Saturday morning classes with Michael Manson is great though, it's brilliant fun, most of all because I can do Shakespeare since he is a Shakespearian teacher! So I am doing the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen..." monologue for the class. I keep getting the same remarks, SPEAK SLOWER, I know I know, it's a slight problem, but not so much to be honest, even Marlon Brando said that it's IN SOME CASES (not with Shakespeare I'd admit) it's more natural and truer to life to slur your speech a bit because that is what people do IN REAL LIFE.
Anything that comes of as theater to me is like someone is forcing you to eat feces, yes, I am making a strong point. Fucking hate THEATER theater you know? It's appalling. People don't go around speaking like politicians for christ sake. Anyway, there are so many issues running in my head lately but as you know I don't talk about my private life because it's of no ones concern except for mine and mine alone.
Back to Shakespeare. I have, like I said, a ton of Shakespeare monologues and dialogues in my head that keep repeating themselves over and over again, do you guys get this too?
Hamlet talks about what happiness is, if you like to put more of a backstory into this, watch this great TED talk at the bottom of IsItPossibleToBeHappy?
" Hamlet:
What have you, my good friends, deserv'd at the hands of
Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?
Guildenstern:
Prison, my lord?
Hamlet:
Denmark's a prison.
Rosencrantz:
Then is the world one.
Hamlet:
A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and
dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.
Rosencrantz:
We think not so, my lord.
Hamlet:
Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.
It is very true though, nothing is neither good or bad, but THINKING makes it so.
And this piece from King Lear Act 3 Scene 2;
"
Enter LEAR and Fool. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout | 4 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, | 8 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| That make ingrateful man! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fool. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing; here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool. | 12 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You owe me no subscription: then, let fall | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| But yet I call you servile ministers, | 20 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| That have with two pernicious daughters join'd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul." And a the first scene of Julius Caesar also STUCK in my head, HENCE, HOME YOU IDLE CREATURES! I just love it, don't know why, I love it. Last but definitely not least, this AMAZING monologue from Thomas Kyd's "The Spanish Tragedie", now don't get me wrong, when I sit here and quote these monologues I don't sit day in and day out and read Shakespeare, although I try, these are bit's that I have either read or stumbled upon but what difference does it make? I bought a 1400page "The Complete works of Shakespeare" from the Oxford Uni, I'll read that come summer 2010 in Rada. This great monologue is very touching and I think it's VERY good, I'm planning on doing this in front of class with a few props with me, like a lit candlelight and such, I hope I can squeeze out a few tears as well because the scene almost demands it. I've read this and done it a few times BUT doing it in front of others is a different matter, just read this will you; "Heiro. What outcried pluck me from my named bed, And chill my throbbing hart with trembling feare, Which neuer danger yet could daunt before? Who calls Hieronimo? Speak; here I am! I did not slumber; therefore twas no dreame, No, no; it was some woman cride for helpe, And heere within this garden did she crie, And in this garden must I rescue her, But stay! what murderous spectacle is this? A man hanged vp, and all the murderers gone! And in the bower, to lay the guilt on me! This place was made for pleasure not for death. He cuts him downe. Those garments that he weares I oft have seene,-- Alas! It is Horatio my sweet sonne! O, no; but he that whilome was my sonne! O, was it thou that call'dst me from me bed? O, speak, if any sparkle of life remaine! I am thy father. Who hath slaine my sonne? What sauage monster, not of humane kind, Hath heere beene glutted with thy harmless blood, And left they bloudie corpes dishonoured heere, For me amidst these dark and dreadfull shades To drown thee with an ocean of my teares? O heavens, why made you night, to couer sinne? Bad day this deed of darkness had not beene. O earth, why didst thou not in time deuoure The [vile] prophaner of this sacred bower? O poor Horatio, what hadst thou misdoone To leese thy life ere life was new begun? O wicked butcher, what-so-ere thou wert, How could thou strangle vertue and desert? Ay me, most wretched! that haue lost my ioy In leesing Hortaio, my sweet boy!" (Had to type all that manually, yes it's all spelled like that) | | | |
