague Stratford upon Avon's streets.

*Head explodes*

Jesus Christ! Just came upon someone on Facebook who uses the word 'prithee' when discussing Hamlet  as in, 'More details on Pippa, prithee. What was she wearing in the mad scene'? 

Probably says 'Pray tell' as well.

Alas poor-atishoo...

Just saw Hamlet going into Stratford upon Avon Doctor's surgery. He didn't look too good.

Slinger's Hamlet

As one might expect Slinger's Hamlet (as it shall, now and forever be known) went down a treat which, what with all the pre-publicity and this new luvie fad of releasing cinema-like trailers, doesn't leave me that surprised. Hopefully that will be it, no more Slinger wielding a sword. No more Slinger dressed in God-knows-what, looking earnest and thoughtful (see below) and moody etc and please no more Slinger telling anyone who will listen that he knows he's ugly and therefore not Hollywood material.
Anyway, it goes without saying, everybody loved it darling and of course I shall, now that there are £10 tickets coming up go and see what all the fuss was about. Although I, unlike the hordes of  misguided Slingerwrights remain convinced that Slinger's Hamlet will not make the world a better place.



'Slinger has been hitting on previous Hamlets – he doesn't say who – for tips. "They all say the same thing: whatever you do, it's one of the few parts where you don't play it, it plays you." He looks thoughtful. "Which of course begs the question, 'Who am I?' 

                                                               You are...Man with Pizza on Head.

Brown Nosing.

 I know I go on about Actors rather a lot on these pages but the truth of the matter is it's probably the Actors  Followers/Fans that bring out the worst in me. Their inappropriate fawning over people (Actors) who don tights and make-up for a (good) living  (at least in Stratford upon Avon) makes me want to throw up frequently. Some of the brown-nosing I've witnessed would fill enough sick bags to reach the moon and back.

Unfortunately, these Followers spend a serious amount of time Tweetering and Facebooking  not only telling us what fine actors He or She may be but also insist on informing us what wonderful human beings they (the Actors) are when they partake in something called 'Real Life'. What I'd like to know is how do the Tweeters and Facebookers know this? Where do they get their information from?

Actually, I do know.

These assumptions are entirely based around the fact that said fawned-over Actor acknowledged the Followers pathetic existence by passing a remark directly to them, a remark deemed so full of wisdom and insight that the Follower experienced what can only be described as a Religious Orgasm. A remark somewhere on the lines of,  'Good Morning'.

It also works the other way.
There are a large group of Actors who are embarrassed by how they spend their waking hours and go out of their way to prove to all and sundry that they are 'normal'. They will spend hours 'drinking with the boys' (usually backstage staff) boring the pants off them with tales of * 'how they just fell into the business'. Either that, they say, 'or become an accountant'.

* This story usually entails a drunken episode with friends who, for a prank, steered the soon to become Actor and star, towards an audition which He or She passed with flying colours....yawn.

All quiet.

All quiet on Stratford upon Avon streets.
Not an Actor in sight thank God.
Of course, they're all working, unlike this morning when a herd of Lovies passed me by all screaming in unison and at the tops of their voices...

'Red lorry - Yellow lorry - Red lorry - Yellow lorry'.

 Damn their vocal exercises.