reposted from my sister's blog

[zwol]

My sister Dara has a theory, which I reproduce here in full:

I have a theory, which probably derives from Harold Bloom, that we are directed in the course of our work as theater artists in the English-speaking world by the first Shakespeare play we ever saw. (If it was Bloom’s theory, it would expand to include all people, theater artists or otherwise.)

I tested this theory on two of my Convergence colleagues. Sure enough, we all had different answers - Robert had seen HAMLET first, which is remarkable. (I’ve never seen a live production of HAMLET.) Tony saw ROMEO & JULIET.

The very first Shakespeare I saw was MIDSUMMER, at the Theatricum outdoors. I remember these things from it:

- Puck swinging in on a rope from an enormous oak tree. The element of surprise. The feeling that the stage was alive with actors, that anyone might jump out of any crevice. That the ground, the hills, the walls were exploding with language.

- “But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.”

- the lovers running through the twisted paths of a Topanga Canyon hill.

- the fairies saying “And I. ” “And I.” “And I.” (A chorus?)

- Bottom’s mask of a donkey’s head.

- The Mechanicals. “O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.”

- laughing so hard that my face hurt.

- “If we shadows have offended” - the fantastic power embodied in that one actor, who was carrying all the threads of the play lightly in his mouth.

- Rhyme.

MIDSUMMER is about magic and love and language games, and I think I could even argue that it’s a landscape of imitation - between people and semihuman god-things, people and animals. Imitation being, of course, the founding principle of the improvised chorus. And it’s set in Athens, too. Which takes me back to the Greeks.

So I can derive all of my influences from it. I think I derive the other half from the film of “The Little Mermaid,” especially the fish-choruses.

Let us (er, me) know what the first Shakespeare you ever saw was. What do you remember of it? Do you think it shaped the direction of your work, or relationship to literature, or theater? If so, how? If not, Harold wants to talk to you.

Comments

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it was Macbeth.

Clearly this has nothing to do with, oh, say, what I do for a living. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Probably the fact that mine was The Taming of the Shrew has no relation to the fact that I mostly want to kick Harold Bloom repeatedly in the shins, preferably while shrieking something dire at him.

[madmanatw.livejournal.com]

Macbeth. Actually, I think it was a version of Macbeth where they moved things to Africa and one faction of enemy forces were white imperialist or something like that. People walking around with machine guns. Surprisingly, it was quite good.

Soon after that I saw "Ophelia", which was Hamlet from her point of view, where she fakes her death and hires the pirates to go rescue Hamlet from R&G.

In other words, it was actually a while before I saw anything Shakespearian that was more or less normal. I am honestly not sure when I saw various movies- I guess I saw a R&J movie at some point fairly early, and probably the Gibson Hamlet.

[queenpam.livejournal.com]

A Midsummer Night's Dream as a ballet, but I don't suppose that counts since there were no actual words. Also, I was 6 or 7 and totally didn't understand what in the world was going on. After that, the Tempest, or maybe As You Like It. I care much for the former, and I have very little memory of the latter, so no, I don't think they've influenced me especially.

[ladyrunica.livejournal.com]

What happens if you honestly can't *remember* what the first Shakespeare play you saw was? Do you become an amalgam of the many disparate plays you saw around the same time? Or are you just suffering from Haroldian repression?

[weinberg.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Thanks for replying, everyone! Very interesting.

I think if you can't remember, but you know you saw one or another, that speaks to the way that the plays as a whole pervade our consciousness as an Entity. This sort of destroys my theory.

But I think it's probably an experience a lot of people have had - the sense of Shakespeare being in their past, but not which play in particular.

Bloom might say that it means we can't imagine ourselves without Shakespeare.

[weinberg.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Also, I love the idea that the first Shakespeares you saw were non-traditional stagings. That totally destroys the theory.