Nature red in tooth and claw

[pameladean]

Tuesday was a very instructive day in two different ways



Raphael and I went for a walk, since it was glorious late-fall day. As we were coming home, we saw a hawk in an ash tree at 37th and Blaisdell. It was eating some small bird, sending bits of down and the occasional feather floating away in the sunny air. It was a rangy hawk with a streaky breast and a rather long tail. We followed it into our alley, where it perched on the power line while house sparrows sat in the hedges making alarmed noises. Then it flew off over the decaying parking lot of the former mortuary, swooping very low over the ground, and vanished into some trees. We looked it up in Sibley, and, like the hawk we've seen a few times in our yard, it was a juvenile Cooper's hawk. I've never had such a good, long look at one before -- the branch it was on wasn't all that high, though it was well above our heads.





My friend Cindy knows all the cool things about theater in this town. She had kindly offered Eric and me her extra free tickets to see The Importance of Being Earnest, so we reciprocated by inviting her along with us to see Theater in the Round's Much Ado About Nothing. She couldn't go, because she was working, but our joint email lamentations about how we never saw shows together caused her to invite us to come to the free production of Othello being done by Ten Thousand Things in the basement of St. Stephen's Church.

We had a nice dinner beforehand at the Java, Cindy and her partner and Eric and I, talking about theater and, a little, about politics.

The venue was somewhat unsalubrious, but neither the glaring fluorescent lights, the overheating, or the hard metal chairs mattered in the slightest once the players began. They had been milling about beforehand, since there was no backstage, just an empty square of old vinyl tile floor surrounded by two or three rows of folding chairs on each side, and a little group of musicians. I amused myself by trying to pick out who was playing whom. There was an upright, sharp-faced, earnest-looking fellow that I decided must be Iago, but he wasn't. He was Rodrigo, Iago's gull. (Or, as Eric pointed out, he was really Sir Andrew Aguecheek to Iago's Sir Toby, but they were in a much nastier universe.) Iago was somebody I'd have cast as Falstaff or Sir Toby, with a broad Minnesota accent and a completely guileless face. He was stupendous. It's easy, with Othello, to become impatient with the stupidity of everyone other than Iago, but this one really did seem very trustworthy. (I still thought Cassio was pretty clueless.) Iago was very funny early on, but I couldn't actually laugh, because I knew what would happen.

Othello was excellent too. He started out very genial and smiling, good at reconciliation, not, it seemed, easily moved to anger; but Iago knew just how to manage it. Desdemona was really splendid, energetic and straightforward, not at all submissive or shy. Emilia was also a very strong character. In their big scene together, Desdemona helped her make the bed, which made a very different impression than the more usual ways the scene is staged. Desdemona had entered humming the song, and they sang it together in snatches rather than there being any kind of formal performance.

Instead of Desdemona's father, they had her mother, who was a fine ranting scary parent. This actor also played Bianca, and was the best Bianca I've seen. This did not improve my opinion of Cassio at all, I have to say. And because Emilia was so sympathetic and strong, her repudiation of Bianca was especially distressing. Emilia knows women have to hang together in the kind of world the play depicts, but she hasn't quite gotten all the way to including Bianca.

The death scene was awful. I mean, it was well done, and so it had to be awful. Desdemona was not a large woman, but she fought all the way. I don't think I want to see this play again for quite a while, but they all did a wonderful job. We gave them a standing ovation. The audience was much more mixed than what one sees at the Guthrie, for example, and they were all, even fairly young kids, quite involved with the show.

Pamela

Comments

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Othello a difficult, painful, troublesome play. I just saw it in NYC--a Peter Sellars strange-as-all-get-out production with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Iago, a bunch of ideas, and not a lot of emotional coherence, and it still gave me shivers. We noticed the Sir Andrew/Rodrigo, Sir Toby/Iago nexus, too. A nastier universe indeed.

I wish I'd seen this production. It sounds wonderful.

[pameladean]

I knew it would be worth seeing, because Cindy has never steered me wrong, and she knew a lot of the actors. But I had no idea how wonderful it would be.

Part of the impact of Othello is its compactness. It may be Shakespeare's shortest play, I can't remember. There's almost no time to rest. This may be why I prefer Hamlet. You see a little more ordinary life before it all comes crashing down.

P.

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Macbeth is actually the shortest play. I don't remember whether we got told which the second-shortest was. And even if we did, my grad school notes are in storage in Northampton.

*sigh*

[pameladean]

Yes, Macbeth was my other contender. It's pretty intense, too, and I actually like it less than Othello.

Ha! Here is a list of plays by line length, from shortest to longest.

http://www.kinglear.org/shakespeare-plays-length

Macbeth is the shortest tragedy, but The Comedy of Errors is the shortest play. Othello is in the six longest, so I was completely out about that. All I can say is that it always seems to go fast. This includes when we did readings of it, so it can't be just that it's always cut to the bone.

I will have to rethink my theory, such as it is.

P.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a big jolly-looking Iago, just because it runs against the grain -- but the truth is I got imprinted by the first Iago I ever saw, at Dallas' Shakespeare in the Park, who looked like Kevin Bacon's cousin and had such a way with little sly looks to the audience that no Iago since has pleased me half so much.

I also need a strong Desdemona for the play to work for me, though. The discussions about her in Stage Beauty are really fabulous, even if the point about acting styles is kind of anachronistic to the period.

[pameladean]

I know what you mean about imprinting on a particular actor's version of a character. I've done that with Horatio and with Olivia in Twelfth Night, but luckily for me, not with Iago.

This was the strongest Desdemona I've seen. The 19th century Shakespeare critics would have hated her. Ha. It sounds like I should read Stage Beauty. If I ever get the present novel off my back, I am writing one about the theater.

P.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Inquiring minds are curious whether the Horatio you imprinted on was like the one described in Tam Lin. (You describe such a strong Ophelia in there, too -- was that based on any performance you've seen, or just one you wish you'd seen?)

I haven't read Stage Beauty, only seen the movie, but I quite enjoyed it. And the notion of you doing a theatre-related novel . . . add me to the list of people in this thread complimenting your descriptions in Tam Lin. There's definitely an audience for that!

[pameladean]

The performance of Hamlet in Tam Lin is based on a real performance at the Guthrie in the seventies. Randall Duk Kim played Hamlet. The Horatio in the novel is his Horatio, but the one I imprinted on was actually in a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Hamlet that was televised when I was about fifteen. Richard Chamberlain played Hamlet. I don't even know who played Horatio. I once saw a tape of the production on sale for about eighty dollars. I'm a little afraid that I wouldn't like it as much nowadays. It was the first time I had ever seen the play performed.

My novel about the theater is all about imaginary theater in a secondary world, but I hope it will still be good.

P.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I have my own novel about imaginary theatre in a secondary world, which I hope someday to revise and sell, so that sounds good to me. :-)

[arkuat]

I am looking forward to that novel!

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

A lot of early modern scholars think the same actor played Rodrigo and Andrew Aguecheek (as well as Cassius in Julius Caesar and a few others I can't remember -- Slender in Merry Wives and Laertes, I think). There are definitely a lot of similarities between the characters that are amusing in the comedy and supremely creepy in the tragedy.

[pameladean]

That's a fascinating idea. I really need to read more recent Shakespeare criticism. I'm mostly mired in the 1980's.

And yeah, Shakespeare really did have a cast, a batch of actors, and I think it must have affected the kinds of parts he wrote, though I suppose that could have gone the other way, too, and he expanded the ways the actors could work with his characters. I'd sure like to have been a fly on the wall sometimes for their rehearsals.

P.

[biblio-tech.livejournal.com]

Ten Thousand Things is an amazing theater "group." I wanted to see Othello (we go to the pay productions at Open Book) because a) we like to support them and b) because of Luverne Siefert. But, we just saw Ruined at Mixed Blood and I've used up my quarterly (perhaps yearly) quotient of emotional and stomach churning. Ruined is well worth seeing, but had for me the same impact as Hotel Rwanda...maybe more so because it's live people right there in front of you.

I've always wondered about the Ten Thousand Things free productions. Could you gauge the audience reaction? Was there Q&A? I think the first production we saw was Miss Julie and the director told us about showing it in a women's prison and the inmates' take on the story. I gather there was some spontaneous audience participation (well-received).

[pameladean]

There was no formal Q and A, though the audience was welcome to stick around and just talk to the actors. We were too harrowed to stay; we felt we had to have fresh air.

The audience was enthralled, even a couple of kids who were, maybe, nine or so. Iago's humor got laughs, as did other mildly humorous scenes. But really, mostly, people just sat very still and drank it in. Once or twice Iago addressed an audience member, and that was well received.

And there was the standing ovation, of course.

P.

[clindau.livejournal.com]

Back in the old apartment, we watched from the balcony one morning as a kestrel sat on top of a telephone pole and had pigeon for breakfast. Feathers flying in that instance too. Later that summer I saw a kestrel lying dead on Aldrich Av. I wonder if it was the same one.

I'm still comparing/contrasting the two Othellos. It is an embarrassment of riches to have two stunning (each in their own way) productions of the same play running in town at the same time, and I'm glad that the stars aligned in such a way that I could see them both. And with good company, too.

Ten Thousand Things' productions always remind me that good theatre doesn't need all the bells and whistles; if the story is told well, that's all that matters. I reallyreallyreally want to see what they do with My Fair Lady next year.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I still remember the Guthrie's Othello when it played here in Philly and you got me tickets way up front. The death scene was so realistic that I was halfway out of my seat to clamber on stage and settle Othello's hash before I remembered she wasn't really fighting for her life and sat back down, feeling rather sheepish.

We see a lot of red-tailed hawks here. They've adapted nicely to the urban environment -- all those plump pigeons, well fed by the oldsters in the park.

[pameladean]

I found myself saying, "No, no, no," under my breath a lot during the death scene.

We have lots of red-tailed hawks out by the airport and in the suburbs, but fewer further in. We have peregrines, and, still oddly to me, the Cooper's hawks.

P.

[pameladean]

Oh, I'm sorry about the dead kestrel. I guess urban living is not altogether safe for them.

I can't imagine that Ten Thousand Things' production of My Fair Lady will be anything like anybody else's, and I want to see it too.

P.

[alexfandra.livejournal.com]

It's a regular hawk week! I got to spend part of Veterans Day watching a Red-tailed Hawk snatch and devour a coot. My birding pals and I noticed it swooping into the lake near the shore, and nearby birds scurrying off. We got our bins on it just as it was dragging its victim onto the bank. We watched for about half an hour as it ate, black coot feathers flying everywhere. I thought it was interesting that once it got going on its prey, the ducks who had scurried off came back, and were swimming nonchalantly back and forth just a few feet from the bank where the hawk was chowing down. Guess they figured they were no longer on the menu!

[pameladean]

Ack. Fascinating bird behavior, but I really like coots, they are so ridiculous. And I guess they lack solidarity, too, though of course it makes sense.

I once saw a red-tailed hawk trying to catch a large snake, but in the end the snake got away and the hawk sulked.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

with a broad Minnesota accent and a completely guileless face.

Oh yah, you gotta be careful of those.

...what?

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Whenever you post about theatre I want to go read Tam Lin again immediately. I need to give a copy to Andrew--I always tell my friends, when they ask, as we do, what made me a classicist, that it was your book, but most of them have never read it.

The delightful thing about a close friend so much younger than I am is how many things we each know about that have never come in the other's way, but that the other is certain to love.

[pameladean]

It pleases me so much to have made you a classicist, but it's a little startling, too.

I know what you mean about having younger friends. It's very satisfying.

P.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

We have Cooper's hawks in my neighborhood. I came home one fine afternoon just in time to disturb a hawk that was eating lunch in my back yard. I was relieved to see pigeon feathers scattered everywhere. I don't mind the hawks keeping the pigeon population down -- they'd better leave the cardinals alone, is all.

It's been decades since I've seen Othello. Your review is evocative, and now I want to see the play again.

[pameladean]

I feel the same about the hawks' diet. Not that they will regard it, but pigeons must make a much more satisfying meal, so if there are plenty, perhaps that will save the cardinals.

The only birds I've seen hawks taking around here are pigeons and house sparrows, and at least we have an abundance of each.

P.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I do love the way you write about Shakespeare. This sounds fantastic.

[pameladean]

I'm so frustrated by the ephemeral nature of the theater, I want to do much more detailed descriptions, but it has to be more of a sketch.

P.

[tartancravat.livejournal.com]

It's funny to read your review of Othello and have it sound so thoroughly like all the theatre scenes in Tam Lin. Othello's not one I've ever liked, though I'm not sure why. I've seen it twice; maybe the productions I saw just didn't work for me. I wish I'd seen the one you describe.

[pameladean]

I think writing Tam Lin is where I really learned to describe plays. I should broaden my approach a little, though, when I write another novel about the theater.

I am not sure that I actually like Othello, not the way I like Hamlet or Twelfth Night or even Measure for Measure. But I admire it.

P.

[raphaela.livejournal.com]

Othello is one of my favorites, but favorite in the way that I have read it in its entirety and seen it only one time apiece. I couldn't go through it again, but I chew on it frequently. I still go back and read bits of it, but I haven't been able to do the whole thing through. It's an affecting play for me.

[pameladean]

It's really just crowded with dense and difficult matter, isn't it?

P.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an amazing production. I've not seen Othello yet, and am a bit shy to because I don't really like the play as much as I think I should.

[pameladean]

I'm in the same position. It is very hard to take. You want to shake half the characters and make them sensible.

P.

[vass]

Emilia is possibly my favourite Shakespeare character. "So, speaking as I think, I die, I die."

[pameladean]

This one did that scene very well too. She was briefly shocked and speechless, and then just completely outraged and fearless.

P.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

A hawk once ate a pigeon on my parents' lawn. The funny part was the feathers were pretty much in a perfect circle, as though the pigeon had landed and gone *pop* in a miniature explosion of down.

[pameladean]

I think that may be an artifact of the original approach. That is, my brother lived with us for a few months and got up early, and he was sitting outside at sunrise having a cigarette when a pigeon flashed before his eyes and a hawk followed, hit it so hard that feathers flew out, and took it away. The feathers were still in a perfect circle when I went out to look several hours later. It was like a very weird fairy ring.

P.

[lcohen]

add me to the list of people who love reading when you talk about theater. although mostly, it makes me want to go see a play with you sometime!

[pameladean]

Maybe we can arrange that. I would certainly like it.

P.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

The hawks we have down here are red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis). I can't help but think of them as Jamaican immigrants. We found this out after noticing one land by the road a few months ago.