Coriolanus (2011) poster

The long-awaited film adaptation of Coriolanus, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, is due out in December. The cast looks fabulous and includes the formidable Vanessa Redgrave as mother-from-hell Volumnia and the ubiquitously awesome Brian Cox as Coriolanus’ political mentor Menenius.

Here’s the trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The film opens nationwide December 10.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Twelfth Night on DVD from Amazon

Starring Imogen Stubbs, Helena Bonham-Carter, Ben Kingsley, Toby Stephens, and Nigel Hawthorne

reviewed (again) 2010 by John Murphy
(for John’s 2004 review, click here)

One of the nice things about writing a blog is that nothing is set in stone. A review in print tends to make an author’s opinion (arrived at via contingency’s endless byways) seem inevitable and complete, like a Papal Bull or a design etched in acid. We all know this isn’t the case, but since writers rarely have the chance to revise opinions after publication, the printed opinion must stand, rather like an awkward-looking sentinel guarding a long-abandoned citadel.

As you may have gathered, the blog vs. print preamble is my philosophical way of admitting that I was wrong about something. In the greenery of my youth, I gave Trevor Nunn’s film adaptation of Twelfth Night the short shrift. I had my reasons, some of which still stand. But there was a crimped lack of generosity in my earlier review that demands some amendment.

Ben Kingsley as Feste

Context is part of it. It’s easier to see now where Twelfth Night fits into the trajectory of cinematic Shakespeare. The 1990′s were a Boom decade for the Bard, mostly thanks to the surprise critical and commercial success of Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing. Nunn’s film — which was released in the same year as Branagh’s Hamlet and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet — has many elective affinities with Branagh’s populist Bard-vision. The late 19th century seems the go-to time-period: not so long ago as to be distant, but not too recent for the language to seem out-of-place. Scenes are invented, lines cut and rearranged, to minimize audience confusion. The Royal Shakespeare Company furnishes many of the cast members, and the composer even does a passable Patrick Doyle imitation.

Richard E. Grant as Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Twelfth Night was thus caught in Branagh’s towline, and suffers in some ways by the comparison. For all his faults as a director, Branagh is never without ambition or energy. Nunn’s approach to his material is more leisurely, even somber at moments. Yet even if the visual style can be a bit leaden, I didn’t give him enough credit. As befits a director best known for his work on stage, Nunn elicits top-shelf performances from an impressive ensemble. Standouts include Richard E. Grant, full of pathos and bathos as Olivia’s slightly slow suitor, Sir Andrew Aguecheek; Ben Kingsley as a feisty Feste, somewhat menacing; and a very fine Helena Bonham-Carter, toning down the eccentricities to play a more appealing version of the black-shrouded Goth-girl.

Imogen Stubbs as Viola & Steven Mackintosh as Sebastian

The real pinch-hitter, however, is Imogen Stubbs as Viola. Stubbs was the most moving and convincing Desdemona I’ve seen in Nunn’s version of Othello from the late 80′s, and she brings the same irrepressible energy and charm to this significantly less doom-laden role. She’s simply delightful to watch and carries the movie on her padded shoulders.

Nigel Hawthorne, cross-gartered, as Malvolio

Although Nunn is not the most visually inventive of directors, his cinematographer gives the movie an autumnal, Pre-Raphaelite-like burnished glow that attractively suits the melancholy undercurrents of the story. Nigel Hawthorne, excellent as always, brings a shade of poignancy and wounded pride to the part of Malvolio, whose fifth act vow to be “reveng’d on the whole pack of you,” casts a pall over the otherwise clear-skied happy ending. Hawthorne’s performance, along with Stubbs’ and the rest of the fine ensemble, keep the film afloat and guarantee a thoroughly enjoyable time in their company.

[Did you know Ben Kingsley was an erstwhile folksinger? Here's proof in his role as Feste:]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other Shakespeareans known to be on board the project are Anthony Hopkins, who plays Thor’s father and king of the gods, Odin, Colm Feore of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival *and Julie Taymor’s Titus). English actor Tom Hiddleston, a RADA grad who won an Olivier award for his Leonatus in a stage production of Cymbeline, will play the villain, bad-boy Trickster god Loki–can’t wait for that!

Thor is due out in 2010. The cast also includes Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard and Rene Russo. Thor will be played by Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, who played James T. Kirk’s father in the recent J.J. Abrams Star Trek.

For your reading pleasure, here are some links:

• the IMDb page on Thor
• Associated Press report on Branagh at the recent Comic Con in San Diego.
• How Did Kenneth Branagh Get Thor Job?
• Roundtable interview with Branagh about Thor

Here’s a vidclip of an interview with Branagh (pronouced “Branner”—who knew?) from Comic Con:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s another Branagh interview at Comic Con, this one discussing how Thor fits into the Marvel universe of Iron Man and Captain America:

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the more discussed (at least in my hearing) choices made by Bill Rauch in the 2010 production of Hamlet has been the casting of deaf actor Howie Seago as the Ghost. Now, I’m suspecting that at some point this sort of thing will cease to be considered a Big Deal; rather like racial-blind casting, which has been the norm at the OSF for some time and now inspires remark mostly from newbies—folks who haven’t yet caught on that theatre is by nature a far more metaphorical and poetic medium than, say, the movies; that, as Henry V‘s Chorus reminds us,

’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o’er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass:

A production’s ability to call forth the desired experience from the audience—that mysterious and magical thing that people call “great theatre”—depends as much on what the audience brings with them into the auditorium as what the actors bring to the stage. In terms of what the actors bring to the stage, their effectiveness, in turn, depends more on skill and intelligence and qualities of energy and personality than whether they fit a preconceived mold in terms of how they look or sound or dress. But then there are also, probably always will be, audience members who feel that Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare unless the actors are all white, in doublet and hose, and speaking with British accents.

However, since Howie Seago’s casting as the Ghost has raised some comment in a few quarters, mostly of the “But I miss Shakespeare’s language!” variety, I would like to point out why I think this casting was particularly effective.

First, those who complain about missing the language are people who probably know it so well already they could speak it in their sleep, and have been known to do so in their seats right along with the actors. (A problem so chronic with Shakespeare in performance that Peter Brook dealt with it in his marvelous production (which we in Clan Murphy have taken to calling the “Zen Hamlet“—see John Murphy’s review here), by shifting soliloques out of their usual place, and having the Players enact the Hecuba scene in its original (source) Greek.

How wonderful and fresh, therefore, in this OSF production, to “see” Seago’s passionately expressive sign language putting a whole new spin on the Ghost’s horrific narrative of his murder at the hands of his brother.

Dan Donohue & Howie Seago, OSF 2010, photo by David Cooper

And as for those who aren’t familiar with Shakespeare’s language, I dare say they catch the drift easily enough with Hamlet’s “translation”, and probably more easily than those hearing words such as these for the first time:

Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d…

Unhousel’d…unanel’d?

Be all that as it may, having Hamlet and the Ghost communicating in sign language—one might describe it almost as their “private” language—also served to produce the (in my experience, unique) effect of putting the father-and-son pair in a sort of psycho-spiritual bubble, contra mundum; a bubble that excluded all others and highlighted Hamlet’s isolation. The relationship between father and son portrayed in most productions comes across as distant, severe and (on Hamlet’s part) rather worshipful, even awestruck. In this production the father/son relationship is portrayed as having been loving and paternally intimate, which makes Hamlet’s reaction to his father’s tale of murder all the more harrowing.

All this supports the later dramatic development of something like madness in the Prince of Denmark. For if the Ghost’s visit isn’t harrowing, either in the supernatural or the psychological sense, preferably both, then Hamlet’s subsequent unhinging will not be properly set up. In fact, in my viewings and re-viewings of eighteen or so Hamlet productions, I’ve only seen two others that have, in my view, fully understood and capitalized on the importance of this setup/payoff dynamic: One was at the American Players Theatre back in the mid-nineties starring Lee Ernst; it featured a chained ghost with a booming voice who seemed to be suffering all the torments of hell. The other is the famous Russian language Hamlet of Grigori Kozintsev, with a truly haunting, almost horror-movie slo-mo apparition of a Ghost, monstrous cape whipping in the wind behind him, stalking the craggy walls of castle Elsinore like a walking nightmare.

Finally, in the OSF production’s captivating use of sign language—for me it put the icing on the cake, as it were—there were several very nice bits of stage business when we see, in a couple of key scenes, Gertrude and even Claudius breaking briefly into sign language when speaking of the late King Hamlet. These fleeting moments from the ancien regime seemed to signal, as it were, breakings-in of conscience and former ties of familial love into the toxic little Gertrude/Claudius bubble—that “rotten” thing poisoning Denmark.

Alas, I can’t show a vidclip from the OSF production, but here’s one of the Ghost scene from Kozintsev’s Hamlet:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The show is directed by Grant Turner, Artistic Director of Portland-based Northwest Classical Theater Company. (See below, scroll down, for cast list.) All shows are at 3 pm unless otherwise noted. The park schedule is:

July 31, August 1 – Laurelhurst Park
August 6 – Director Park, Downtown Portland at SW 9th & Yamhill (7:30 pm)
August 7*, 8 – Washington Park
August 14 – Raleigh Park (6 pm)
August 15 – Gabriel Park
August 21 – Maryhill Museum in the Gorge (7 pm)
August 22 – Lynchwood Park
August 28, 29 – Concordia University
Sept. 4, 5, 6 (Labor Day) – Reed College

*Sign language interpreted performance.

Other information:
- Directions to park locations are available at www.portlandactors.org.
- All shows are outdoors, blankets or low sand chairs are recommended

About the organization: The mission of Portland Actors Ensemble has remained unchanged since its first season: To bring financially accessible classical theater to Portland communities in a non-traditional environment. Portland Actors Ensemble began performing free Shakespeare-in-the-Parks productions in 1970 and is run by a volunteer board. PAE is funded by grants and donations and is a 501(C)(3) organization.

Portland Actors Ensemble, P.O. Box 8671, Portland, OR 97207
503-467-6573
www.portlandactors.org

CAST LIST
Victoria Blake -Courtesan
Sam Burns -Antipholus of Ephesus
Margaret Darling -Adriana
Lindsay Fischer -Luciana
Dennis Fitzpatrick -Duke Solinus
Curtis Hanson -Egeon
Gildevin Jagudajev -Dromio of Ephesus
Jon Lakey -Antipholus of Syracuse
Cyndi Rhoads -Balthasar, a second Merchant
RaChelle Schmidt -Angela the Goldsmith
Christine Shields -The Abbess
R. David Wyllie -Dromio of Syracuse
Vanessa Elsner -Officer/1st Merchant/Dr. Pinch

And why did that young scamp Ireland do it? Many historians, including his new biographer, Doug Stewart, author of The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare , think it was to impress his father, Samuel Ireland.

Listen to the audio (or read the transcript) of the NPR feature here.

The 1999 documentary seems a poorly constructed affair, more a collection of vaguely sinister-sounding talking points—random bits of pro-Oxford evidence wrapped in conspiracy-theorish suggestions that the only thing propping up the Stratfordian position is regard for the tourist industry in Stratford. As someone who has, even as an amateur, read enough bardolatrous literature of the academic sort to know that there are plenty of smart Stratfordians out there with no vested interest in the British tourist trade, this is a gross oversimplification to put it mildly. I mean, if we’re going to look at things like that, one had better not enlist the support of (for example) the present Earl of Oxford, whose family could only gain in every possible way if he were to be at some point acknowledged a direct descendent of Shake-speare. I mean, who else would have more to gain? Think of the boon to the tourist trade in Essex and Hedingham Castle!

But be that as it may, as I said, this little documentary isn’t well organized or argued. It may preach eloquently to the Choir, I couldn’t say, but newbies to the Authorship Question would, I think, get a better introduction to the Oxfordian position by watching the PBS Frontline program. PBS doesn’t seem to be selling them anymore, but you might have some luck on ebay or Amazon Marketplace. A transcript of the program is available from the PBS website linked above.

But here’s a little  preview of The Shakespeare Conspiracy:

Click here to view the embedded video.