Tag Archives: Theatre

BOOKS: “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw

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PygmalionPygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Available on Project Gutenberg

Pygmalion is a play about class and human connection, and is probably the best-known work of George Bernard Shaw, having been adapted into a popular movie entitled My Fair Lady.

Henry Higgins, an expert on accents and dialects, bets his friend, Col. Pickering, that he can train a poor Cockney flower girl (Eliza Doolittle) to pass as a duchess at a soiree with genteel elites. Higgins is educated and of upper-crust upbringing but is neither refined nor does he have much in the way of people skills. Pickering is a personable and mannerly gentleman. Eliza is on a journey of transformation and her interaction with the two men offers insight into how those of different classes view dignity. (Besides examining class differences, some insight into how men and women differently view human interactions is generated.)

Beginning the last act (Act V,) it felt like the earlier acts hadn’t done the work required of them to motivate the last act behavior / discussions, but — I must admit — that feeling went away by the time the dialogue was complete. (Also, I give benefit of the doubt to the fact that good acting may have conveyed inklings to an audience that couldn’t be garnered from reading dialogue and stage directions.)

There was an Afterword that sketched out what happens in the lives of the characters after the events of the play. I didn’t care for it. There is a certain level of ambiguity in the ending, and I was good with that. I understand that many readers / viewers are not, however. (If you watched Christopher Nolan’s Inception and the spinning top ending drove you batty, you’d probably appreciate this Afterword. I believe the movie (My Fair Lady) tweaks the ending to make it more definitive.)

At any rate, this is a witty and evocative play and is well worth reading (or seeing.)

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“Curtain” by Paul Laurence Dunbar [w/ Audio]

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Villain shows his indiscretion,
 Villain's partner makes confession.
 Juvenile, with golden tresses,
 Finds her pa and dons long dresses.
 Scapegrace comes home money-laden,
 Hero comforts tearful maiden,
 Soubrette marries loyal chappie,
 Villain skips, and all are happy.

Five Wise Lines from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

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The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature, a complete impossibility!

Algernon

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends upon what one shouldn’t read.

ALgernon

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.

Algernon

One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.

Algernon; [fyi: “Bunburying” is the use of appointments with ficticious individuals to get out of one’s duties and obligations.]

One should always eat muffins quite calmly.

Algernon

BOOK REVIEW: Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

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Measure for MeasureMeasure for Measure by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon page

 

“Measure for Measure” was originally grouped as one of Shakespeare’s comedies (back when there were just three categories: tragedy, comedy, and history,) but more recently it’s been reclassified as one of the three “problem plays” of Shakespeare. Problem plays are neither clearly comedy nor clearly tragedy, but mix elements of both.

Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, is taking a mysterious trip, and he’s left his deputy, Angelo, in charge. Angelo is a stickler for the law (or, at least, appears to be at first) and one of his first official acts is to sign a death sentence on Claudio. Claudio is a young man who knocked up his girlfriend. While the law calls for death, everyone advises Angelo that the details of the case don’t merit such a sentence. Those details being that the young woman, Juliet, is in love with Claudio, consensually partook of sexual intercourse, and both she and he are eager to marry so that the child will not be born out of wedlock. Angelo is unmoved by petitions from just about everyone to let Claudio live as long as he weds Juliet. When Claudio’s sister, Isabella, who heard the news in the convent where she is a postulant [in training to be a nun, but not yet one,] comes before Angelo seeking leniency for her brother, Angelo’s tune slowly changes, and he betrays himself as the worst form of hypocrite. If Juliet will “consent” [used loosely] to Angelo taking her virginity, he’ll let Claudio go. Obviously, Juliet isn’t at all keen on this arrangement, being a nun wanna-be and having the strict moral values one might expect of one who’s chosen such a life. She goes off preparing to tell her brother that he must die because the only way out is for her to sex up Angelo. Isabella fully expects Claudio will accept this, but Claudio has a moment of weakness in which he shares his terror of death and requests Juliet do the deed with Angelo. However, she won’t do it.

At this point, things look grim for Claudio, but we find out that the Duke is pulling a Henry V, and (far from visiting foreign lands to unknown purpose) is making his way in disguise through Vienna, learning what happens in his absence. The Duke [pretending to be a friar] has various meetings with Isabella, Claudio, the Provost (a warden), and others. The Duke-turned-friar hatches a plot that hinges on a piece of inside information that he holds.

It turns out that the sight of lovely Isabella wasn’t the first cause of Angelo being a jerk, there was a previous incident. Angelo was once betrothed to a woman, but before they could wed the woman’s fortunes changed when a storm sank the boat carrying wealth that included her dowry. Lacking a dowry, Angelo kicked the woman to the curb where she ended up turning tricks in a Viennese brothel because for fortune had sunk — literally.

The Duke / friar’s plan is that Isabella go to Angelo and say that she agrees to his despicable propositions, and that she will do the vile deed on the condition that it be someplace pitch dark so that her lady bits can remain unseen and so she won’t throw up in the lousy face of her rapist. She also insists she be able to bring a servant to the place in question. The plan revolves around getting the wronged ex-fiancé turned prostitute to agree to pull a switch-a-roo, with her engaging in intercourse in the dark with Angelo instead of the virgin Isabella doing so. Angelo having committed the same offense as the man he signed a death warrant for will have to either change his order regarding Claudio or submit himself to the same punishment.

One can see why this play is not easily classified. It contains a lot of dark subject matter. However, it does have numerous lighthearted moments of humor, including Lucio badmouthing the Duke (to the Duke’s friar-disguised face) and the servant of a local brothel’s Madame, Pompey, becoming an assistant to the executioner. As in comedies, everything works out more or less happily for all parties.

I was gripped by this play. It’s among my favorites of the Shakespearean comedies. It has an intense storyline and some fascinating moral conundrums. The Duke works his plot such that more than one character must confront a moral dilemma and choose whether to be a better version of him-, or herself. This is definitely worth reading.

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