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Morton Marcus: [Cut off] -talk this way about and we give him the title of the Bard. We don't call him the Upstart Croon anymore. What is it though, for the people out there on the air, why do you, and I, and Kate, and Robert sit around and say, you

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know he gets better and better? He is not for this time, he is for all time, if I can quote Ben Johnson. What are some of the things that really make him so great? Specifics. Paul Whitworth: It's difficult. I mean, I keep disagreeing with

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you but I don't think he's for all time. There have been times Kate, what about you? What does he or the work mean for you? that have hated him. I think we live in a boom time of Shakespeare. The 18th century were not keen, they changed all

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the endings of his plays, they found his language rough, vulgar, ugly, they didn't like his versification, they hated his stories, they changed it all. I think from the middle of the 19th century till now has been a particularly boom time,

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getting better all the time. I'm not quite sure why that should be. So I don't know that we necessarily can rely on it though, him being a poet for all time. Nor do I necessarily think that is a good thing. I think it would be a very dangerous thing

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if everybody always thought he was good because he was Shakespeare, because tastes change. Still, to go back to why- oh, God, why do I think he's good? Well, first of all, it's the skill of the playwright. And as an actor, I

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think, in rehearsal and performance of a dramatist's plays you either find a certain kind of freedom or you don't, and I think Shakespeare, perhaps surprisingly because it looks on the page such complicated stuff, gives you more freedom than

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anyone else, any other dramatist I've ever performed. And I suppose you- well, for a start, the use of the language, I think, is absolutely unique. And an interesting statistic I came across the other day is that the other great work of the period,

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the Kate Rickman: Well, I was just listening to Paul and thinking what is it that makes rehearsing, for instance -- which is really the most interesting part of production

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-- what makes rehearsal different when you're rehearsing Shakespeare? And it's because I think you come home every night and think about what you've been doing and puzzle it out, try to puzzle it out. I mean, it's a continually unraveling puzzle

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that you- I mean at the end of four week's run, which isn't terribly long but it's all we have around here, you still think, "Now, wait a minute, I don't think I really got that." You know, it's endlessly interesting. And the more you

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know about it, the more interesting it becomes. And that I think is what really sets him apart from any other playwright. Morton Marcus: Interesting as far as interreactions of characters, the depths of the characters themselves.

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Kate Rickman: The possibilities, I suppose, of interpretation, and also as you get to know -- and it astounded me the first time I really was involved in a Shakespearean production -- that people come in as members of an audience, and may not know the

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play and sit there and watch it once and go away and they've seen the play. When people who've been working on it feel like they're just getting the first inkling of it maybe when they open.

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Morton Marcus: It's an interesting fact that I, again, in Elizabethan times I don't know how many times a person would go back to see- Kate Rickman: They couldn't have gone to see it very many times

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because the runs were so short. Morton Marcus: But the idea of going back again and again, and really seeing something, even a movie, I mean, most people think that movies are just entertainment, you go to a film

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once and that's it. And the director has put so much time in it that you're really missing a lot. Of course, Shakespeare is so much more in the script and in the language than a possible film.

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Kate Rickman: Yeah, in the imagery, you can just go back and back and back. Morton Marcus: Robert, what about you? Robert Fenwick: Well, the thing I find most, I guess is really

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stunning to me about Shakespeare, either in his poetry or working on the stage in his dramatic works, is the density that's packed into his language, which in some cases, I think is rather off-putting to people who are either reading

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the works, or even hearing them from some source. And as an actor, I find that the more I work with a speech or with a play, and find the interrelationships of the phraseology, and the rhythm and rhyme of his language, the more

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I find that there's really nothing accidental. Perhaps it's not all conscious, perhaps a lot of it comes out of a kind of an unconscious understanding and composition of the language. But the deeper you go in a speech, the more interrelationships you

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see, in terms of antitheses and comparisons, in terms of other speeches in the same play, or the speeches in another play. The contrast in the way one character will use language, and another character, which is completely different in pattern

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and rhyme and rhythm, even though it's still written in the same blank verse. And that kind of density of work, a very tight weave that allows one as an actor to keep working over and over and over again on the same speech and come up with, as Kate

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mentioned, different possibilities every time, is really exhilarating as an actor, and for me to do. And so that's my chief interest in Shakespeare, and when the festival got going here about five years ago, my actor's

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muscles just thrilled with the possibilities because to play Shakespeare is a completely different experience in my life to any other kind of drama. Morton Marcus: Great. Robert, why don't we start with you, and

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why don't you read us something by Shakespeare and then we will just go around or go backwards? Kate, do you want to get in on this or- Kate Rickman: Maybe later.

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Morton Marcus: Okay, Robert? Robert Fenwick: Well, let me start with a sonnet since we're talking about acting. And this one, number 23, starts with reference to an actor:

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As an unperfect actor on the stage, who with his fear is put beside his part, or some fierce hing replete with too much age, whose strength's abundance eakens his own heart, so I, for ear of trust, forget to say the erfect ceremony of love's

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ite, and in mine own love's s rength seem to decay, o’ercharge with burden of mine own love' might. Oh, let my books be the the eloquence and dum presagers of my speaking breast, who plead for love and look for recompense, more than

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that tongue that more hath more expressed. Oh, learn to read what silent love hath writ. To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. Morton Marcus: Very nice, very nice and a really nice play to-

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sonnet or work from Shakespeare to open the work with three actors. Very good choice, very good choice. Paul. Paul Whitworth: I've just- only just started to read the sonnets. I tried to read them when I was a schoolboy and I've

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always- I must confess, there's a kind of mystery about the sonnets. I'm aware that I'm missing out. I love the plays and I really find the sonnet's hard work. I find I put on a kind of strange voice when I read the sonnets and go into a

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sort of limbo, a mental limbo. And I- everybody says they're brilliant, and I know that they must be somewhere but I have got there yet. So with that in mind, I'll read the only one that I really understand which is about lust, which is number 129:

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Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action; and till action, lust is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame, savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, enjoyed no sooner but despised straight, past reason hunted; and, no

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sooner had, past reason hated a a swallowed bait on purpos laid to make the taker mad; ma in pursuit and in possession so had, having, and in quest t have, extreme; a bliss in proo and proved, a very woe; before a joy proposed; behind, a dream

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All this the world well knows yet none knows well to shun th heaven that leads men to thi hell Morton Marcus: I've often felt that way myself. [Laughter] Great. Well, let's just continue this. Let's just have some more

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of the work and let people hear these wonderful voices and this wonderful control. Kate, what do you think? Kate Rickman: We were going to do something from Romeo and Juliet because it is also a sonnet, although one that may

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not be recognized as a sonnet when you hear it in the play itself. Hold on. Morton Marcus: Okay. And if I can ask you and Paul to sit closely to the microphone.

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Paul Whitworth: This comes from the first- it's actually the first words that they ever speak to one another. It's at the ball in the Capulets' household, where Montague is just- where Romeo, the Montagues has just set eyes on it for the first

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time. Morton Marcus: And these are sonnets actually, they're actually- it's a dialogue in sonnets. Paul Whitworth: It's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,

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13. Yeah, it's a sonnet, well, and a bit, sonnet plus. Sonnet plus a bit, but it's got a sonnet-like structure and mode of procedure in that it sort of sets up a premise and then proves it. But you've got to remember that he's in her

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household where to be discovere is death for him. And he's very bold and just walks up to this girl he's never seen before in his life and grabs her hand. An before she can splatter wit disapproval and slap him acros the face, he says:

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If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Kate Rickman: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

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which mannerly devotion shows in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. Paul Whitworth: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

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Kate Rickman: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Paul Whitworth: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; they pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Kate Rickman: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers'

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sake. Paul Whitworth: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged. Kate Rickman: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

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Paul Whitworth: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. Kate Rickman: You kiss by the book. Morton Marcus: Well, that's also great because we forget how much

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in trying to sanctify him, we forget how much fun Shakespeare is. And certainly in Romeo and Juliet, the great play of starcrossed lovers, we've got some of the most ribald jocund humor that he has ever written. And what I love about it is it

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starts off with him mooning for Rosalind, and we then find out that he's never met her, and that he's going through this old love sickness that had come down from medieval times and was really just a pose, sort of, that had come from the courts of

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France. And then suddenly, he meets Juliet and something happens and there's real love there now. It's great stuff, great stuff. Kate Rickman: Juliet is also I mean, this whole balcony scene,

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which is so well known, is terrifically playful and funny. Morton Marcus: Yes. Kate Rickman: And I think one tends to forget that by the end of the play, of what how light-hearted and charming these

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young, very young lovers are. Morton Marcus: Well, I hate to tell you this, but since you brought it up, you're just going to have to read it for us. Kate Rickman: Okay. Do you want to- do you want to just fill in

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Romeo? Paul Whitworth: Where is this? Kate Rickman: Well, I mean, we can- I mean, the whole wordplay that she has with his name is terrific. She says, as people

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probably remember: O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

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Paul Whitworth: Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? Kate Rickman: 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy: thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot, nor arm nor face, nor any other part belonging to a

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man. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, and for thy name,

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which is no part of thee, take all myself. Paul Whitworth: I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

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Kate Rickman: That's kind of thing that makes him so special, I think, because even in his tragedies, he can have such fun. He's so playful with his own language. Morton Marcus: A friend of mine but, in fact, a colleague of

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mine by the name of Fred Levy says that one of the great things about Shakespeare is, when you hear someone say something in a Shakespeare play, you say, that's what I would have wanted to have said, just that way, you know? You will

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always know that someone comes up to you and either kick sand in your face, because you're a 325 pound weakling or something like that. And you just want to come back with the remark that will just totally stun that person to silence and humility.

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And you never, you'll never remember- or you figure it out two years later, and Shakespeare is just saying it in the plays all the time. It's just really an amazing facility also, again, the use of language, which is so much the concern, let's say of

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this program. Robert. Robert Fenwick: Well, I have a sonnet here for, actually that follows in quite that line, because some of the sonnets, particularly, and speeches in the plays as well, but some of

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the sonnets are a little too dense to grasp on a colloquial level. They're juxtapositions of words in English that do make grammatical sense, but not in a syntactical way that contemporary minds would relate to. But every now and then I

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come across a passage of speech by a character or one of the sonnets that sounds so, not just eloquent in its expression, but so colloquial even in today's frame of language that it jumps out at me and this is one of those:

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When I consider everything that grows holds in perfection but a little moment, that this huge stage presenteth nought but shows whereon the stars in secret influence comment; when I perceive that men as plants increase, cheered and check'd

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even by the selfsame sky, vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, and wear their brave state out of memory; then the conceit of this inconstant stay sets you most rich in youth before my sight, where wasteful time debateth with decay to

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change your day of youth to sullied night; and all in war with time for love of you, as he takes from you I engraft you new. Morton Marcus: Great. Let me get back to a poem that I like, and

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I'll jump in here with these wonderful actors and everyone out there knows I have absolutely no pride- no humility, so I'll just do it. The many love poems that were being written in Elizabethan times, modeled after Petrarch,

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had certain conventions and the way they would describe a woman -- her eyes were like stars, her teeth were like pearls and things like that -- and Shakespeare wrote a wonderfully playful sonnet. It's sonnet number 130, in which he talks

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about his mistress, which we think is the Dark Lady of the sonnet. In this very strange sonnet sequence where we have glimmers of a narrative going on and then the narrative disappears. But let me just read this for you, in which he talks

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about his love in a very unpetrarchan way and is beginning the destruction of the whole petrarchan convention which has been going on for quite some time: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; coral is far more

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red than her lips' red; if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; if hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, but no such roses see I in her cheeks; and in some perfumes is there more

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delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; my mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I

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think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare. Paul, you don't have a book in your hand. Paul Whitworth: I don't, no. Morton Marcus: But why not tap some more comments? What are you

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going to read? Let's see, we're just about to take a break out anyway, maybe we'll read one more thing. What are you going to do in the second part of the program do you think? Paul Whitworth: We could do something from the plays?

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Morton Marcus: Okay. Robert Fenwick: And I think it would wonderful to do some of Shakespeare's bad poems. You know, in many of the plays, he has characters who really have no business doing it, writing

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poetry of their own and sometimes speaking it. And I think it's one of the great playful things about Shakespeare to see this incredible master of the language apply his art in a totally clowning way, so perhaps we can do that.

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Morton Marcus: Sounds good, sounds wonderful. How about one of the three of you reading something to send us off with [unidentified] and recorders and percussion here? Paul Whitworth: Okay, here's to- how long have we got?

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Morton Marcus: Oh, it's nothing specific. Paul Whitworth: This is a very bizarre ending to a very bizarre play, "Love's Labour's Lost," which spends most of the time of the play knitting together the relationships between four pairs

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of lovers, and then at the last minute undoes them and they all go away for a year to think about it. And at the end, some people come forward and two strange, unconnect- apparently unconnected poems are recited, one called, "Spring," and one

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called, "Winter," and strangely and illogically, and I'm not quite sure why, they're one of my favorite things in Shakespeare. This is: SPRING

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When daisies pied and violets blue and lady-smocks all silver-white and cuckoo-buds of yellow hue do paint the meadows with delight, the cuckoo then, on every tree, mocks married men; for thus sings he: “Cuckoo; cuckoo, cuckoo!” O, word of

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fear, unpleasing to a married ear! When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, and merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, when turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, and maidens bleach their summer smocks, the cuckoo then, on every tree, mocks married

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men; for thus sings he, “Cuckoo; cuckoo, cuckoo!” O, word of fear, unpleasing to a married ear! When icicles hang by the wall, and Dick the shepherd blows his nail, and Tom bears logs into the hall, and milk comes frozen home in

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pail, when blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, then nightly sings the staring-owl, “Tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who!” -- a merry note, while greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, and coughing drowns the parson's

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saw, and birds sit brooding in the snow, and Marian's nose looks red and raw, when roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, then nightly sings the staring owl, “Tu-who; tu-whit, tu-who!” -- a merry note, while greasy Joan doth keel the pot. The words of

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mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way, we this way. Morton Marcus: This is Mort Marcus again. And we are tonight celebrating the birthday of William Shakespeare, in case you

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tuned in late and are wondering what we're doing. And that birthday is this Thursday. He was born on April 23rd, we think, it's 1564. And we have with us tonight Robert Fenwick, who is an actor with Shakespeare Santa Cruz, as is Kate Rickman,

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as are Kate Rickman and Paul Whitworth, who- and we've all been reading from Shakespeare, favorite passages, and we will continue to do that. But as everyone out there knows, this is also the time for announcements. And I would like

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to announce that there will be a another Book Arts Workshop series, which will occur. The final workshops of the series Letterpress Printing with Felicia Rice, which will be held the weekend of April 25th and 26th. And another session will

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be offered on five Wednesday evenings beginning May 20th. For more information called Polly Fox at 429-5190. I would also like to announce that Lawson Fusao Inada, the foremost Japanese-American poet in America, will be reading from

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his work and speaking at Cabrillo College on Monday, that's this coming Monday, April 27th in room 512 at 8pm. Admission is free. That is Lawson Fusao Inada at Cabrillo College this Monday 8pm in room 512 and admission is free.

00:30:21.900 - 00:30:38.280

Well, let us get back to our guests, and the guests who certainly is hovering over us all tonight, which is William Shakespeare. Who wants to talk a little bit about Shakespeare Santa Cruz and what Shakespeare Santa Cruz is? I imagine

00:30:38.310 - 00:30:59.340

everyone out there must know, but it is about time to start beating the drum again for this summer's productions. Okay, please out there, support the local and very excellent and very innovative Shakespeare Company that is Santa Cruz's

00:30:59.340 - 00:31:14.640

own, and certainly the three people who are sitting here are a really important part of that. And I really want to thank them very, very much for coming tonight and on this very hot, dank spring evening with the sea breezes washing the odors of

00:31:14.640 - 00:31:32.040

cockle shells and other things to us. Anyway, enough of this. Mr. Fenwick, you were very much excited by the fact that Henry the Fifth was going to be presented this summer and you thought that you would even read something from it, just maybe

00:31:32.000 - 00:31:41.060

Robert Fenwick: One of my [coughs] excuse me, one of my whet the appetites. favorite speeches from all the places I'm familiar with is -- well, a set of speeches actually -- is the part of the chorus,

00:31:41.540 - 00:31:58.790

who literally inducts in a hypnotic sense, inducts the audience into the proper frame of reference to perceive the play that's about to be performed before them. And he or she, I suppose, appears before the audience in the beginning of

00:31:58.790 - 00:32:17.630

each of the major scenes to bring them up to date on the current state of affairs and to describe things that have happened offstage as a Greek chorus might. And more importantly I feel to, again, refresh the state of induction

00:32:17.630 - 00:32:32.120

that they've been placed into, this very, almost a kind of trance state, of how to fill out the action into a fuller imaginary world. Morton Marcus: Right. I use this in my classes to get my students

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to realize how much of Shakespeare's plays really had to be heard by the audience that was standing there. They said there were no scenes. Robert Fenwick: Oh, yes.

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Morton Marcus: And he asks, you must use your imagination, you must listen to the language and lights start to go on all over the classes, you know, oh, he's telling us just how to get into the play. And it it really is wonderful stuff. In fact, the

00:32:54.170 - 00:33:13.280

play- the movie, or the film, I mean, [unintelligible], the film of Henry the Fifth that Olivier did, he first puts on the play and then in the middle of it, he converts it into a motion picture and then goes back to the play. And he's playing with

00:33:13.280 - 00:33:26.620

both mediums and it's brilliant the way he hears that language and uses it as a director. Robert Fenwick: Well, this passage both for that quality and also just for the sound of the words and the the trance

00:33:26.620 - 00:33:42.000

that they put upon the listener and the reader, it makes it one of my favorites soliloquies. It's from the beginning of act for Henry the Fifth: Now entertain conjecture of a time when creeping murmur and

00:33:42.000 - 00:33:59.190

the poring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, the hum of either army stilly sounds, that the fixed sentinels almost receive the secret whispers of each other’s watch. Fire answers

00:33:59.190 - 00:34:15.090

fire, and through their paly flames each battle sees the other’s umbered face. Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents the armorers, accomplishing the knights, with

00:34:15.090 - 00:34:33.090

busy hammers closing rivets up, give dreadful note of preparation. The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, and, the third hour of drowsy morning named, proud of their numbers and secure in soul, the confident and overlusty French

00:34:33.240 - 00:34:50.250

do the low-rated English play at dice and chide the cripple, tardy-gaited night, who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp so tediously away. The poor condemned English, like sacrifices, by their watchful fires sit patiently and inly

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ruminate the morning’s danger; and their gesture sad, investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats, presenteth them unto the gazing moon so many horrid ghosts. Oh, now, who will behold the royal captain of this ruined band walking from

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watch to watch, from tent to tent? Let him cry, “Praise and glory on his head!” For forth he goes and visits all his host, bids them good morrow with a modest smile, and calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.

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face there is no note how dread an army hath enrounded him, nor doth he dedicate one jot of color unto the weary and all-watched night, but freshly looks and overbears attaint with cheerful semblance and sweet majesty, that every

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wretch, pining and pale before, beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks. A largess universal, like the sun, his liberal eye doth give to everyone, thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all behold, as may unworthiness

00:35:56.550 - 00:36:14.760

define, a little touch of Harry in the night. And so our scene must to the battle fly, where, oh, for pity, we shall much disgrace, with four or five most vile and ragged foils right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous, the name of

00:36:14.790 - 00:36:30.070

Agincourt. Yet sit and see, minding true things by what their mock'ries be. Morton Marcus: Great. Paul, do you want to continue that or go off on your own?

00:36:32.860 - 00:36:44.080

Paul Whitworth: Well, it's a good one. That's a wonderful speech. It's one of my favorite speeches too from the play. Morton Marcus: I've asked Paul if he wouldn't, for those people out there wondering what Paul's talking about, I've asked him to

00:36:44.380 - 00:36:54.440

do Henry's address to his troops before the battle. Paul Whitworth: And I was talking about the one Robert had just read. I wouldn't like to do Henry's speech here because I haven't played it, I haven't rehearsed the part. I didn't

00:36:54.440 - 00:37:19.370

know the part and I didn't like doing things that I'm about to do without rehearsing. So- but I think it's time we did some prose. We've just talked about- everything that's been read has been Shakespeare's verse. And personally, I think his prose

00:37:19.370 - 00:37:37.060

can be just as- well if you define poetry as what makes your spine tingle, then the prose can be just as poetic as the verse. And so I've been flicking through here for a bit of prose. Morton Marcus: Great.

00:37:37.930 - 00:37:58.450

Paul Whitworth: And you don't need to know anything about this scene, except that it's two very old men sitting marooned in the wilds of Gloucestershire, and cut off from all the events of the kingdom. They're just two very old men. One of them has

00:37:58.450 - 00:38:19.930

become a justice of the peace and he has a cousin who is a monosyllabic fellow called Silence, appropriately now, whereas Shallow, the justice, is quite garrulous. And I just think I'll just read a bit of it. But he- but Shallow is

00:38:20.560 - 00:38:35.740

thinking about his younger days when he was training to be a lawyer around the Inns of Court in London, and now he's just a country magistrate with- he's a sort of glorified farmer in a way, he's got land and he he' sitting there growing old amon

00:38:35.740 - 00:38:53.800

his pigs and apple trees. S they're sitting together on Gloucestershire evening and it' just interesting after the sor of poetic turn of everythin because Shakespeare can be s simple, and so immediate. think he still sounds like a

00:38:53.800 - 00:39:09.840

old man marooned i Gloucestershire. Anyway here ar the two old buffers, Shallow an Silence, and Shallow starts Come on, come on, come on. Give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good

00:39:09.840 - 00:39:19.980

cousin Silence? Good morrow, good cousin Shallow. And how doth my cousin your bedfellow? And your fairest daughter and mine, my goddaughter Ellen?

00:39:21.270 - 00:39:34.560

Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow. By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin William is become a good scholar. He is at Oxford still, is he not? Indeed, sir, to my cost.

00:39:35.470 - 00:39:47.860

I must then to the Inns o' Court shortly. I was once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will talk of mad Shallow still. You were called, “Lusty Shallow,” then, cousin.

00:39:48.290 - 00:40:04.220

By the Mass, I was called anything, and I would have done anything indeed too, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man. You had

00:40:04.220 - 00:40:21.440

not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns o' Court again. And I may say to you, we knew where the bona robas were and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

00:40:23.280 - 00:40:40.410

The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break Scoggin’s head at the court gate, when he was a crack not thus high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Grey’s Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I

00:40:40.410 - 00:40:57.670

have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead. We should all follow cousin. They go on for some length, but I just love the one reference in English literature to Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer.

00:40:57.670 - 00:41:11.070

[Laughter] I don't know. He comes and goes out of the page of this English drama. I never hear anything of him again but he haunts me. Morton Marcus: Yes, those hauntings things are wonderful.

00:41:11.280 - 00:41:28.260

There is one reference in Homer to the king of Asine, who brought three ships to the fleet that went and wared on Troy, and George Seferis all of his life was haunted by who was the king of Asine, who was he? Where was the Citadel? And he made out of

00:41:28.260 - 00:41:48.500

it one of the most beautiful poems, I think, in the 20th century. Those hauntings, wonder of literature. Anyway, Kate? Kate Rickman: Well, just to finish with, I'd like to read something that has always delighted me because it is so-

00:41:48.530 - 00:42:09.860

The thing about Shakespeare that's really delightful, I think is that he can be- he can tap something that's so real and heartfelt and mean spirited. And in this case, it's a speech by Helena from "Midsummer Night's Dream" where she is just plain

00:42:09.860 - 00:42:25.250

flat out jealous of the happiness of her friend, her best friend Hermia, and Lysander, who are lovers. And she's been spurned by Demetrius and just cannot- she cannot stand the fact that they are running off together and that

00:42:25.250 - 00:42:45.160

she's left flat. And she says: How happy some o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; he will not know what all but he do know: and as he

00:42:45.190 - 00:43:07.930

errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, so I, admiring of his qualities: things base and vile, folding no quantity, love can transpose to form and dignity: love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind: nor hath

00:43:07.930 - 00:43:28.120

Love's mind of any judgement taste; wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: and therefore is Love said to be a child, because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, so the boy Love is perjured every

00:43:28.120 - 00:43:52.420

where: for ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, he hail'd down oaths that he was only mine; and when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, so he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight: then to

00:43:52.420 - 00:44:11.170

the wood will he to-morrow night pursue her; and for this intelligence if I have thanks, it is a dear expense: but herein mean I to enrich my pain, to have his sight thither and back again.

00:44:17.420 - 00:44:27.830

Morton Marcus: We still have around- we still have around nine minutes. Robert, you said that you would like to read some bad poems. Morton Marcus: Yeah, Shakespeare. Why don't you

00:44:26.180 - 00:44:40.700

Robert Fenwick: Yes. [unintelligible] [cross talk]. Robert Fenwick: Well, poetry was in Shakespeare's day, at least in courtly life, was very much a part of conventional language as

00:44:40.700 - 00:45:02.870

it were. The idea of being a poet was really somehow allied to the idea of being a cultured individual. And it's very different I think from our notion, at least until very recently in this century, of the poet being somehow extraneous to

00:45:02.870 - 00:45:20.420

society, somehow above it or removed from it and commenting back in reflective manner. And so there is poetry stated as such throughout Shakespeare's plays, all kinds of people come up with it. Sometimes it's used as in "Love's Labor's Lost" to

00:45:20.450 - 00:45:36.830

complete the play, and sometimes to point up a certain aspect, sometimes it's a song, a poem, a song. And this comes from the end of "Midsummer Night's Dream" and it's from a performance that the mechanicals, the rough tradesmen from the city, are

00:45:36.830 - 00:45:56.360

performing for the nuptial celebration of Theseus and his wife. And it's just, it's awful poetry. It's designed to ring ridiculously in the ear, and yet it has a kind of loftiness in that ridicule that I just find absolutely entrancing. It's

00:45:56.420 - 00:46:10.420

spoken by Bottom playing the part of Pyramus in the play. And something I'd give my eyeteeth to do on stage, but that hasn't happened yet. Anyway, here's how it goes: Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; I thank thee,

00:46:10.420 - 00:46:31.420

Moon, for shining now so bright; for, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams, I trust to take of truest Thisby sight. But stay, o spite! But mark, poor knight, what dreadful dole is here! Eyes, do you see? How can it be? O dainty duck! O

00:46:31.420 - 00:46:53.770

dear! Thy mantle good, what, stain'd with blood! Approach, ye furies fell! O fates, come, come, cut thread and thrum; quail, crush, conclude, and quell! O wherefore, nature, didst thou lions frame? Since lion vile hath here deflower'd

00:46:53.770 - 00:47:13.540

my dear: which is -- no, no -- which was the fairest dame that lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd with cheer. Come, tears, confound; out, sword, and wound the pap of Pyramus; ay, that left pap, where heart doth hop: thus die I, thus,

00:47:13.900 - 00:47:43.360

thus, thus. Now am I dead, now am I fled; my soul is in the sky: tongue, lose thy light; moon take thy flight: now die, die, die, die, die. Morton Marcus: Yes, indeed.

00:47:45.160 - 00:47:59.340

Robert Fenwick: And then he dies. Morton Marcus: Yes, Paul? I have five- we still have time for more. It really is a lot of time. I would like something read, I don't know whether you want to do it. I'm thinking I'm

00:47:59.340 - 00:48:17.490

bating zero for ten and asking your questions. But I would love sort of because it would be a good way to go out and sort of give a circular movement to this whole thing from birth to death to do and I've got it here if you don't have it, the seven

00:48:17.490 - 00:48:32.790

ages of man from "As You Like it." I've got it right here. Paul Whitworth: You have? Morton Marcus: Yes. Paul Whitworth: I've never played this part. It's this very

00:48:32.790 - 00:48:46.130

bitter man Jaques, isn't it? Morton Marcus: Right. And before you do that, so that we can have some really dramatic ending here, let me make my goodbyes so that what we will do is we'll just sort of take it right out

00:48:46.130 - 00:49:02.330

from there. And what I want to say is, first of all, thank you to Plaza Books on Pacific Avenue for a donation which makes this program possible in part. The other part is you people out there, thank you again for your wonderful response to our pledge

00:49:02.330 - 00:49:20.840

week. Next, I want to say that next week, Joe will be here with the recording of Derek Walcott, the wonderful poet from the Caribbean reading in San Jose; I would really advise everyone to listen into it. He's really a major part of the English

00:49:20.840 - 00:49:39.110

language. Again on Monday, Lawson Inada at Cabrillo in room 512 at 8pm, a very important, entertaining, and profound poet, and there is no admission. I want to thank Shakespeare Santa Cruz for being so nice, so generous sending these people

00:49:39.110 - 00:49:51.770

over and for the people themselves just wanting to be over here. And I think just really filling the airwaves and certainly the studio with a lot of good spirit, a lot of good feeling and great professional ability. Thank you, Robert

00:49:51.770 - 00:50:09.380

Fenwick, Kate Rickman, and Paul Whitworth. And Paul, you are now going to read us, "The Seven Ages of Man." Paul Whitworth: Okay, I have to say first that this isn't it. I always feel about this piece that it's strange if one thinks

00:50:09.380 - 00:50:32.120

of it as a set piece, you have to- you have to remember that it's by an odd, discontented, very single soul who's wandering around in a play where everybody else is getting married. And he isn't, for whatever reason, he is a mysterious misfit. And this

00:50:32.120 - 00:50:45.420

is how he thinks of things. Morton Marcus: I was going to say, we still have time, that it is these wonderful misfits in Shakespeare who utter things that have come back hundreds of years later to express another

00:50:45.420 - 00:51:04.230

age. And "out, out brief candle; life is but a player that strats upon the stage" in Macbeth said by a Macbeth who realizes that he has been totally tricked by the demons of the world, utters really what is the whole existential view of the 20th

00:51:04.230 - 00:51:19.290

century. And I think that speech has become very meaningful, certainly one of the greatest novels in America has used it for its title, and that is William Faulkner's, "Sound and Fury." So I- to me, these things, though, they may be said

00:51:19.290 - 00:51:29.940

by discontented men, they sort of express something that has come to be, and maybe as you said in the beginning of the show, will pass. Paul Whitworth: Well, the great thing about- I've perhaps

00:51:29.940 - 00:51:45.210

another way of describing why Shakespeare is a good playwright, is that he says things which we may all be able to identify with, and which therefore could be used as kind of soap box banners for a philosophical movement, but

00:51:45.210 - 00:51:58.200

actually, they are always said by particular people feeling a particular feeling in a particular situation. That's why it's good drama. If they were merely philosophical mouthpieces, they wouldn't be, but they are. The more I work on

00:51:58.200 - 00:52:12.420

it, the more specific I find for causes for every single utterance, and having played this- and having never played the part of Jaques, I am puzzled about exactly why he says this, but I'll say it anyway. Here we go:

00:52:16.230 - 00:52:40.410

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the

00:52:40.410 - 00:53:01.260

nurse’s arms; and then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow.

00:53:02.010 - 00:53:25.740

Then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lin’d, with

00:53:25.740 - 00:53:52.170

eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side; his youthful hose, well

00:53:52.170 - 00:54:19.950

sav’d, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere

00:54:19.980 - 00:54:40.190

oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. Morton Marcus: Happy Birthday Willie Shakespeare wherever you are.