GUEST POST: DS’s my long summer stateside sojourn

21 September

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang…”

The first lines of Sonnet 73 remind me that autumn is upon us, and my long summer stateside sojourn has come to an end. This last/past week in New York City, the Bard has been ever present in my thoughts by way of several literary and dramatic events that I was fortunate enough to attend.

On Saturday evening, the East Village Lit Crawl brought me to the stylish dungeon-like cellar of the Von Bar on Bleecker Street for three short readings and three long toasts under the title Literature and Libations. One of the three authors was John Reed, a New York novelist with whom I was not acquainted. His latest book, published in 2008, is “All the World’s a Grave: A New Play by William Shakespeare.”

Written in dramatic form, the story is constructed of lines drawn from Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, but rearranged to tell a totally new tale. Prince Hamlet goes to war for Juliet, daughter of King Lear. Upon his triumphant return home he discovers his mother has murdered his father and married Macbeth. Enter Iago and General Romeo… Some forty years after Tom Stoppard shifted focus to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, something also done in comic form by W.S. Gilbert in 1874, such theatrical grave-digging has become commonplace. (How did I miss the 2009 vampire film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead, featuring several reincarnations throughout history?)

However, on this occasion Read introduced the audience to newer material. In the last few years, inspired by the research for his book, he’s been writing a Sequence of Sonnets, a total of 60 so far. When he began, he primarily used the English sonnet structure as practiced by WS. But of late Reed has been exploring the earlier Italian forms. His Lit Crawl reading included tricky #20 (John John), one which employed the Elizabethan model:

John John automaton, born to never,
never learn. John John automaton, born
to never never learn. Born to ever
ever urn. Born to burn and born to scorn.

John John automaton, got nothing,
nothing, nothing done. John John automat,
nothing winning, always spinning spinning
spinning. John-a-folds his wrinkles flat.

John John automatic. Panic panic
panic panic. Needs to needs to needs to naught.
Needs machined, by house mechanic.
John-O-John, ought-to-John on auto ought.

Not John-o-ton. John John, not John-o-ton.
John John, not John-o-ton. John John, not John

John Reed’s entire (and open-ended, so one can assume he is not yet finished) Sequence of Sonnets can be found on his website: http://www.johnreed.org/

Three nights later I traveled uptown to Barnes & Noble on 82nd Street to hear another author I’d not heard of. Jaime Manrique is an award-winning gay Columbian novelist, poet and journalist who now lives in New York City. He writes in both Spanish and English and is most well-known for his memoir “Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me.” His newest book is a historical novel based on the early life of Miguel de Cervantes. I knew Cervantes and Shakespeare were contemporaries, but didn’t realize they died within ten days of each other (in part why World Book Day is celebrated on 23 April.)

“Cervantes Street” draws heavily upon “Don Quixote,” considered the first modern novel in Western literature. And during his talk, Manrique cited WS as another important source of inspiration. In a note to the reader, he references “an homage to Shakespeare.” Yet to read it, I can’t be more specific. I will say this: on the way home I opened my personally signed copy on the subway and became so enthralled that I almost missed my stop.
For more: http://www.akashicbooks.com/cervantesstreet.htm

“If I wanted to be master of my own destiny, and choose my path to manhood, my only two options were fame as a poet or glory as a soldier. To become the most famous poet and warrior of my time- now that was a worthy goal.” (from “Cervantes Street” by Jaime Manrique)

The following night, full-blooded poetry combined with bloodthirsty warriors to set the stage for an Encore presentation at the Soho Playhouse. “Pulp Shakespeare” is a wickedly clever mash-up, posing the question: What if the Bard had written Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 cult classic Pulp Fiction?

Director Jordan Monsell founded Her Majesty’s Most Secret Players in Los Angeles in 2011 “to bring a new slant on Shakespeare.” With their first outing they opted for a no holds barred, go for broke approach that won them Best of Fringe awards in both LA and, a year later, in NYC. On many levels, the successful pairing of WS with QT might be obvious. Much has been written about parallels between the two, and in interviews Tarantino has stated, tongue firmly in cheek, “I’ve always had a thought maybe that I might have been Shakespeare in another life.”

Both writers share a love of language/dialogue, often by using two-character scenes, or self-revealing monologues. Both share a taste for raw sexual tension and explicit violence. When push comes to shove, does it matter if a shotgun or a crossbow is aimed at a man’s groin? Much of the contemporary humor is perfectly suited to Elizabethan jests and jibes, like references to Amsterdam coffeeshops or the danger inherent in foot-rubs.

Perhaps needless to say, the better you know the film, the more you’ll enjoy the play. Aye, there’s the rub. I don’t remember seeing the film after its initial release, so I missed a lot that had diehard fans giggling with unbridled glee. Parody, even well-writ and expertly played, can grow wearisome over ninety minutes. But I’ve always held a fondness for Jacobean revenge tragedy, which “Pulp Shakespeare” most resembles. Interestingly, the play’s original title when first produced in 2009 at the Minnesota Fringe Festival (yes, Minnesota!) was “Bard Fiction.” It’s safe to assume Jordan Monsell’s deft direction and reshaping (he now shares a writing credit) improved more than the title.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwrMcsQBEBo

Posted by David Swatling
New York City, 21 Septemeber 2012