BB: Taming of the Shrew, Act III

Welcome Brawlers to our third Taming of the Shrew podcast.

Listen to the podcast – here –

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Before we move on to this weeks show notes, just a reminder to everyone listening to us in the greater Montreal area: be sure to visit Stephanie’s art installation at the VAV Gallery. The “Finissage” will take place this Friday, November 9th from 7pm to 9pm. Several of the first and second line Brawlers, as well as sonneteers and artists, will be there. Now is your chance to meet the people behind the voices. Hope we’ll see you there!

For a sneak peek of the project, visit Stephanie’s Tumblr page.

Bard Brawlers are clockwise Andre Simoneau, Eric Jean, Miki Laval, Stephanie E.M. Coleman, and Jay Reid. Not pictured Daniel J. Rowe and David Wheaton

In Act II, Tranio (disguised as Lucentio, remember?) manages to convince to Baptista to agree to Lucientio’s marriage to Bianca. Baptista thinks Tranio is Lucientio but they’re planning to pull a bait and switch on old Baptista Minola so the real Lucentio gets the girl. That could be a problem though when the two schemers make their move. However, by getting Baptista to sign on the dotted line, Tranio and Lucentio plan to take shelter behind the letter of their contract: in the end Lucentio will indeed marry Bianca. It just won’t be the Lucentio Baptista was expecting. But more on that next week.

In the mean time, Lucentio (as the language tutor Cambio) and Hortesio (as the music teacher Licio), find themselves alone with Bianca in Baptista’s house at the start of act III, scene 1. While Hortensio is tuning his musical instrument, Lucentio shares his plan with Bianca: the two of them will get married in secret. As Tranio already has Baptista’s permission for Lucentio to marry Bianca, he’s confident it will all work out. Of course, Hortensio by this point strongly suspects that something is up between Bianca and ‘Cambio’ and watches them closely while they talk. Eventually, they swap places and it’s Lucentio’s turn to watch as Hortensio puts the moves on Bianca. He doesn’t get very far before a servant comes and calls Bianca away. Hortensio realises that Bianca might not prove as faithful as he’d like.

The next day, preparations are underway for Kate and Petruchio’s wedding at Baptista’s manor. However, when act III, scene 2 opens, Petruchio appears to be running late for his own wedding. Baptista and Kate are beginning to despair but Biondello arrives to tell them that he’s on his way. However, he’s dressed on old mismatched clothing and looks rather ridiculous. When Petruchio finally does arrive, the others in attendance try to convince him to change into something a little more suitable. He dismisses all of them and goes off to get married. The wedding happens off-stage, but Gremio gives us a pretty vivid description of the event. When the wedding party returns, Petruchio says he has no intention of sticking around but plans to take his bride home with him immediately. The others plead with him to stay but he refuses. When Kate asks, he answers that the others should all go inside and feast but Kate and Petruchio will leave.

Is any of this funny? Why do we laugh at this stuff? In the next post, I plan to talk about some of the aspects of the play which make us cringe but this week I wanted to raise the question of humour in the Taming of the Shrew.

I mentioned in my previous post that Calvino differentiates Shakespeare from someone like Boccaccio. The main difference he points to is how Shakespeare marks are turning away from the bodily humour which was such an important part of the medieval stories he uses as the source materials for many of his comedies. But is that what’s happening here?

In a lot of ways, The Taming of the Shrew is not a typical Shakespearean comedy. You’ll notice as you listen to the play that so much of this play relies on either physical comedy or jokes about sex (or bodily functions). Which means that, without the actors, a lot of the humour is lost. How many times does Petruchio beat Grumio? The first scene in which we are introduced to these characters hinges on a misunderstanding about ‘knocking:’ Pretruchio asks Grumio to knock (on the door) but Grumio thinks Petruchio is asking Grumio to ‘knock’ his master. Petruchio rewards him with a knock of his own.

Another example is in act II, where Petruchio and Kate are left alone for a few minutes. Petruchio tells Kate that he will rob her of her sting with his tongue (ie: he’ll outwit her). When she states that in order to do that he’ll need to find her sting, which, she states, a wasp keeps in its tail. He replies: “What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again, / Good Kate; I am a gentleman.”

Not exactly PG.

The Brawlers have mentioned that this is a difficult play to read. Part of this comes from the fact that, unlike many of Shakespeare’s other comedies, The Taming of the Shrew relies on the body (or bodies) for much of its effect: the sight of characters in disguise, the enactment of Petruchio striking Grumio, or even the effect of watching Petruchio walk on stage for his wedding dressed like a clown, are what ensure that this play gets staged again and again.

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November 7, 2012 2

BB: Taming of the Shrew, Act II

This is the Bard Brawl and we’re back – post-nuptuals – with act II of Shakespeare early Italian-style comedy, The Taming of the Shrew.

Listen to the podcast – here.

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By the end of act I, Bianca’s three suitors – Gremio, Lucentio and Hortensio – have called a temporary truce to their wooing war in order to help Petruchio win and marry Kate. Not out of the goodness of their hearts, of course, but because Bianca’s father Baptista won’t let any of them have his youngest daughter until he manages to marry off the older one, Kate.

The only scene in act II starts with a cat fight: Bianca asks Kate to get married ASAP so Bianca can marry one of her three suitors. When Kate asks her who her favourite one is, Bianca assumes that Kate must be jealous of her. Kate doesn’t like that and she strikes her and stars running after her. Their father shows up and breaks up the fight. As he’s busy feeling sorry for himself, Petruchio arrives and declares that’s he’s looking to hook up with Kate. To show his seriousness, he offers his friend Hortensio – disguised as the music teacher Licio – to tutor Baptista’s daughters. The Gremio shows up and offers Lucentio (disguised as Cambio the language teacher) as his tutor.

Petruchio and Baptista then work out the financial details of the wedding. Baptista’s happy to agree to let Petruchio marry Kate provided he can win her over. Petruchio says “no problem, I got this.” While they talk, Hortensio comes back on stage wearing a broken lute. Seems that Kate didn’t like his fingering lesson. This just gets Petruchio excited. Baptista calls Kate over to meet Petruchio and leaves them alone. Petruchio and Kate get into a pretty intense battle of wits. By the end of it, Petruchio tells Kate they’re getting married.

Baptista and the others return. Petruchio says that Kate has agreed to marry him. Kate protests but Petruchio just says that she’s just pretending to be upset not to break character. The wedding is arranged for Sunday. Gremio and Tranio (as Lucentio) waste no time and now make their case to Baptista as to who should get Bianca. Hortensio drops out of the race early but Tranio (as Lucentio) and Gremio get into a bidding war. The old man loses and Baptista agrees to have Bianca marry ‘Luciento’ (who is actually Tranio in disguise at this point). There is one condition however: Lucentio’s father Vincentio will have to agree to all of the promises ‘Lucentio’ has just made.

Everyone still with me? Good.

Unlike both Merchant of Venice and Coriolanus, where the primary source text adapted by Shakespeare is pretty clear, that’s not really the case with The Taming of the Shrew. The most likely scenario is that Shakespeare adapted the Christopher Sly episode and the Kate and Petruchio storyline from popular folk tales. (Apparently, ‘shrew taming’ stories were pretty popular back in the day.) In the case of The Taming of the Shrew, the only source text which most people seem to agree on is an Italian play called I Suppositi. It was translated into English by George Gascoigne as Supposes (first staged in 1566, published in 1574) and it’s the basis of the Bianca and Lucentio plotline.

I tried to find us some online versions but I haven’t been able to get my hands on it. If you do find them online, leave us a comment and we’ll add some links! That means you’ll have to take my word for this but the main difference between Gascoigne’s The Supposes and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is this: in Shakespeare, the whole point of the deceptions and of Petruchio’s actions (we’ll talk about those next week) is to get married; in The Supposes, the whole point is to get laid. The play is important less as a plot and much more as an indication of the type of comedic tradition that Shakespeare inherited in the 1590s.

Taming of the Shrew, for all of the ways in which it’s different from the rest of Shakespeare’s other comedies, does mark the first step in Shakespeare’s ongoing investigation of the purpose and usefulness of comedy. In the older play, the story ends once the guy gets the girl. It’s all in good fun. It’s entertainment. In Shakespeare, getting the girl is only half of the problem. While it’s still good fun, there’s generally something at stake which is more than a quick fling.

If you read through Shakespeare’s comedies in order, you’ll notice a trend: as he ages and matures, he leaves more and more of the funny antics, penis jokes and slapstick humour out of it and he increases the seriousness of what’s at stake. (If you want to test that out, I suggest you subscribe to The Bard Brawl!)

Here’s what Italo Calvino has to say:

The weightless gravity […] reappears in the age of Cervantes and Shakespeare: it is that special connection between melancholy and humor[:] As melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness, so humor is comedy that has lost its bodily weight (a dimension of human carnality that nonetheless constitutes the greatness of Boccaccio and Rabelais). It casts doubt on the self, on the world, and on the whole network of relationships that are at stake. Melancholy and humor, inextricably intermingled, characterize the accents of the Prince of Denmark, accents we have learned to recognize in nearly all of Shakespeare’s plays on the lips of so many avatars of Hamlet. (Italo Calvino’s Six memos for the Next Millennium, p. 19)

I love this quote. One of my favourites.

I mentioned in my previous post that Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare’s first plays. It’s sensibilities are still a far cry from a Hamlet or a Twelfth Night but it marks one of Shakespeare’s first real efforts to make comedy serious, to use it not only to entertain but to teach… though what the lesson is exactly, I’m not sure.

Go here if you’re interested in a short rundown of some the possible sources for Taming of the Shrew.

Artwork - Leigh Macrae — Artwork – Leigh Macrae

Bonus Sonnet 20 read by Melissa Myers.

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, show notes by Eric Jean)

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November 1, 2012 3

BB: Short Poems, Sonnets 1-5

In our first ever Short Poems podcast, Daniel, Maya Pankalla and I discuss Shakespeare’s Sonnets 1 through 5.

(Bonus maple syrup fun facts from David Kandestin)

Listen to the podcast here.

Every week we cap off our recording with a sonnet. In this episode of the Bard Brawl, we gather some of them up and discuss the first five of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Join us as we take you through them and add our many voices to 400+ years of debate: just who are these things supposed to be addressed to? Are they even supposed to go together? Why should we care?

Sonnet 1 (Episode: Coriolanus, Act I, Read by: Stephanie E.M. Coleman)

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

Argument: We want beautiful creatures to reproduce so that when they age they leave behind a fresh, young replacement to carry on the legacy. But you’re so enamoured with yourself that you’ll end up denying us an offspring. If you keep this up, you’ll burn up all of your beauty by keeping it for yourself to look at.

Sonnet 2 (Episode: Coriolanus, Act II, Read by: Melissa Myers)

When fourty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

Argument: When you’re old (apparently 40 meant something different then than now) your beauty will be a thing of the past. If anyone asks you where you’re beauty’s gone you’ll have nothing to say unless you have a child with whom to leave your beauty in trust. In this way you’ll still feel young even if you’re old.

Sonnet 3 (Episode: Coriolanus, Act III, Read by: Esther Viragh)

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember’d not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Argument: Tell your reflection that now is the time to sire another copy of yourself in the flesh. By keeping to your reflection you rob mothers of sons and daughters. After all, you are your mother’s reflection and she re-lives her youth through yours. If you don’t have any children whose looks will be the memory of yours, you’ll die alone and forgotten. (Weren’t these supposed to be about love or something?…)

Sonnet 4 (Episode: Coriolanus, Act IV, Read by: Virginie Tremblay)

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tomb’d with thee,
Which, used, lives th’ executor to be.

Argument: Why do you store up your wealth of beauty? Nature doesn’t give out gifts but rather lends them. You should give back freely of what nature has given you. What account of your fortune can you give if you hoard your beauty? It will just be buried along with you, no one will remember you and you will have nothing to show for it. (Compare this sonnet with the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice who is accused of hoarding both his money and his daughter.)

Sonnet 5 (Episode: Merchant of Venice, The Speeches, Read by: Kayla Cross)

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap cheque’d with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’ersnow’d and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer’s distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill’d though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

Argument: Just as the passage of time turned you from a boy into a man, it will keep passing until you reach your winter years and eventually die. Then, if you haven’t distilled your beautiful essence while it was still time, it will be snowed over and lost forever. But, if you pass your beauty on to another it will survive even though you won’t.

Next week the Brawlers begin a new play. Which one will it be? You’ll have to listen to find out!

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean)

The brawlers for this week are Daniel J. Rowe, Eric Jean and Sonneteer Maya Pankalla

October 10, 2012 6

BB: Merchant of Venice, The Speeches

This week, we present the first of our new series of ‘Speeches’ podcasts!

Daniel and I have picked out a handful of our favourite moments from The Merchant of Venice and we’ve gathered them together into one awesome show. Then poured ourselves some drinks and had a chat about our selections. Feel free to do the same as you listen in!

Daniel and Eric go through some of their favourite speeches in the Merchant of Venice

Listen to the podcast here.

Download the podcast.

So you can follow along with the text if you’d like, here are the passages we’re discussing in this episode.

“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano…”Act 1, Scene 1 lns 79-107
Speakers: Antonio and Gratiano
Gratiano offers up this speech to Antonio who he accuses of playing the role of the melancholic older man to make himself seem more wise and dignified than he really is. His basic point: forget what anybody else thinks and lighten up! Is Antonio’s sadness just an act, though?

“When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban’s sheep…” Act 1, Scene 3 lns 68-93
Speakers: Shylock and Antonio
In this passage, Shylock and Antonio confront each other about their differing business philosophies: Shylock argues in favour of thrift and cleverness, Antonio in favour of risk-taking and faith. Which is the better ‘Merchant of Venice’?

“Why, I am sure if he forfeit thou wilt not take his flesh.” Act 3, Scene 1 lns 42-60
Speakers: Salerio and Shylock
Probably the most famous speech in this play, Shylock makes it clear that he’s serious about getting revenge on Antonio if he doesn’t get his money on time. He certainly has plenty of reasons to be pissed off. Is it possible to listen to this speak and not be moved to sympathy for Shylock?

“A song, the whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself.” Act 3, Scene 2 lns. 64-116
Speakers: Portia (singing) and Bassanio
This the scene where Bassanio finally tries his luck at picking from the three caskets. He offers his justification for his choice: one shouldn’t judge by appearance but by the weight of one’s feelings. Portia’s not supposed to cheat but she clearly wants Bassanio to make the right choice. She’s seen the other two – Morocco and Aragon – mess up, so she knows which choice is correct. Does she slip him any hints or does his reasoning just make sense?

“Now, Balthazar…” Act 3, Scene 4 lns. 46-80
Speakers: Portia, Balthazar and Nerissa
The mandatory Shakespearean comedy’s gender-reversal scene. Portia sends a letter to the lawyer Bellario for some legal advice and a cover story. She and Nerissa then dress up as a lawyer and clerk to play dress-up at court and brag about women with the boys. I was never clear on how she knew to contact the same guy the Duke of Venice had consulted with or how she convinced Bellario to go along with her plan.

“What judgement shall I dread, doing no wrong?” Act 4, Scene 1 lns. 90-104
Speaker: Shylock
We picked this scene instead of the equally famous “The quality of mercy” speech which comes a little later in the scene (lns. 188-209). Shylock delivers his speech about property rights. He argues that just as the nobles in attendance are free to do what they wish with their slaves, he should be free to use his own legally obtained property as he sees fit. Aren’t we inclined and encouraged to agree with his point?
For the full effect, you really should go back and listen to the (in studio!) recording of act iv.

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.” Act 5, Scene 1 lns. 61-76
Speakers: Lorenzo and Jessica
Daniel selected this passage because it contains Jessica’s last line of the play. Lorenzo is waxing poetic about the power of poetry and music but Jessica calls bullshit. Totally oblivious, Lorenzo then gives her a patronizing speech about why she doesn’t get it. Are Lorenzo and Jessica living in a dream world or is this a nightmare waiting to happen?

Hope you enjoy the show!

Feel free to download and listen to any of the previous recordings of The Merchant of Venice.

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean)

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September 8, 2012 1

BB: Merchant of Venice, Act V

We did it! We’ve finished recording our first complete play!

Welcome to the Bard Brawl’s fifth and final episode of The Merchant of Venice.

Listen to the podcast here.

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Bard Brawlers for this act are (Clockwise from top left) Melissa Myers, John dit Jack, Stephanie E.M. Coleman, Eric Jean and Daniel J. Rowe

The final act of The Merchant of Venice has only one scene in which all of the loose ends and threads get tied up. Portia and Nerissa beat Bassanio, Gratiano and Antonio back to Belmont. After the couples are reunited, the women ask for the rings which they gave their husbands back in act III, scene 2. Awkwardness and humour ensue as the women sweat their husbands for giving away their rings to the doctor and his clerk. Portia and Nerissa even go so far as to suggest to Bassanio and Gratiano that they’ve been sleeping with these men seeing as they had the rings which the ladies gave their husbands. In the end, they give the rings back to their husbands but only after Antonio offers himself up once again as surety for the sincerity of Bassanio’s and Gratiano’s wedding vows.

After the high-stakes, high-tension court scene of act IV, act V can seem like a bit of a letdown: each of the three couples are happily reunited once again on stage, and Antonio learns, that because some of his ships have made it back to port, he’s not going to spend the rest of his days totally broke. Since we know (because we’re in on the gender-swapping disguise game) that the boys are not really in trouble, there just doesn’t seem to be that much at stake. There’s just no way Shakespeare’s going to write a comedy and not give us our three weddings, right? However, that doesn’t mean that all of these weddings have to be created equal.

Gratiano and Nerissa are clearly a doubling of the Bassanio and Portia couple, once removed from true nobility (Portia is the lady, Nerissa the maid, after all). The play seems to believe that they’ll live happily together as one big happy sitcom family (it’s hard to imagine that they would have kicked Antonio out to starve if he’d ended up penniless). But what about Lorenzo and Jessica in all of this?

I mentioned in an earlier post that Shakespeare gives us some hints that Lorenzo and Jessica’s relationship may not be all it promises to be (and that it’s probably Lorenzo’s fault). As act V opens, the couple sits outside of idyllic Belmont, gazing up at the moon. Lorenzo and Jessica compare their love story to those of other well-known literary love affairs.

Here’s the list of allusions:

Troilus and Cressida: Troilus and Cressida fall in love during the Trojan war but Cressida is traded to Diomedes. Cressida knows she’ll have to submit in the hopes of saving her people. Troilus renounces his love for her as a result.
Pyramus and Thisbe: Two lovers enemy household are forbidden to marry. They set up a meeting place. When Pyramus arrives he thinks that Thisbe was killed by a lion so he falls on his sword. Thisbe arrives later, sees him dead, then kills herself as well. (Sound familiar?)
Dido and Aeneas: In his travels, Aeneas arrives in Carthage and woos Dido. Soon afterwards, he leaves Carthage never to return. Dido kills herself by throwing herself into a pyre.
Medea and Jason: Jason promises to marry Medea in exchange for some help getting the Golden Fleece. He leaves her in the lurch and marries another woman instead.

Will Jessica and Lorenzo take their place among these infamous couples? Jessica certainly seems to think so, and she compares Lorenzo to all of these infamous lovers, casting herself as the victim of a faithless lover’s promise.

Lorenzo’s love of music (which in this context likely means poetry) is telling. He sees his relationship with Jessica in poetic terms, is inattentive to the actual words, the weight, behind these stories. (Remember that Bassanio, the successful suitor, reasons that love is purchased by the weight and passes the test because of it.) While Lorenzo can afford to make promises lightly in love, to pursue it as though it were just another beautiful story, Jessica cannot afford to be so light-hearted with her affections. When we consider the potential consequences to Jessica should Lorenzo choose to abandon her, we can understand why her last line is “I am never merry when I hear sweat music.” She – like many women before and since – has been fooled by Lorenzo’s music. She’s worried about what will happen when the music stops.

So with that, we close the book on The Merchant of Venice but feel free to leave us some comments. We’d love to hear from you.

Next week, we change gears and tackle our next play, Coriolanus.

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July 13, 2012 3

BB: Merchant of Venice, Act II

The Bard Brawlers go through Act II of the Merchant of Venice.

Listen to the podcast – here -. Download the podcast.

(and, yes, you do hear Daniel J. Rowe say “Bard Ball.” The play on words still works.)

A lot of scenes in this one, but most of them pretty short.

In scene one, the action returns to Belmont. While most of the suitors have left the estate, the Prince of Morocco has remained and intends to try his luck. The conditions of the game are made explicit for our (the audience’s) benefit: if he picks the box with her picture in it, he wins the girl, the estate and all of her father’s fortune. If he fails, he has to leave and can’t ever marry. This thread is continued in scene seven where he actually makes his choice. It works out great for Portia, so poorly for him. In scene nine the second suitor, the Prince of Aragon, makes his choice and doesn’t fare any better. The way is now clear for Bassanio’s big move.

A common complaint about the Merchant of Venice concerns the contrived nature of the three casket test to win Portia. There’s a very simple reason for that. Shakespeare adapted that aspect of the story from a tale in a collection of medieval romances called the Gesta Romanorum. This was a long collection of stories originally compiled in Latin but eventually translated into most of the vernacular languages of Europe. These stories were supposed to serve (among other things) as exemplars of morality in Christian sermons. Therefore, they were not expected to be realistic. It is very likely that many people in Shakespeare’s audience would have understood the reference to the Tale of the Three Caskets as well.

In scene two, Lancelot – Shylock’s servant – debates to himself whether he should stay and serve a bad master, or break his promise to serve Shylock and flee to a new master. He plays a trick on his father and together they ask Bassanio to allow Lancelot to serve him. He embarks with Bassanio and Gratiano for Belmont on the evening tide. (I’m not sure what happens to Old Gobbo in the end. Hmm…)

Scene three is very short but introduces us to the character of Jessica for the first time as Lancelot says his goodbyes to her.

In scene four – one of the many ‘dude scenes’ – Lorenzo explains to his buddies how he intends to steal away with Jessica and enlists their help to sneak her away from her father and Venice.

Shylock takes his leave of Jessica in scene five when he leaves to meet Antonio and some of the others for a supper he has no desire to attend. Shylock instructs Jessica to lock the doors and windows and to ignore the masquers outside. He has no idea that she intends to run away.

In scene six Salerio, Solanio and Gratiano are waiting on Lorenzo who is late to meet them. When he finally arrives, they go together to steal Jessica away. She brings a bunch of Shylock’s money with her and they run off and eventually meet up with Bassanio and company at Belmont.

Scene eight has Solanio and Salerio discussing Shylock’s reaction to Jessica elopement with Lorenzo. They describe Shylock walking through the streets screaming and crying about his loss of his daughter and of his money. Antonio and his ships are mentioned, which recalls the bond he has agreed to for Bassanio’s sake.

Some characters appearing in this act for the first time:

Morocco and Aragon: Princes and suitors to Portia. (She’s not a big fan for either).
Lancelot Gobbo: He’s Shylock’s servant, though the nature of his duties is not entirely clear. He leaves Shylock’s service in order to serve Bassanio. The dramatis personae often describes him as a clown. I can’t imagine his name is an accident but I’m not sure what the connection might be.
Old Gobbo: This is Lancelot’s father. He’s mostly blind and deaf and he seems to be senile as well. I suppose we’re meant to laugh at him but I can’t help feeling sorry for him.
Jessica: Shylock’s daughter and Lorenzo’s wife to be. She converts to Christianity and abandons her father in order to follow Lorenzo.

We’ll talk about the relationship between Lorenzo and Jessica a little more as it develops in subsequent acts (particularly in acts 4 and 5). However, I would pay very close attention to the exchanges between Lorenzo and Jessica throughout the play. Even in the very first scene where we see them together, there are signs that their relationship is off to a potentially rocky start. What’s surprising about Jessica is not only does she give at least as good as she gets in these exchanges but she also seems to suspect Lorenzo’s motives and sincerity right from the get go. I think Shakespeare’s asking us to seriously consider the costs and risks of love and trust. After all, this relationship is an invention on Shakespeare’s part and he doesn’t tend to invent lightly. I think he intends us to compare Lorenzo and Jessica to Bassanio and Portia (and maybe Antonio and Bassanio as well). Think about what Jessica is risking in running off with Lorenzo: if he should leave her, she would be left with nothing. And notice how flippant Lorenzo seems to be about the whole thing (douche!). In this respect, Jessica’s plight (and Antonio’s too, for that matter) is similar to the test with the caskets: the inscription on the lead casket says: “‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”

Bard on!

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May 21, 2012 2

BB: Merchant of Venice, Act I

Welcome to the Bard Brawl!

This week: our reading of the first act of Shakespeare’s ‘comedy,’ The Merchant of Venice.

Listen to or Download the podcast.

In this act, Shakespeare introduces us to the main characters and sets up the plot elements which will be central to the action of the play.

In the first scene, a young impoverished nobleman name Bassanio asks his melancholic merchant friend Antonio for a loan in order to pursue his courtship of Portia, the lady of Belmont. Antonio explains that his assets are invested in his ‘argosies’ (that is, his commercial shipping) but agrees to taking on a loan with interest on his friend’s behalf.

In the second scene, we learn that Portia has been forbidden by her late father to choose her husband. Instead, he has devised a sort of test in which potential suitors must choose from among three boxes the one containing her picture. The man who does so will win Portia’s hand in marriage. (More on that anon.) Portia and her lady-in-waiting Nerissa discuss the merits of the current batch of suitors and find them both lacking and unwilling to submit to the test.

In the third scene, Bassanio and Antonio meet with Shylock, a jewish moneylender, who agrees to lend out the 3000 ducats required. Instead of taking his usual fee in interest, Shylock proposes a different bargain: if the money is not repaid in full in three months’ time, he will cut off a pound of Antonio’s flesh. As Antonio is confident that at least some of his ships will make it to port before that time, he agrees to the exchange. This is the origin of the expression ‘a pound of flesh.’

Other characters appearing in this act:

Salerio (or sometimes Salarino) and Solanio are gentlemen of Venice who are friends of Antonio and Bassanio.
Gratiano is Bassanio’s right hand man and friend. He will accompany him to Belmont.
Lorenzo is a young nobleman acquaintance of the group who seeks to marry Shylock’s daughter Jessica.

Enjoy!

May 8, 2012 2