Shakespearean Weekend

This weekend was so much fun! I felt transported back to an era of Elizabethian proportions.

Friday night I saw MacBeth with the Grassroots Shakespeare Company and they did a PHENOMINAL job. The show was minimal and goofy: they had no budget, no director, 2 weeks of rehearsal, and were borrowing the venue. Each character costumed/prop-ed themselves, and they staged the play as a cast. It was the true Shakespearean expirience:
 I was a groundling.
The cast jumped in and out of the audience
the audience shouted at the performers.

one of my favorite moments of the evening was when Lady MacBeth said, "out damn spot!" and a groundling shouted "TRY CLUB SODA" bah ha ha

with all these distractions, they kept the integrity of the play, and it was incredibly powerful.

• My second shakespeare show this weekend was The Tempest put on by The Pioneer Theater Company at the University of Utah. It was fantastic. Some highlights:

• the stage was set up like a workshop, with a stage in the middle. The magic Prospero produced was compared to the magic of Shakespeare putting on a play.
• there was a very interesting relationship between Prospero and Ariel that they portrayed through a series of attempts to physically connect hands, then when prospero gave up his magic, they could for the first time touch. It was a moving moment, and added depth to their characters/relationship that was not written in the text.
• we got to talk to the cast after for a few minutes. They all seemed like very neat people. One kind of funny phenomenon was Ariel spoke and moved her hands almost the EXACT same way she did on stage in character

Quite the Wonderful Weekend in my opinion. 

Petrarch's Opinion

In my European Studies class we have been talking about the effects of poetry/love in the development of society. Mostly western, but also just human.

We read an article in class called "The Erotic Phenomenon" written by Jean-Luc Marion, and it was all about how unspoken but essentially important Love is to us, "As far as telling it, thinking about it, or celebrating it: silence in the ranks. A silence saturated with pain, which pierced through the political, economic, and medical chitchat that smothers it in an attempt to reassure us" (p. 3)

Petrarch's love Laura

We've also read a lot of poetry by Francesco Petrarca, more commonly known to us as Petrarch. He was conflicted in his love for a woman, because it went against St. Augustine's teachings to love God first and foremost. But Petrarch in the end didn't really care. He loved this woman and basically did not care that he was going against God, because it was such a powerful feeling.

There is a strong human necessity for love. There are incredibly powerful feelings that associate with being in love, we're both fascinated and terrified by.

Shakespeare often adds this element to his plays, because it's such a driving force of human life. In "The Tempest" The love between Miranda and Ferdinand is entertaining in a way that the other story cannot be. We, as audience members are so captivated with the sense of Love. 

Shakespeare knew what he was doing.

Jean-Luc Marion, Selections from Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 

creepy fascination

 The Tempest starts out with a BANG! You've got everything: crazy storms, magicians, spirits, potential love stories, familial grudges, sounds like a FANTASTICAL story we are about to dive into!