1. At 2:00 this afternoon, this November Sunday afternoon kicked into a fun high gear. I jumped on the ZOOM machine with Bill and Diane and we spent nearly ninety minutes discussing The Hollow Crown (Season 1, Ep 4). During and since our discussion, I've thought a lot about why watching these plays, digging into them, and talking about them is so good. Really, it all boils down to the plays always giving us multiple points of view and almost all his individual characters having multiple dimensions. Unlike so many voices we hear or read day to day whether in conversation, on the news, or elsewhere that treat matters in stark pro/con ways, Shakespeare doesn't see life in a polarized fashion.
For example, the episode of The Hollow Crown we discussed today is an adaptation of Henry V. It is, in part, a war story. So many war stories either glorify the heroism of war or are harsh criticisms of war -- that is, anti-war stories. Henry V explores both the valor and the butchery of war. The play is ambiguous about King Henry's decision to go to war. On the one hand, mounting an invasion of France unites his fractured country; on the other hand, it creates many, many years of bad blood between the two countries and is the cause of thousands of deaths. Sometimes the play's rhetoric about war is inspiring; other times, the talk about war in the play is grim, disillusioned, even cynical.
Likewise, the character of Henry V is ambiguous. Is he, as king, a valiant leader of soldiers? Is he a Machiavellian king, one for whom any means justify the end of uniting his kingdom? Is he a king with deep feeling and loving regard for his subjects, especially on the eve of leading them to battle at Agincourt? Or is he cold-hearted, a politician who will do whatever it takes to secure and keep power and instill fear of him amongst his subjects? Is King Henry admirable? Is he a calculating, performative politician?
He's all of this and more and the play bounces us around regarding how we see war and Henry V's character and heroism and power and on and on. In other words, it's a full play, resistant to our inclinations to see things in terms of either/or. Shakespeare, to me, is the epitome of a both/and artist, always showing us that opposites co-exist, that humans and human events are inherently contradictory, paradoxical, and all but impossible to pin down as stable or predictable.
Mutability. That's the word that kept popping up in my studies and teaching of Shakespeare -- and in my involvement in the putting on of his plays in the theater.
Mirroring human life itself, Shakespeare portrays, in multiple ways, the riddling, often frustrating, and certainly inevitable nature of mutability.
2. While Bill, Diane, and I were ZOOMing, Debbie texted me. She'd buzzed up to Radio Brewing where she was at a table by herself immersed in getting some writing done.
I hopped in the Camry and drove up, not to join Debbie, but to sit at the bar, talk some with niece Molly, drink some PORTER, eat some food, and wait for Debbie to decide she'd written enough and join me.
That's just what happened. I was at the bar for about a half an hour. I ordered some boneless naked chicken wings. Debbie joined me and ordered us each a fish taco, and I ordered a batch of Parmesan garlic fries. We yakked at the bar. We were both in high spirits. I was fired up after discussing Shakespeare with Bill and Diane. Debbie was feeling good that she got some things that she's been remembering and thinking about down on paper.
3. Back home, after a bit, I retired to the bedroom to spend time with Luna and Copper and, after a several months absence, return to Season 3 of Midnight Diner. For about a half an hour or so, I couldn't access Midnight Diner because, for some reason, the Netflix platform was responding to me as if I were in another country, a country where Midnight Diner was unavailable. I restarted the computer and that did the trick. I guess it put me back in the USA!
Episodes of Midnight Diner only last about 25 minutes. Each one puts me into such a contemplative and satisfied mood that I don't want to break the spell by watching another. I cannot, nor do I want to, binge watch this series. As they so often are, tonight's episode was simple. It focused on two longtime friends preparing for a twenty-five year school reunion and a man who returns to their lives after a long absence. Each episode also centers on one dish of food. Tonight's focused on glass noodle salad. It made me want to go uptown to the all-night Japanese diner in Kellogg -- oh! wait a minute -- I was dreaming.
After watching Midnight Diner, with Luna and Copper contentedly right there with me on the bed, I went online and found different scenes on video of the 1989 Kenneth Branagh movie, Henry V. I have countless joyful memories tied up in having watched this movie countless times in Eugene. I saw it at The Bijou, in the LCC film screening room, in the basement of the Center building, in one of our Fast Forward classrooms, and at home. I used to have the cd of the movie's soundtrack and would play it full blast when I had the house to myself. The memories, not only of watching this movie, but of my strong affection for it and all those people I watched it with over the years came rushing back and tears streamed down my face as I watched the handful of scenes I found online.
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