1. Because of Friday's trip from Pendleton back home and the party out at Rose Lake, I got a day behind on my blog, so this morning I made coffee and hung out in the Vizio room getting caught up here at kellogg bloggin.
2. Once caught up, I turned my attention to getting ready for our Westminster Basement Study Group's discussion on Zoom of the first episode of the first season of the BBC's The Hollow Crown.
The first episode lasts just under two and half hours and is a judiciously condensed version of Shakespeare's sobering play, Richard II.
I loved this production of Richard II. Not only was it a thrilling and naturalistic cinematic production, expertly costumed and featuring great location shots on seacoasts, open fields, in castles, and other sites, it was exquisitely acted. When performed, Shakespeare plays are at their best when those producing his plays cast expert actors not only in the lead roles, but in the small parts as well. In particular, I loved how beautifully David Bradley played the Gardener, Lindsey Duncan played the distraught and desperate Duchess of York, Lucian Msamati played the prophetic Bishop of Carlisle, and James Purefoy played the doomed Thomas Mowbray.
These (and others I didn't mention) so-called lesser roles gave depth and character to the production and the story. Shakespeare's "lesser" characters ground his plays, provide a foundation upon which the greater roles are built. The casting of the primary roles was brilliant. Both Patrick Stewart and David Suchet brought gravity and pathos to their roles as John of Gaunt and the Duke of York, two elderly uncles of Richard II who are essentially helpless as they bear witness to the seismic changes afoot in England, as they see the world order they have known for decades eroding and politics by force taking over. Likewise, Rory Kinnear plays the deeply offended, shabbily treated, and painfully conflicted Henry Bolingbroke as divided between his quest for justice, love of country, ambition, and growing guilt for having deposed King Richard.
Most of the play's focus is on Richard, the weak, impulsive, impractical, deluded, and poetic king and the multiple dimensions of his character, including how he matures into wisdom and self-awareness, even as he loses all his earthly power. Richard is brought to life unforgettably by Ben Wishaw. He completely inhabits Richard's petulance, mercurial mood shifts, self-pity, pathos, profound insecurity, incompetence, selfishness, and eventual spiritual growth. Watching Wishaw bring all of the complexities to life was stunning.
I am eager to see the next episode, Henry IV, part 1, especially because Jeremy Irons plays the aging and suffering King Henry, plays how Henry is affected by having seized the kingship and having, at least indirectly, been the cause of King Richard's death.
3. When I retired, I wanted to see if I could experience the plays of Shakespeare anew -- for many, many years, my experience with Shakespeare's plays was primarily academic: I read his works, took classes, and read Shakespeare commentary all in service to writing papers, taking exams, and, most of all, teaching college level courses.
When I got to act in a handful of Shakespeare's plays between 2005-2011, I got to experience a whole new and exciting way of experiencing these plays and I loved it. The plays came alive to me in ways that never happened in the classroom or as an audience member in the scores of productions I watched over the years.
When I left Eugene, my days of being in theater productions were over -- although I did travel from Maryland to Oregon, via Kellogg, and got to help narrate Shakespeare Showcases at the Wildish Theater in Springfield. That was a blast.
But, could I watch plays, maybe even read plays, free of experiencing them as material for academic achievement and classroom instruction?
Possibly.
But, recently, the Westminster Basement Study Group -- Val, Colette, Bridgit, Bill, and Diane -- asked me to, in a sense, be their teacher -- for Bill, Colette, Val, and Bridgit this meant being their teacher again. I'd been their teacher at Whitworth. Bill was a student of mine in 1977 and they were all in classes of mine at some point between 1982-84.
I agreed to provide content and raise questions, first about the genre of comedy, and, now, about the four plays that comprise season 1 of The Hollow Crown.
It feels right. We are doing this study free of the apparatus of academia: no syllabus, no course objectives, no credits, no papers, no grades, no course evaluations, no assessments.
We are watching the plays and discussing them out of love (for learning and each other), out of curiosity, motivated by joy.
So, after I watched Richard II yesterday, I went to our study group's webpage and posted some things we might talk about -- the nature of tragedy, Shakespeare's creation of confusion in the play, the arc of Richard's development as a character -- and earlier I had sent out an email recommending we think about how this play portrays the violation of custom and ceremony as Bolingbroke and his allies force Richard out of office and don't wait for him to die and for the rite of succession to kick in. We'll be discussing Shakespeare's exploration of power, his portrayal of Machiavelli's theory of politics.
And this doesn't feel academic to me. No. We Westminster Basementeers enjoy discussing ideas, expanding our understanding of what it means to be human and talking about the ways of the world.
I'm happy they've asked me to be their "teacher" again -- but, fortunately, this doesn't feel like school at all.
I loved teaching college level English all those 35 years or so. I loved working with students. I loved working with my fellow instructors. But, I retired to free myself from the demands of the institution. In our Westminster project, there are no such demands.
We're just going to learn and talk with each other.
A heavenly educational experience!
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