Sometimes I think I see Shakespeare the Theatre Maker shining through the words. I see the man who put on plays, who rehearsed & acted in them and spent his days at the theatre. “Begin at this line” is what calls to mind the experience of rehearsing a play. I’ve been in rehearsal myself these last few days and the numbers of times we’ve all spoken a variation on this line is surely well beyond anything else we say. There’s the “Where should we start?” version or the “Go from this line.” There’s the “From where?” and the “Let’s start at that line.” Hamlet doesn’t just want the Player to recite the speech, he wants him to go from a particular section and he knows he needs to instruct him where. Rehearsal is sometimes just a process of knowing where to begin something and where to end it (though the ending is almost never nearly as significant for rehearsals.)

That this violent bloody gory speech is spoken from one lover to another is easy to forget. If this bit of Aeneas were a real play, what would he be trying to accomplish with the telling of this epic tale? Is this a seduction? Is the man covered in blood with eyes like carbuncles meant to give Dido a little thrill? Or does it work the way a horror movie works – by scaring your lady love a little bit so she gets a little closer and wants to hold your hand?

I would love to see this play that Hamlet remembers. Is it just Dido and Aeneas or is there a greater frame around it?

I chiefly love that speech too. Its language is chewy and bloody and full of muscle. It draws attention to itself as beautiful language. I love “coagulate gore” adore “roasted in wrath and fire” and the mobled queen running barefoot up and down.

It feels like Shakespeare the poet pushes his way past Shakespeare the dramatist and says, “Look what I would do if I didn’t care about action!” It’s showy and tremendous. I love it. I want to bite into it and consume it.

I also envy Hamlet’s ability to hear something once and recall it. If I were in this scene, I’d be all like, “Hey, can you say that part about the coagulate gore? It’s like, Priam, or Pyrrhus or Aeneas talking about those guys? And there’s something about a milky head? Can you do that one?”

I have to wonder if someone once said this to Shakespeare himself. Is he quoting something he once heard from an admirer? This praise could be given to this writer’s work. I also wonder if Shakespeare had a play that was his caviary to the general. I don’t know enough about production history to know which of the plays might have bombed with the public but praised by the those with perceptive judgments in such matters. I could guess: King John? Comedy of Errors? Henry VI? But it all makes me quite curious about how Shakespeare perceived the reception of his work. Most writers I know have a play that is dear to their hearts that no one else ever quiet understood. Which play did Shakespeare hold close to his?

My friend got a rejection notice for his play that proclaimed it theatrical, powerful and compelling. The quality of the piece was obvious to this theatre. However, they chose not to produce it.

We laughed for a long time about this because generally the work that they DO produce is shallow, dull and lame. We imagined a rejection notice that was explicit about that.

“Your work was powerful, theatrical and compelling. We regret to inform you that that is not what we do here.

When you create a less interesting, less compelling piece of work, please let us know, as that will fit much more easily into our season.

Your work was excellent but that’s not what we do. Regards,
Theatre Company of Mediocre Works.”

Whatever happened to caviar? In the 80s, it was all we talked we about. There was a high symbolic vibration around the stuff. As kids, we were all convinced it was disgusting. Ew! Fish eggs?! So gross! People really eat that?! Oh – just rich people? Why do rich people eat it? Why are they so weird?

Caviar was the ultimate sign of wealth – expensive and silly.

But it was the 80s and more people aspired to wealth in a caviar way so it may be that caviar had slipped down the slide of downward mobility as more people became upwardly mobile. You never hear about caviar anymore. It either became more commonplace and something rarer replaced it. (What would that be?) Or the rich stopped talking about it.

Or the internationalization of culture kicked in. . .after all, we started actually eating sushi in America instead of making fun of it. We had more direct lines to Russia, where the caviar came from. The world has shifted and caviar dreams are less rarified than they were then. Caviar seems to have gone a bit out of fashion.

It is a constant mystery to me that quality is not always recognized or taken up, that good works are not embraced by the masses. How is it that shows like Real Housewives prevail while shows like The Hour or Firefly or Arrested Development get cancelled for lack of viewers? I don’t understand.

It happens so often, I am often confused when things of quality actually succeed. I fully expected Nashville to get cancelled after a season. I never expected Brief Encounter to run on Broadway. War Horse ran about 5 more years than I thought it would. But Mamma Mia! is still running. And one of the most brilliant musicals I’ve ever heard has yet to be produced.

This is an interesting distinction – the difference between speaking a speech and acting it. It seems to be the difference between recitation and performance. In today’s world, it might be the difference between a reading and a show. In this case, however, the Player keeps the text in his memory instead of the page.

I am impressed with this mostly due to the sheer amount of text the First Player has kept in his mind after only one (possible) performance. I still recall bits of speeches I learned years ago but generally those were reinforced with dozens of performances. The ones I learned and performed once vanish quickly.

For example, I learned Hamlet’s soliloquy, the one that will come at the end of this scene in response to the speech the Player speaks for him. I spent a great deal of time learning it and practicing it and it had exactly one performance. I thought I’d never forget it. But a handful of years later I can only call to mind the same lines I knew before I learned it. Gertrude’s speech about Ophelia, however, I could probably pull off, because I performed it a hundred times.

I acted that Hamlet soliloquy, too. . .I don’t think it could qualify as a speech simply spoken. I know I ended up on my knees. That is definitely past the bounds of speaking a speech and into the acting territory.

The chaplain seemed to be shouting. He stood inches away from us but he shouted, with some fervor, about the Everlasting and redemption and being united in Him or something to that effect. I found it hard to pay attention to his speech. Everything around him was so much more eloquent.

The greenness of the grass.
The white stones lined up like soldiers up and down the hills.
The band standing at attention.
The horses’ hooves clicking along the road to the sound of drums.
Hands moving in perfect synchronicity.
Guns firing puffs of smoke into the air.
A flag pulled like rigging.
A pair of boots turned the wrong way round the horse.
A box much like the ones my grandfather’s cigars used to rest in – full of ashes.
A lone man with a bugle.
Dozens of legs walking in unison away from the scene.

Even, he himself, after the speech was over and he knelt down to deliver the triangle of the flag, was more eloquent.