Eccentric Flower:199903/shakespeare soup part two
From Eccentric Flower
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sixteen march shakespeare soup (part two) And now, act two. This makes little sense unless you've read the previous postcard, so please do. I'll wait for you to come back. As I say, I got mail this morning from someone who's new to these screeds - welcome, sir, and don't let my ornery nature scare you off. He wondered: "How can someone both defend Hamlet and profess such a hatred of soap opera? It doesn't approach the sophistication and majesty of [The] Tempest." I fear I have misled. I have nothing against soap opera. I have a problem with bad soap opera, which is to say, seventy-five percent of everything on television. If Shakespeare - or, lord bless me, Gilbert and Sullivan - were writing television soap operas today, I'd be a lot more likely to be watching them. There is not a lot of cleverness in soap opera today. I like comedy of errors. I like star-crossed lovers. I even like slamming-door farce, when done right. In short, I like my plays plot-heavy. They should either be ripe with coincidence and twists of fate, or they should be The Sound of Murder or Agatha Christie. Romances are a good third place. I'll watch two people feud and learn to fall in love - remember, my favorite type of movie is the screwball comedy and my favorite play is The Man Who Came To Dinner. I admit readily that this is only my personal taste, and I am not trying to influence anyone else's - I am merely trying to explain my (substantial) oddities. For example, given this information, it should be much clearer why I don't like the history plays, where events just sort of happen in sequence. Why I don't like realist plays of either the old (Odets) or new (Mamet) schools, where people just talk talk. And why I don't like absurdist plays, where nothing happens. What can I say? I'm a Philistine. At any rate, I have no problem with The Tempest, although if the truth be told I love what John Cassavetes and Paul Mazurszky did to it even more. Difficult movie to find, these days - Tempest (without the "the"). Long movie, too. Some people find it hard to watch. And you know what? All people really do in the movie is talk talk. It's got less activity than the Shakespeare version. It's more of an introspection into the character of Philip (Prospero) than anything else, with very little of the storm, elementals, magic, et cetera left to it. Which should show you that I am also frequently inconsistent. This is why I am willing to give almost anything a second chance - because I keep finding things that break my own rules.
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