If she thinks your behavior is heinous, kick her right in the

[ellenkushner]

We're in Boston for a wedding (and various meetings). Armed with the courage of our Shakespearean convictions, we went tonight to the opening preview of the fantastic fantabulous daring and gifted Actors' Shakespeare Project's Coriolanus at the giant rehabbed Amory in Somerville, our old hometown. It's pretty amazing. And, as Delia pointed out (when she made me commit to buying tix) how often do you get to see it performed?

A favorite bit*:

BRUTUS (But not the one you're thinking of)
There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,
As enemy to the people and his country:
It shall be so.
CITIZENS
It shall be so, it shall be so.
CORIOLANUS
You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you . . . .
. . . . Despising,
For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a world elsewhere.

It's a crazy, risky play to do now, as C. is an anti-populist nutdog military hero whose values - and mistakes - are from a doubly-alien culture (Elizabethan & Elizabethans' Take on Ancient Rome); but what a fabulous collection of characters! Especially his mother, who is very well-played. They set it all in kind of an early Soviet era, which translates well.

*And if anyone wants to volunteer the Easy Reader version of this speech, I am prepared to chortle

Comments

[poukledden.livejournal.com]

I love when companies take a chance on the less well-known Shakespeare plays. I'd dearly love to see that.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Okay, how about this:

Brutus: He bad!

Citizens: Darn Tootin'!

Coriolanus: Thpppppppppppt!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

O excellent (laughing hard)!

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

It's not often one gets to crowbar a Bronx cheer into Shakespeare.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I just so happens that the chapter of Little, Big that I am presently immersed in choosing, trimming, and placing art details for takes as its epigraph the last three lines you quote. I really enjoyed Coriolanus the one time I read it and would love to see a production. I vividly recall seeing Timon of Athens in a park in Seattle a decade or so ago, and far from being merely bitter and disentanglable it was incredibly witty and tender and soulful too, and of course a very apt indictment of the wages of greed.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Wow!

You'd like this production. A very different interp, but also complex.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Brutus: That's it! Public Enemy #1 is out of here!

People: Yeah!

Coriolanus: You stinking rotten zombies! _You're_ out of here. You make me hate this town, but so what? I've got places to go!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Sitting here in our charming little B&B in Cambridge, down the street from our old house, having just finished a delicious brekkers of eggs florentine, reading e-mail and now laughing my head off at this!

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

BRUTUS (But not the one you're thinking of)
That's it, he's banished.
None of us are his friends anymore.
Okay?

CITIZENS:
Okay, okay, whatever.

CORIOLANUS
You sound like a barking dog! *And* your breath stinks
as much as sewer water (sorry, I can't manage 'whose loves I prize' sensically)
as much as zombies
In fact, you smell up the whole place, so get out of here.
I hate you.
See, I'm doing this all for you guys
because I know there are other fish in the sea.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

(laughing head off) Did you & Ms. Schanoes (above) come up with zombies independently? So great!

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

We did, in fact, come up with zombies independently. *laughs* Shakespeare woulda loved zombies!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

omg - then you must see this:

http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/william-shakespeare-zombie-hunter.html

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

...that is *awesome*.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I saw a terrific production of it "in the long" a few years ago which was probably the best piece of theatre I have ever seen.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Jealous.

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Very jealous. It's an interesting play, and oddly timely in an era of demagogues and absolutist politics. Plus, I love Volumnia. As a character.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Never seen it performed, but I like the nuttiness of Coriolanus a lot more than the nuttiness of Titus.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Coriolanus - at least the way they cut the text here! - is very novelistic: the characters are more complex than they want to be, wtih odd little corners. Titus was such an early work, I think he was still playing by the rules.....

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

It's becoming freakishly popular -- I've seen it twice now, and hear there's another production coming in the city this spring. (The first time was in Stratford. *WOW*)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

That's interesting - but makes sense; there seems to be one play a year that attacks the zeitgeist and suddenly there are productions everywhere - often of something that hasn't been done much of late. Awhile back it was a sudden spate of MERCHANTs; recently I felt that I had seen enough variations on TEMPEST and MACBETH to last for quite a while.

Does this mean we're due for a nice MIDSUMMER around now?

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Yes, please!

I would have said that was one I would never want to watch again, having disemvowelled it in 7th grade. Now it's just a play of which I've never seen a satisfactory rendition.

I really wanted to like Michelle Pfeiffer one, because, come on! Kevin Kline!! Whom I adored as Petruchio. Not so much as Bottom.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Season 1 of "Slings & Arrows"? Watch it!

[yaoi-in-exile.livejournal.com]

Oh nooo, Coriolanus. The only play the Shakespeare Abridged company wouldn't do because they didn't like to say it. *headdesk*

"You can't fire me, I fire YOU! Oooh, what now?" Love his heart...

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Lazy bollocks; they just didn't want to read it!

Yep - you got it!