jack

Pentapolis

Pericles set sail again, and there was a massive storm. Pericles was shipwrecked, but fortuitously his armour washed soooo close to shore it could be caught in a fishing net (spoilers), although all the sailors who didn't appear in the play presumably drowned.

He washes up, literally, in Pentapolis in North Africa (in modern Libya) in the SW of the relevant section of the Mediterranean.

A fishing crew find him.

HIM: *strong emotions about being shipwrecked and narrowly saved*
THEM: Hi!
HIM: Hi! I'm important.
THEM: That's convenient. The local king is having a tourney to dispose his daughter's hand in marriage.
HIM: Well, that doesn't ring any alarm bells. I'm in!
HIM: Hey, can you lend me that armour you just dredged up? It's mine, honest.
HIM: And can you lend me, um, a bunch of posh clothes too?
HIM: I will totally pay you back when I win the princess' hand in marriage.
THEM: That sounds like a solid, reliable plan with few risks.
THEM: But we're still not really prepared to just send you off with this stuff.
HIM: Oh, go on then.
THEM: Oh, ok.

Then we have the tourney. The king absolutely steals the show. I'm not even sure how. He doesn't have much of a role, but he MASSIVELY plays it up. He describes the tourney a bit like a sports announcer, and teases and chides his daughter and Pericles like a cross between a dad, a rap DJ, and someone doing the robot (I think I recognise the performance as something more specific but can't describe it).

It makes the whole thing hilarious, and the bits where he toys with the putative couple, pretending to be angry and then encouraging their union, which could easily seem out of place, fit his persona really seamlessly.

The tourney was probably the funniest bit. The king quizzes the daughter on the knights' heraldry, and she describes them, but as each is mentioned, they pop up from behind a hedge with a hobby-horse and a big whinny, then pop down again.

Then they couldn't easily actually STAGE a tourney (would the original play have had something there?) so the narrator walks across the stage with a chalkboard saying "A tourney..." and then walks back with it flipped to the other side, which says "30 minutes later..."

Then the characters are expositing what happened. Pericles won! And he and the daughter fortunately are super into each other. There's a big of a dancing scene, he's unexpectedly shy, the king acts all reluctant, and then admits he's super pleased with the match and they should get to the sexy bit immediately.

They marry, and then head back to Tyre.

At sea

Surprise! There's ANOTHER big storm. Pericles is surprisingly patient with the gods about this. There's a bunch of bad news.

Narrator: *big infodump*
Narrator: OK, the next bit is going to be acted out (yes, the narrator really says that)
Nurse: Good news! You have a daughter.
Pericles: I don't like where this is going.
Nurse: I'm really sorry, your wife is dead.
Sailor: And we must immediately throw her overboard.
Pericles: Er, what?
Sailor: Superstition.
Pericles: Oh, very well then.

Is it plausible she dies in childbirth of something which actually (spoiler) she recovers from?

ALSO, SEE, THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULDN'T THROW PEOPLE OVERBOARD DURING A STORM, I FEEL LIKE I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS.

Tarsus (again)

Pericles: the child won't survive the whole journey
Pericles: we must put ashore in Tarsus, where I'm friends with the governor because I saved them from a famine
Pericles: Is nine months enough time to be not-a-famine any more? I guess so.
Pericles: Anyway, we should give my daughter to them to raise
Pericles: Where I'm sure they're good people
Pericles: Although all I know about them is that they're depressed when they're starving and grateful when they're saved, so not a SUPER DETAILED recommendation.
Pericles: And I'm 100% sure they'll raise her as a proper high-born lady
Pericles: And 98% sure they won't get jealous of how she's more beautiful than their own daughter and have her assassinated.

Me: SEE THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULDN'T ABANDON YOUR BABY DAUGHTER IN THE MIDDLE OF A FAMINE TO PEOPLE YOU BARELY KNOW.
Me: But I suppose, that was the style at the time.

Ephesus

Fortunately, his wife's casket is well-sealed, and washes ashore in Ephesus next to a learned physician who revives her.

Everyone: Witchcraft!
Physician: No, it's mostly just common sense.
Everyone: Witchcraft!
Physician: If I'm a witch, how come you're still non-newt-shaped when you talk to me like that?
Everyone: *mutter* *grumble*
Thaisa: You have saved me!
Thaisa: But my husband and daughter presumably drowned, seeing as how I ended up in the sea.
Thaisa: Although in a sealed casket, that is a bit odd...
Thaisa: Anyway, what should I do now?
Physician: My niece is a priest at the temple of Diana. I can hook you up.
Physician: Why don't you serve there for, oh, about 18 years?
Thaisa: OK.

AFTER A GIANT TIME SKIP

Daughter grows up, is perfect lady, her guardians try to kill her, employing an assassin played by the same actor as the other assassin (I think?) but fortunately/unfortunately, she's kidnapped by pirates right at the crucial moment.

The pirates sell her to a brothel in Mytilene, whose owners' are just lamenting they don't have enough workers. Their doorman (?) inducts her. He's played in a camp way which is kind of awesome, but also pretty problematic. The whole brothel thing is rather problematic, unsurprisingly, as are a couple of other bits, which I haven't recapped in detail.

Fortunately, she's SOOOO good looking and SOOOO cultured, she talks all the men she's set up with into re-dedicating themselves to virtue after all, up to and eventually including the governor, and finally pitches the brothel owners on "hey, look, you just want money, right, well, hire me out as a music/drawing/dancing/ladylikeness tutor instead"

Then, Pericles drifts into port, sulking at the centre of his ship(s?), utterly dejected when, after not seeing her for 18 years, his daughter abruptly died in a poorly-specified fashion.

The governor brings this woman he knows who's good as music to cheer him up, they compare sob stories, and suddenly realise, they're father and daughter! She marries the governor and he comes with them.

Diana appears in a vision and, finally after 18 years of delay, gives him a surprisingly detailed vision of how to go to her temple in Ephesus and recount the whole story, and they do, and they're all reunited and happily married, the end.

Then the narrator appears and gives a big spiel about how you've met various sorts of villains, the incestuous king (he was abruptly struck by lightning earlier, but I forgot to mention it until now, that's when Pericles felt safe going home), and the betraying foster-parents (apparently their populace found out and mobbed them to death), and various sorts of virtue, including the loyal lieutenant who I keep leaving out but has been acting as Pericles' representative during his depression, and all the other characters.

Crossposts: https://cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com/1077686.html

Liv and I wanted to see one of the Cambridge Shakespeare plays this summer. The selection didn't have many we really wanted to see, so we ended up seeing Peracles, and I'm really glad we did.

Cambridge Shakespeare have often made some of the lesser-known, honestly less good plays really fun, and that's what they did here. Pericles is described as "at least partly by Shakespeare": I think roughly the "Pericles sails around having adventures" is by someone else, and "everyone is lost at sea and thinks each other dead, then, surprise, they're reunited without knowing who each other are" is by Shakespeare :)

Antioch

It starts off with Pericles, prince of Tyre (eastern Mediterranean), visiting nearly Antioch (just to the North). The king has a beautiful, accomplished, and widely admired daughter, but is violently protective of her, and has decreed that no-one may court her unless they answer his (secret) riddle, but if they guess wrong, they will be executed.

Pericles rocks up, says, "that sounds like a good deal", and then SURPRISE, it turns out NOT to be a good idea.

(Content Warning: incest mentioned in next paragraph)

The riddle turns out to be, basically, "incest, but in verse form". Pericles explains at length to the audience that answering the riddle will cause the king to have him executed out of hand just as much as failing to answer. Instead, he *hints* that he knows, but asks for more time to think about it.

For some reason, the king, ashamed of his sin, and equally willing to execute suitors for guessing, or not guessing, the riddle, is too embarrassed to have him executed for *maybe* guessing the riddle, and agrees to the delay.

Pericles wasting no time, as soon as he's outside the palace, immediately flies back to Tyre.

The king is outraged by this deception, and -- belatedly -- sends an assassin after him.

Tyre

The narrator was amazing. She was dressed up like a cross between a headmistress and a clown, lecturing the audience about all the things they were supposed to know. The back of the stage had a chalk-board divided into six sectors with all the relevant places on (including "the sea" with waves) and a little pointer which span round. Whenever the narrator announced a place, she turned the pointer, and whenever the scene changed without narration, she came on stage to turn it, or crept up from behind, just to keep everyone oriented with where they were.

Pericles immediately sort counsel with his Loyal Underling Ruling In Pericles' Absence Whose Name I Forget. LURIPAWNIF said, running away had been a smart move, well done, but maybe having announced yourself as "Pericles of Tyre" don't just sit around in Tyre waiting for assassins, but make like Sir Robin and split.

I was positively convinced this guy was going to stab him in the back or something, but no, he was genuinely committed to ruling Tyre fairly, but letting Pericles have all the glory and handing everything back to him whenever he turned up again. Later on, we have a brief scene in Tyre where various nobles call on him to have the crown, and he says, no, wait five years before we give up on the Big P.

Pericles takes the advice and takes some ships and men and sails off for adventure.

And by "adventure" we apparently mean "loading up with grain and sailing somewhere with a famine".

TBC.

Crossposts: https://cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com/1077060.html

Antonio: God, I'm depressed.
Bassanio: Hey, will you lend me lots of money for an ill-thought out wooing plan?
A: Yeah, take as much as you want.
B: The only guy who'll lend the money is the one who you've been racially abusing for years.
A: Oh yeah, perfect. Definitely borrow from him.
B: Are you sure?
A: Yes! Stop arguing and do it.
B: OK, he says he'll give you generous terms but if anything goes wrong, he can mutilate and kill you.
A: Where do I sign?

This reconstruction brought to you by "if someone has a standard contract they won't alter you may have to suck it up, but if they insist on a weird penalty clause that they swear won't ever come up, ask yourself, why, if it doesn't matter, they insist on it."

Crossposts: https://cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com/1063492.html

We went with Liv's parents to see the touring globe production of Much Ado About Nothing. It was in Corpus master's garden which was ever so lovely, it was like an actual garden with little greenhouse and swing and summerhouse, rather than just being a piece of artwork about expensive plants :)

What I liked

I was previously only familiar with the beautiful Kenneth Branagh film, so I was interested to see what I actually liked more in this production. I liked the music; several times there was celebration with spontaneous dancing and music-making, and it looked like the characters were really enjoying themselves. I liked that Hero's father was a bit more elegant: he looked to have more moral authority than most of the cast, if less worldly than Don Pedro, which made his assumption of authority after Hero's apparent death more natural, in the Branagh version he just seemed like a weird hanger-on.

I liked that Don Pedro was a bit older, but moved occasionally by a spirit of fun. I liked that Beatrice and Benedick were a bit less certain of themselves: it felt like their constant quipping actually stemmed to some extent from impulsiveness and uncertainty, whereas the older B&B in Branagh, although I really loved them as characters, seemed self-possessed enough it was a surprise they were so uncertain through the courtship, and willing to be impulsive in reacting to Claudio's accusations.

A lot of the physical or body-language humour worked very well.

Other comments

I loved the portrayal of Dogberry with swaggering aviator cap and guitar, although I agreed that the role just doesn't really work whoever does it.

I was amazed how little there is about Don John. Apparently Branagh added a lot to try to make his role make more sense, but that mostly fell flat, partly because of poor Keanu Reeves, who looked a wonderful villain, but apparently couldn't bring the role to life. So I think the play is fine with Don John as an off-screen villain.

It didn't make much difference to me, but the actors enunciated and projected very well :)

What I didn't like

There was a long list of valid criticisms, most of which I can't do justice to. The most important was that Benedick and Beatrice didn't really seem to be having fun most of the time, which is the thing most people want to see in the play. They had a few good moments, especially at the end when they were being tentatively sarcastically sweet with each other, but didn't hit the characters you'd usually expect.

A lot of the verbal humour didn't come across quite well enough: I'm not sure if that's just really hard in a comedy with archaic language.

What I'd like to add

As always Shakespeare is a virulently infectious carrier of the fanfiction memes :)

I feel like there's a lot of things which are supposed to be clear to the audience, but are not really shown emotionally. I'm not sure if that's because everyone is supposed to know them already (although I'm not sure if that's a good reason), or if the audience is supposed to work them out for themselves, or if specifying them would remove ambiguity which is interesting, or if maybe they only bother me.

But I feel like Claudio's sudden turning against Hero would massively benefit from some set-up earlier in the play. Like, yes, people who are deeply in love, if they feel completely betrayed, naturally do flip 180 degrees into the hot hatred of betrayal. But I feel there's something missing if it just happens instantly.

Could we have Hero flirt with someone else earlier in the play, and Claudio react insecurely? Maybe with Don Pedro, since he's deliberately shown courting her? If Claudio is shown obsessing about Hero's loyalty it's still tragic but a lot more inevitable when he jumps to all the wrong conclusions when he sees "her" sleeping with someone else. It could still be played lots of different ways -- is Claudio deeply in love but a bit insecure? Is he a jealous bully Hero loves against her better judgement?

Maybe some of this is already in the play and I missed it, but I felt just one or two lines (which probably already exist and just need the right staging) could make the emotional arc a lot more persuasive.

Or have Hero too honest for her own good, and give her something she genuinely repents of, just a little bit, so she's half-guilty at Claudio's accusation, rather than non-plussed, which gives Claudio all the reason to go on with anger redoubled. Or have Claudio agonising back and forth between loving Hero and being jealous, and in two minds whether to accuse her, then rapidly forcing himself to a denunciation when he sees her, it could be done completely with body language.

Likewise, I feel maybe you could add something of the soldiers coming back from the war. Show Don Pedro elevating Claudio (showing the audience viscerally why Hero is honoured to have his attention). Show Don John trying to step up, but being passed over, and Don Pedro trying to make peace, but Don John spurning it. That little bit of body language could show where Don John's coming from.

Crossposts: http://cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com/902373.html

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