Since my poor mother is having computer problems, I’ll fill you in with the family news. On Saturday Daddy too Mom and I out to the Mad Cow Theater production of Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
This is where I show off that my homeschool education was so superior that I’d never even heard of it before. Shakespeare wrote a play called Pericles? I knew I should look something up about it, but I was engrossed in That Hideous Strength and couldn’t tear myself away. It turned out not to matter. The actors articulated well and with only moderate effort I could follow the story and some poetry. They delivered with that ‘Shakespeare voice’ that is not my favorite as it tends to make it more difficult to understand, but it does bring out the poetry, which is nice for its own sake.
My arms, though better, are not well enough for a full review, but I thoroughly enjoyed being in the theater again. I’m reminded why it was my first choice of profession, though I am also glad that I do not have to make the terrible moral choices that actresses who want to eat are forced to make. But on to pleasanter thoughts; here are the two best lines of the play.
I’ll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath:
Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both:
What means the nun?
The first is self explanatory. To understand the second, you must see (or read) it for yourself. This production did a wonderful job with the last act. Pericles in particular delivered his lines well and had us all laughing. Sadly, after looking these quotes up in my William Shakespeare: The Complete Works (obviously my love of Shakespeare phase did not extended so far as to read everything in that book I rejoiced over receiving) I found that the second quote stands thus in my Shakespeare: “What means the woman?” I’m not sure why they felt the need to change it. Are there different ‘versions’ of Shakespeare out there?
As an interesting side note, the three hour play takes of 25 normal print pages in the book. No wonder I’m a slow reader. I like to imagine and act out everything I read, and that simply takes time! Speaking of reading, I’m half way through Humble Apologetics and am far from disappointed. What happened to the critical Janet who always had beef with some part or other of every book she read? I’ve begun to worry that my mind is going soft, but then again, maybe I’m just learning to extract what is good without getting upset at that which is not as helpful. I hope some of my readers will read the book and get some lively conversation going once I post my ‘review.’
To answer your Shakespeare question, there are many versions out there. Despite the fact that a given play was written in 1597 or 1603, none were published for general purchase until 1620, when several scripts were collected into what is commonly called The First Folio. Several folios followed. Actors and directors, of course, made notes and changed lines for their own scripts, and by the time fifteen years had passed there were a half-dozen different versions of any given masterpiece. Sneaky, huh?
As for your criticalness, anybody reading Lewis' Sci-fi trilogy is going to be hard-pressed to find anything wrong with them. That pleasure in a well-told tale will extend out for a little while, so don't be too hard on yourself.
Okay, time for the ultimate embarrassing confession: I wasn't aware Shakespeare wrote a play about Pericles. (Okay, not supremely embarrassing for most people, but for the guy who used to make detailed notes for imaginary productions in the margins...)
There are at least a Third Folio and Fourth Folio versions of Pericles (http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/plays/Per.html —although the feature purporting to let you compare the folios failed to load the facsimile images). Whatever source the Open Source Shakespeare uses says "nun": http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.php
