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In a message dated 8/14/03 10:13:07 AM, kbcdlovejo@... writes:

<< Dogs and horses and gardening and remodeling and children and conferences
aren't as important as algebra and chemistry and Shakespeare. That's the way
of
the country.
>>

SHAKESPEARE!?

Shakespeare is WAY more important than algebra and chemistry, unless one
works doing chemical research or nuclear physics or some weirdo thing like that.

This week Marty, a macho 14 year old American boy, watched Othello with me.

I studied Othello in college, meaning it was one of the plays I had to read
and talk about and pass a test on. Then I saw it when it came out with
Lawrence Fishburn and Kenneth Branagh. I haven't watched the other two Othello
movies.

So... I had read it once in the 70's, seen a movie in the early 80's, and
that was all. Seems like a lot. (Plus all my familiarity with other Shakespeare
plays, and being raised reading the King James Bible, and the cherry on the
top of "I have an English degree.")

So I asked Marty if he wanted to watch it with me since it has Lawrence
Fishburn. Marty and I have been Lawrence Fishburn fans since he was Cowboy Curtis
on PeeWee's Playhouse, and we rooted for him in Searching for Bobby Fisher,
and so Marty said "Sure."

I warned him it wasn't a happy play. Definitely a trajedy.

Well. Marty understood what was going on perfectly well. He learned the
characters' names as it went. He was having NO trouble. A couple of times when
it seemed least like English I'd look at him or ask him if he got that, and he
had.

He made comments that were as good as anybody would have made. He talked
about Iago being the main character, and I thought about saying "antagonist" and
"protagonist," but decided not to. We watched half and quit til the next day.

I talked to Keith about it. He said "Well, it's because they've been exposed
to Shakespeare their whole lives, and nobody's told them it's supposed to be
hard." I told him I hadn't said "antagonist," but maybe I should the next day.

What I HAD said (I told him) was "But if they called it 'Iago the Shit,' it
would have given away the story." He said it might be because they want to
focus on good guys instead of glorifying evil.

So the next day we made an especially good lunch and sat down with it to
watch the rest.

Oh! The night before, after we had quit, I put on the Reduced Shakespeare
Company, right to the Othello part, and showed Marty up to the part in the movie
we'd seen. It was funny, but I turned it off before they would give away
what Marty didn't know. He had been about to go up and play video games, but
said he would stay to see that. It was two minutes or less.

Then he said "Do they do ALL the plays?"

"Not really. They do all the histories as a football match, and they combine
the comedies into one big story."

"Do they do Hamlet?"

"Yeah."

"I want to see it."

Hamlet's the longest one, but he said yeah, he's rather see that and then go
play.

By the time Hamlet was over, Kirby was back and took over his own video game,
but Marty didn't really mind.

That was a pretty great Shakespeare "happening." It was more fun for me to
see it with Marty than alone.

After we watched the second half, Marty watched quite a bit more of the
comedy disc.

They were both rented and have been sent back, but I recommend if anyone has
Netflix getting that "Complete Works of Shakespeare" by the Reduced
Shakespeare Company.

I saw them perform in Albuquerque the year before they went permanent in
England, but as explained on this DVD, they have three companies, one in London
and two touring. The commentary track is interesting, and there's a video (one
camera home video) of one of their shows many years ago at a Renaissance fair
in California, where they used to do Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet separately
and then pass the hat. One of the guys has been doing this for twenty years
now. A Renaissance Fair skit became a lifelong career.

Somewhere in there I had a momentary flash of Marty becoming a Shakespeare
scholar or professor or actor. WEIRD. Marty is NOT the kind of guy I would
think would want to go academic, but DAMN he understood that effortlessly, and
discussed it intelligently.

It didn't hurt that the acting was good and the enunciation was clear.

Sandra

Kelly Lenhart

>What I HAD said (I told him) was "But if they called it 'Iago the Shit,' it
>would have given away the story." He said it might be because they want
to
>focus on good guys instead of glorifying evil.


That is just too damn funny! "Iago the Shit!" I love it.

Kelly
(Shakespeare fan)