January 5, 2023 • 34 mins
What happens when a regular person has to publicly speak Shakespeare for a wedding or funeral or bat mitzvah? Barry coaches two listeners through their moments in the spotlight, and along the way illuminates how Shakespeare’s language works. Also, we check out Shakespeare in the mouths of the baseball announcers for the San Diego Padres.
Take Me Out to the Ballgame - Military Band Edition courtesy of US Air Force Band of the West.
Sonnets 18 and 116
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove. O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Things are just not going well for the Cubs
right now. Something is rotten. They have a state of
Illinois when it comes to baseball. But that's Jesse Agler,
the radio voice of the San Diego Padres. I live
in San Diego. That's where the old Globe is, and
(00:36):
I love listening to Padres games on the radio. Agler
does a regular bit with the big sports radio show here,
Ben and Woods. They call it the Incorporator, and the
idea is that Agler has to incorporate some preposterously obscure
vocabulary word into his play by play and then the
hosts grade him. Agler's really good at it. I once
(00:57):
heard him slip the word decorticate into a game and
make it sound completely natural. Anyway, last summer they challenged
Agler to incorporate references to Shakespeare into his call. When
the Padres played the Chicago Cubs. Agler through a perfect game. First,
he gave a little nod toward Romeo and Juliet Grisham
(01:18):
sends that one out to right field, Hayward fighting the
Garish son a little thing to catch that. Oh my god,
is the host of the show marveling at Agler's skill.
He did it again when Agler snuck the title of
a Shakespeare play in he was talking about the cubs
bad luck against the Yankees. It was a tough weekend
for the Cubs and the Bronx. Kind of a comedy
(01:38):
of air. Now, I'm a professional Shakespeare guy, and I
got such a kick out of all this that I
called into the show the next morning. We got a
got a special guest on the phone. Range is it
Jesse Agler? No? Is it Bill Shakespeare? Close? Close, Sir,
I should say it's Mike Shakespeare, long lost relative. It's
(01:59):
Barry Okay, who works at the Old Globe Theater in
San Diego, and he knows his Shakespeare all right, Berry?
How did how did Jesse Agler? In his Shakespearean challenge
on the Incorporator yesterday and good morning, good morning to
you guys. Well, here's a Hamlet line for you, a hit,
a very palpable hit that would have been an easy
(02:22):
one for jets. I'm Barry Edelstein, and I run the
Old Globe, one of the countries leading Shakespeare theaters. And
this is where there's a will finding Shakespeare from the
Globe and Pushkin Industries. Our show discovers Shakespeare in all
sorts of unexpected places and asks what he's doing there
and what his presence means about him and about us.
(02:44):
We did an episode of where There's a Will on
the way presidents of the United States have quoted Shakespeare,
read him, and thought about him. We've seen what Shakespeare
means to the lives of people who are incarcerated, and
to teens and to autistic kids in their families. We've
discovered Shakespeare in people's gender identities and in the process
of how American identity is formed. In this episode, I
(03:06):
want to do something a little different. I want to
find out a little more about how Shakespeare winds his
way into our everyday lives. And I want to hear
about how and why regular people turned to him to
borrow some words when their own seem like they're not enough.
This is a subject I've thought a lot about. My
(03:28):
friends know that I know my Shakespeare, so for years
and years, they've reached out to me when they've had
some important moment in their lives and needed some special
language for the occasion. Hey, Barry, I have to give
a toast at a wedding Gotney Shakespeare. Hey Barry, my
niece is graduating college. Gotney Shakespeare. I ended up answering
these questions so many times that I had enough material
(03:48):
for a book. It's called Bardisms Shakespeare for All Occasions,
and it's kind of a user's guide to quoting Shakespeare
in moments big and small. But the book turned out
to be less about the few dozen quotations I could recommend,
and more about the knack this playwright has for lending
us exactly the right thing to say on any enormous
(04:11):
life moment we might be dealing with. But don't take
my word for it. Listen to some real world examples.
Here's Shakespeare on the occasion of losing someone you loved,
And he shall die, take him and cut him out
in little stars, and he shall make the face of
Heaven so fond that all the world will be in
(04:31):
love with night. And pay no worship to the garish son.
That's Robert Kennedy, of course, enlisting Shakespeare's help in a
famous and very moving eulogy for his late brother. And
by the way, that garish son is the same one
that gave Jason Heyward so much trouble at Wrigley Field.
Here's another Shakespeare says of the earlier Queen Elizabeth, she
(04:55):
was a patent to all princes living. That's King Charles
the Third, quoting the play King Henry the Eighth to
sum up the life of his extraordinary mother, Queen Elizabeth
the Second. King Charles also quoted Shakespeare in his first
speech to the nation as monarch, and he quoted him
pretty much non stop when he was Prince of Wales.
(05:16):
On surprising I suppose, after all, Shakespeare is the royal
family's official historian. But let's leave kings and senators aside.
Regular folks quote Shakespeare at their big moments too. A
Nebraska school teacher named Mark Gudgell ran for mayor of
Omaha in twenty twenty one, and campaigning for the Democratic nomination,
(05:37):
he turned to old Will. Here's a local TV news
story about him. Gudge says he's candid, often using a
quote from Shakespeare that he teaches to his students. One
that comes from Othello that I think describes me really
well is that I wear my heart on my sleeve.
You don't ever wonder where I stand on something. I'm
open and honest about it. Sadly, Gudgell lost the election
(05:59):
I spoke to him, and he told me his campaign
staff was dead set against him quoting Shakespeare out on
the trail. They thought it made him seem like an elitist.
But if it's some elitist sin to quote Shakespeare a lot,
then if I may quote Shakespeare, I am the most
offending soul alive. I love using Shakespeare's language to enhance
(06:21):
my own powers of expression. I'll turn to him again.
I have been to a great feast of languages and
stolen the scraps. I find it just delightful to watch
him pop up in some context. That's surprising, that's sweet,
that's endearing, that's maybe even bonkers. So I wanted to
see if I could be of help to some people
(06:43):
looking for Shakespeare to enhance an important moment in their lives.
I'm a stage director by profession, and I spend a
lot of time working with actors on Shakespeare. I teach
Shakespearean acting, too, and I wrote a textbook on the
subject called Thinking Shakespeare. I do a live version of
it where I show audiences how professional actors and directors
(07:04):
bring Shakespeare's language to life on stage. That's why I'm
calling this episode of where there's a will thinking Shakespeare live.
I want to do a little mini version of that
work with some regular people who've had a little touch
of William in their lives. I asked around San Diego
and found two wonderful folks who were all about it.
(07:24):
I'll coach them for their Shakespearean debut after a short break.
A few months ago, the Old Globe sent out an
email asking San Diego if anyone was looking to quote
(07:45):
some Shakespeare on a special occasion, and so I thought, well,
that'll be fun. Let me just submit. What have I
got to lose? That's Lorraina Santana. I was born in Tijuana.
My father was a physician in Tijuana and was from
the state of Jalisco. My dad was very passionate about Shakespeare.
(08:05):
He would talk about how Shakespeare was able to stand
all the human emotions and write about them, and so
I grew up hearing this, and I also love Shakespeare.
Jonathan Mellow also responded to The Globe's email. I am
a long time union organizer and part time theater fanatic.
(08:27):
And what shape does that theater fanaticism take um at
this point in my life? It takes a few of course,
reading and seeing every play that I can possibly find
time and money to see, and on occasions struggling to
write as well. You're a playwright. That's yes, Yes you are,
(08:48):
say it loud and proud, and I'm a playwright, all right.
That's that's fantastic. I spoke with Jonathan on a special day,
Happy birthday. Thanks, So it's yesterday. I met some union organizers,
of course for dinner. That's great that they didn't organize
the rest, didn't organize the restaurant, no, shan. Jonathan told
(09:12):
me why he responded to The Globe's email. It so
happens that my truly wonderful life partner, Melissa, is having
a special turnaround the sun next year, and I thought
it would be nice to not only read some Shakespeare,
but do it in such a way where it didn't
sound like a complete goofball. So Melissa's birthday is coming up,
(09:34):
and you're going to read some You want to read
some Shakespeare? I want to, and I want to do
it well enough good. The passage Jonathan chose from Melissa
is not from one of Shakespeare's plays. It's one of
his poems instead, Sonnet eighteen. It's pretty famous. It starts.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day as it happens?
(09:55):
Lorena chose a sonnet too, and so I submitted this piece,
Sonnet one hundred and sixteen. Sonnet one sixteen is one
of Shakespeare's best known poems. It's the one that begins,
let me not to the marriage of true mind, admit impediments.
And because it's about marriage, it's read a lot at weddings.
(10:15):
People also really cherish it for a vision of love
that endures. I think that sonnet is just a beautiful
message about love, and I have recited I actually recently
recited it for my boyfriend's parents who had their sixtieth
wedding anniversary. Oh, we were sitting at the dinner table,
(10:38):
and I just recited it for them. Really, Oh, they
must have loved that. I think they were just taken aback.
Everybody was just a little bit like shocked. Shocked. How
in the sense that who pulls out a sonnet out
of their back pocket and starts reciting it at the
dinner table. Do you haven't spent a lot of time
(10:59):
at my family dinners? I'm sure. Please invite me over
for dinner. Two folks in san Diego to Shakespeare in Sonnets.
Let me take a moment to talk about what those
poems are. Most of all, Shakespeare's sonnets are remarkable pieces
of writing. There are one hundred and fifty four of them,
(11:19):
first published together in sixteen oh nine. Shakespeare had been
writing poetry since the early fifteen nineties, before he'd had
even one play produced, but by sixteen o nine he
was already famous, the author of beloved masterpieces of the
London stage, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet Henry the Fifth. And
there's some evidence that perhaps he didn't really want these
sonnets published, because they're very personal. When you read all
(11:45):
one hundred fifty four in order, you get a story.
It centers on a middle aged male poet, very likely
named Will because he can't stop punning on that word.
He gets involved in the life of a charismatic, aristocratic,
and extremely beautiful young man and develops a romantic attachment
to him, but he's conflicted about his feelings, not least
(12:06):
because the young man is having affairs all her town.
A rival poet appears who's also obsessed with this young man,
and then a woman arrives, the so called dark Lady
of the Sonnets because of her dark hair and dark eyes,
and our middle aged poet turns his attention toward her.
Along the way, some of the poems detour from this
group of people to meditate on larger themes about love
(12:30):
in the abstract, about time, art, and the meaning of life.
The Sonnets are celebrated for how moving and powerful they are,
but they're also fascinating for a whole other reason. They
seem to reveal little hints about who Shakespeare was. For
four hundred years, there have been literary parlor games trying
(12:50):
to identify the handsome young man, trying to match the
rival poet to one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, trying to name
the dark lady. There's no way to know who any
of the more are, of course, or even if they
existed at all, as anything more than inventions of Shakespeare's imagination.
And yet the sonnets do give us a glimpse of
Shakespeare the individual in ways that the plays don't, and
(13:14):
they seem to reveal aspects of his personality and his sexuality,
and his humor and the nature of his heart. I
shared all this information with Lorena and Jonathan Wow. Everything
about that I mean, it's just so many possibilities. All
(13:35):
one hundred and fifty four of the sonnets have the
same form. They're written in iambic pentameter, or lines of
ten syllables. They have fourteen lines, organized in three groups
of four called quatrains. That's twelve, and then a couplet
of two lines for fourteen. There's a complicated rhyme scheme,
and in almost all of the poems, the story they're
(13:55):
telling goes in one direction until almost the very end,
when it makes a turn in another direction that's surprising
or even contradictory. All of this is to say that,
as I told Jonathan, these little poems have a lot
going on in them. Okay, there you go. That's a
minute and a half on the form and history of
Shakespeare's sonnets. A masterclass in less than two minutes. But
(14:18):
there you go, there you go. I don't know about
a masterclass, but a quick drink out of the fire
hose in less than two minutes. I propose to Lorna
and Jonathan that we dig into the words of their sonnets,
pick them apart, figure out what makes them tick, and
then put them back together again in beautiful, expressive form
Step one. Give the poems a first read Sonnet one sixteen,
(14:40):
first Lorna. Oh, and by the way, you can follow
along if you'd like. We've placed sonnets eighteen and one
sixteen in the show notes for this episode. Okay, you
ready to give it a go? Sure, all right, go ahead.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediments.
Love is not love, which alters when it alteration, finds
(15:05):
or bends with the remover to remove. No, it is
an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is
ne'er shaken. It is a star to every wandering bark
whose words unknown. Although his height be taken, Love's not
Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending
(15:29):
sickle's compass come. Love alters not but bears it out.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but
bears it out even to the edge of doom. If
this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ
(15:49):
nor no man ever loved fantastic Lorena. That was just beautiful, wonderful.
And now Jonathan's turn, Shall I compare the leader a
summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate rough
winds do shake the darling buds of May. And Summer's
(16:09):
lease hath all too short a date, some time too hot.
The eye of heaven shines, and often in his gold
complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair, some time declines
by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal
shall not fade, But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
(16:31):
nor lose possession of that fair. Thou owest, or shall
death brag? Thou wanderest in his shade. When an eternal
lines to time, Thou growest. So long as men can
breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and
this gives life to thee spectacular man. Great, you're gonna be,
(16:55):
You're gonna You're gonna move Melissa deeply. Wow, you're gonna
she's she's gonna love it. That's my prediction. Next, understanding
actually what you're saying. Every Shakespearean actor has to make
sure they know what the words mean, what the thoughts
in the lines are trying to express. Jonathan's Son at
(17:18):
eighteen is about a poet trying to find the best
way to write about the person he loves. Okay, so
let's do this. Let's go through and make sure we
understand what's being said. Yeah, yeah, all right? Shall I
compare THEE to a summer's day? This question? You have
to ask a question. You've just compared her to a
summer's day on your piece of paper, right, Melissa reminds
(17:39):
me of July twelfth, And you read it and you go, ah,
is that what I'm going to do? Shall I compare
THEE to a summer's day? And the answer is, well,
there's a problem doing that. Why Because thou art more
lovely and more temperate. You're better looking than a summer's day,
(18:01):
and you're more temperate, you're more balanced. Right. Summer days
are hot or there's a storm in summer's days, right,
but you're not like that. You're more beautiful than a
summer day, and you're more even tempered than a summer's day. Right.
So it's a bad idea to compare Melissa to the
summer because she's so much more appealing than a day
and summer. It's beautiful. With the sense of the words
(18:26):
now clear in his mind, I asked Jonathan to read
the first four lines of the sonnet again, but this
time with a special technique we use in rehearsal. I
call it the paper trick. You got a piece of
paper nearby, Yes, cover up all of the poem except
for the first line. Okay, so you can't see you
(18:47):
can't see any of it except for the first line. Okay.
You're not allowed to move the paper down until you
get to the end of the first line. Then when
you get to the end of the second line, move
the paper down and reveal the next line, and read
that one line at a time. Okay, try it again.
Shall I compare lead to a summer's day that aren't
more lovely and more temperate? Rough winds do shake the
(19:10):
darling buds of May and summer's lease at alt short
a date? It's clearer, right, feel clearer to you? Did
it feel clearer? I think maybe it did feel clearer
in the saying of it. Imagine that all you're responsible
for is just that one line. You're not responsible for
the whole fourteen line poem, just the one thought. Jonathan
(19:33):
and I worked through the whole poem in this way,
and I did the same with Lorena, paraphrasing it, figuring
out what it means. She and I also talked a
little bit about the Sonnet's peculiar rhyme scheme. So do
me a favorite. Just tell me the words at the
end of every line. Just make a list of the
word at the end of every line. Minds, love, find remove, mark, shaken, bark,
(19:58):
taken cheeks, come weeks, doom, proved loved perfect, So you
can hear the rhyme minds love, finds, remove, love and removed.
Don't exactly rhyme. They're called a near rhyme, but you
get that they're meant to mark, shaken, bark, taken, cheeks,
come week's doom, proved I guess loved right, No, we
(20:24):
would say loved right, proved loved. So there's the rhyme
scheme that we were talking about, right, Wow, okay, all right, okay.
With material this complex, it's easy to get bogged down
in technical stuff. You can talk about iambic pentameter and
rhyme schemes and verse structure and antithesis and alliteration and
(20:46):
all sorts of other literary details all day long. As
interesting as all this is, what matters most is that
Shakespeare writes people trying to express themselves, people who have
thoughts and then choose language to communicate them. So I
asked Lorena to imagine a real life situation in which
she herself might actually say the words of this sonnet.
(21:10):
You've been to weddings, right, I presume you've been in
many weddings. Yes, I was just at a wedding last weekend. Okay.
So now, in the church of Shakespeare's period, and is
many many churches, there's a time in the wedding ceremony
when the priest or minister or efficient will turn to
the congregation and say, if anyone has any reason why
this marriage should not take place, speak now or forever
(21:33):
hold your peace. Right. So, now you are at that wedding,
and the priest says, if you've got a reason to
object to this wedding, speak now or forever hold your peace.
And you leap up and say, I'm not going to
be an impediment. Okay. So imagine that the priest has
just turned to the congregation and asked this question, and
(21:55):
this first quatrain is your answer to that question. Let
me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediments.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration fine
or bends with the remover to remove you're doing amazingly, amazingly,
amazingly well. I asked you to imagine that you are
(22:17):
in a dramatic situation. You're at a wedding, and now
you have a reason to speak this language. Right, Whereas
if you're just sitting around at home in your living
room and you say, I want to read this poem, now,
let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit
impedim right. It's may be pretty, but you don't have
(22:37):
any need to actually say it. So what I want
to do is give you a need to speak so
that this language becomes from inside of you because you're
trying to get an idea out into the world. Got it.
So what I'm trying to do here, Lorena, is activate
your brain. I want to hear you think up this
(22:58):
language as you go, so that you're not reciting a
poem that some guy wrote four hundred years ago, but instead,
what you're doing is putting the language in your own
brain and making your own brain come up with this
language as you speak. Got it. Lorraina and Jonathan were
(23:19):
incredibly good sports as I put them through their Shakespearean paces.
They worked hard to think their way through Shakespeare's language,
and to try all the tools and techniques I could
throw at them. When our work session neared its end,
I propose that they give their poems one good go
our own little where there's a will podcast, Shakespeare Festival.
(23:41):
We'll hear it after this break. All right, Lorena, whole thing?
You ready for it? Ready? How long do your actors
get in rehearsal? Barry, They got a little more time
(24:03):
than this. It's wonderful. Lorraina and Jonathan, citizens of Sandy Ago,
not professional actors, not trained Shakespeareans. Found two of the
most famous of Shakespeare's sonnets and spent an hour or
so working on them with me, so that through them
they could express their feelings to people they care about.
We put these poems into the microwave and pressed start
(24:26):
and now pressto though where there's a will thinking Shakespeare
Live Sonnet Extravaganza. Let me not to the marriage of
true minds, admit impediments. Love is not love which alters
when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove.
(24:47):
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art
more lovely and more temperate? Rough winds do shake the
darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all to
short a date? Oh No, it is an ever fixed
mark that looks on tempests and has never shaken. It
is the star to every wandering bark, whose words unknown.
(25:12):
Although his height be taken some time too hot, the
eye of heaven shines, and often in his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines, by chance or
nature's changing course untrimmed. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy
lips and cheeks within his bending sickles compass come. Love
(25:36):
alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears
it out even to the edge of doom. But thy
eternal summer shall not fade or lose possession of that
fair Thou owest, nor shall death brag Thou wander'st in
his shade. When an eternal lines to time, Thou growest.
(26:00):
If this be error, and upon me proved, I never
writ nor no man ever loved. So long as men
can bring their eyes can see, so long lives this
and this gives life to the that was fantastic man.
It felt funny in a good way. I have a
(26:22):
huge smile. On my face, Lorena. That was so great. Really,
that was so great. I'm so grateful to Lorena and
Jonathan for jumping in so fearlessly and so bravely. I
really loved my time with them, and I was so
pleased by how far their hard work on these poems
carried them. They really spoke this stuff beautifully and they
(26:45):
felt great about it too. I just think it's wonderful
to work on a piece and then try to just
internalize it as your own and how it speaks to
me and in my life, and put some context in
there as well. Some of the history and some of
the rhyme schemes are always really helpful. It's like heartbeats,
(27:10):
there's a rhythm to it, so it just makes it
a little bit, puts it closer to me and my heart.
I asked Jonathan if he felt that way too. Does
it strike you that somehow, over the time that we
worked on it, these thoughts became your own thoughts in
your own head, more like it was your own organically
(27:35):
arising language. Yes, in the way that a good honest
discussion feels, a good honest sharing feels like you said, organic,
or or a little electric like there's life in it.
There's life in it, and this language from four hundred
years ago becomes transparent to your own experience. Yeah, like
(27:58):
the brain, the heart, and the wordmaker are all connected.
Isn't that amazing? It's nice, not bad, not bad? Will
I know? He's pretty good. At the moment in Hamlet
when the Prince discovers that his seemingly charming uncle is
(28:20):
in fact a maniac who murdered his own brother, Hamlet's father,
something kind of weird happens on the heels of this
most intense thing he's ever lived through. Totally thunderstruck by
what he's just learned, Hamlet whips a notebook out of
his pocket and decides to write down what's on his
mind my tables, he says. He's referring to his table book,
(28:41):
which is a sort of Elizabethan notepads. Meat it is.
I set it down that one may smile and smile
and be a villain. At least I am sure it
may be so. In Denmark, audiences sometimes giggle at the
odd sight of a man who's just met his father's
ghost taking the time to jot down the general life
(29:01):
lesson he's learned in the process, but in Shakespeare's day,
the behavior wouldn't have seemed the least bit peculiar. Reader
back then, just like Hamlet, loved to take note of epigrams,
memorable turns of phrase, and other useful bits of knowledge
that they encountered in their reading or in the course
of their everyday lives. They collected these linguistic cuttings into
(29:24):
scrap books called commonplace books. A commonplace was the term
for any little adage or maxim that seemed to express
some pearl of wisdom about some universal human situation. The
English Renaissance Shakespeare's period, was the heyday of commonplace books.
They were regarded as essential to living a properly examined life,
(29:46):
and they were so beloved that they became a literary
genre all their own. Famous scholars and gentlemen published theirs
to benefit the public. Many commonplace books from that period survive,
and they share one notable feature. The author most frequently
quoted seventy nine times in one particular book is none
(30:07):
other than William Shakespeare. Even in his own day, Shakespeare
was recognized as the leading author of language that renders
in the most pithy and memorable way the immense size
and scope and feeling and sweep of the human experience
when the stakes are as high as they ever get,
(30:28):
the emotions as turbulent, and the psychic strain as overwhelming.
When we learn that our uncle murdered our father, say,
no normal utterance, no every day language can express our state.
Times like those demand something of an entirely different magnitude.
They demand the immensity and scale of Shakespeare. His is
(30:52):
a sensibility at the human frontier. His an imagination that
holds fast the wildest intangibles. His a language capable of
expressing in finite terms those outsized, shapeless, jumbled storms that
show can royal a human heart under duress, and his
(31:12):
a literary skill set that can condense all this into
a few lines. When we borrow Shakespeare to help us speak,
when we unpack our heart with words, as he puts it,
we somehow manage to not only meet the moment we're
living through, but also to lift ourselves in the process.
I think that's why there's Shakespeare everywhere. His language is
(31:37):
so precise, his range so broad, that he's got something
to offer all of us all the time, and his
cultural currency is so alive so widespread that he's there
for the taking by anyone, for any reason. It moves
me to find him in all these places, in a
baseball broadcast, at a funeral, on the campaign trail, at
(32:00):
a family dinner, in an expression of love, and also
on Gilligan's Island. There's just one other thing you ought
to do. Do thine no self, be troll. Where There's
(32:25):
a Will Finding Shakespeare is written and hosted by me
Barry Edelstein. My co host is m Weinstein. Our show
was produced by Buffy Gorilla and Nisha Vencott, with assistant
producers Jennifer Sanchez and Salmon Ahad Khan. Our executive producers
are Katherine Girardo from Pushkin and Alex Lewis and John
Myers from Row Home Productions. Our editor is Audrey Dilling.
(32:47):
Our mix engineer is Justin Berger. Our theme is an
original composition by Hannis Brown. Samuel Buzid is our fact checker.
Vicki Merrick is our voice coach. Our show was recorded
at Bill Corkery Productions, Leopard Studio, and The Old Globe.
Where There's a Will is a co production of Pushkin
Industries and the Old Globe. Thanks to Pushkin's development team LEETL.
(33:09):
Mulad and Justine Lange, Barry Edelstein, That's me is Erna
Fincy Veturbie artistic director and Timothy J. Shields is Audrey S. Geisel,
Managing director of the Old Globe for the Globe thanks
to sound director Paul Peterson and Assistant to the Sound
director Evan Eason, Director of Marketing and Communications Dave Henson,
Assistant to the Artistic and Managing directors Carolyn Budd and
(33:33):
thanks to ninety seven three the Fan for the use
of the Jesse Agler clip from benin Woods. Thanks to
Grantham Coleman as Hamlet in this and other episodes of
Where There's a Will, The Theodore and Audrey Geiselfund provides
leadership support for The Old Globe's year round activities. To
learn more about the Tony Award winning the Old Globe
(33:53):
one of America's leading regional theater companies, visit the Old
Globe dot org. If you love this show, consider subscribing
to pushkin Plus, offering bonus content and add free listening
across our network for four dollars and ninety nine cents
a month. Find the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts
or at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
(34:15):
listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts.
Pushkin. Things are just not going well for the Cubs
right now. Something is rotten. They have a state of
Illinois when it comes to baseball. But that's Jesse Agler,
the radio voice of the San Diego Padres. I live
in San Diego. That's where the old Globe is, and
(00:36):
I love listening to Padres games on the radio. Agler
does a regular bit with the big sports radio show here,
Ben and Woods. They call it the Incorporator, and the
idea is that Agler has to incorporate some preposterously obscure
vocabulary word into his play by play and then the
hosts grade him. Agler's really good at it. I once
(00:57):
heard him slip the word decorticate into a game and
make it sound completely natural. Anyway, last summer they challenged
Agler to incorporate references to Shakespeare into his call. When
the Padres played the Chicago Cubs. Agler through a perfect game. First,
he gave a little nod toward Romeo and Juliet Grisham
(01:18):
sends that one out to right field, Hayward fighting the
Garish son a little thing to catch that. Oh my god,
is the host of the show marveling at Agler's skill.
He did it again when Agler snuck the title of
a Shakespeare play in he was talking about the cubs
bad luck against the Yankees. It was a tough weekend
for the Cubs and the Bronx. Kind of a comedy
(01:38):
of air. Now, I'm a professional Shakespeare guy, and I
got such a kick out of all this that I
called into the show the next morning. We got a
got a special guest on the phone. Range is it
Jesse Agler? No? Is it Bill Shakespeare? Close? Close, Sir,
I should say it's Mike Shakespeare, long lost relative. It's
(01:59):
Barry Okay, who works at the Old Globe Theater in
San Diego, and he knows his Shakespeare all right, Berry?
How did how did Jesse Agler? In his Shakespearean challenge
on the Incorporator yesterday and good morning, good morning to
you guys. Well, here's a Hamlet line for you, a hit,
a very palpable hit that would have been an easy
(02:22):
one for jets. I'm Barry Edelstein, and I run the
Old Globe, one of the countries leading Shakespeare theaters. And
this is where there's a will finding Shakespeare from the
Globe and Pushkin Industries. Our show discovers Shakespeare in all
sorts of unexpected places and asks what he's doing there
and what his presence means about him and about us.
(02:44):
We did an episode of where There's a Will on
the way presidents of the United States have quoted Shakespeare,
read him, and thought about him. We've seen what Shakespeare
means to the lives of people who are incarcerated, and
to teens and to autistic kids in their families. We've
discovered Shakespeare in people's gender identities and in the process
of how American identity is formed. In this episode, I
(03:06):
want to do something a little different. I want to
find out a little more about how Shakespeare winds his
way into our everyday lives. And I want to hear
about how and why regular people turned to him to
borrow some words when their own seem like they're not enough.
This is a subject I've thought a lot about. My
(03:28):
friends know that I know my Shakespeare, so for years
and years, they've reached out to me when they've had
some important moment in their lives and needed some special
language for the occasion. Hey, Barry, I have to give
a toast at a wedding Gotney Shakespeare. Hey Barry, my
niece is graduating college. Gotney Shakespeare. I ended up answering
these questions so many times that I had enough material
(03:48):
for a book. It's called Bardisms Shakespeare for All Occasions,
and it's kind of a user's guide to quoting Shakespeare
in moments big and small. But the book turned out
to be less about the few dozen quotations I could recommend,
and more about the knack this playwright has for lending
us exactly the right thing to say on any enormous
(04:11):
life moment we might be dealing with. But don't take
my word for it. Listen to some real world examples.
Here's Shakespeare on the occasion of losing someone you loved,
And he shall die, take him and cut him out
in little stars, and he shall make the face of
Heaven so fond that all the world will be in
(04:31):
love with night. And pay no worship to the garish son.
That's Robert Kennedy, of course, enlisting Shakespeare's help in a
famous and very moving eulogy for his late brother. And
by the way, that garish son is the same one
that gave Jason Heyward so much trouble at Wrigley Field.
Here's another Shakespeare says of the earlier Queen Elizabeth, she
(04:55):
was a patent to all princes living. That's King Charles
the Third, quoting the play King Henry the Eighth to
sum up the life of his extraordinary mother, Queen Elizabeth
the Second. King Charles also quoted Shakespeare in his first
speech to the nation as monarch, and he quoted him
pretty much non stop when he was Prince of Wales.
(05:16):
On surprising I suppose, after all, Shakespeare is the royal
family's official historian. But let's leave kings and senators aside.
Regular folks quote Shakespeare at their big moments too. A
Nebraska school teacher named Mark Gudgell ran for mayor of
Omaha in twenty twenty one, and campaigning for the Democratic nomination,
(05:37):
he turned to old Will. Here's a local TV news
story about him. Gudge says he's candid, often using a
quote from Shakespeare that he teaches to his students. One
that comes from Othello that I think describes me really
well is that I wear my heart on my sleeve.
You don't ever wonder where I stand on something. I'm
open and honest about it. Sadly, Gudgell lost the election
(05:59):
I spoke to him, and he told me his campaign
staff was dead set against him quoting Shakespeare out on
the trail. They thought it made him seem like an elitist.
But if it's some elitist sin to quote Shakespeare a lot,
then if I may quote Shakespeare, I am the most
offending soul alive. I love using Shakespeare's language to enhance
(06:21):
my own powers of expression. I'll turn to him again.
I have been to a great feast of languages and
stolen the scraps. I find it just delightful to watch
him pop up in some context. That's surprising, that's sweet,
that's endearing, that's maybe even bonkers. So I wanted to
see if I could be of help to some people
(06:43):
looking for Shakespeare to enhance an important moment in their lives.
I'm a stage director by profession, and I spend a
lot of time working with actors on Shakespeare. I teach
Shakespearean acting, too, and I wrote a textbook on the
subject called Thinking Shakespeare. I do a live version of
it where I show audiences how professional actors and directors
(07:04):
bring Shakespeare's language to life on stage. That's why I'm
calling this episode of where there's a will thinking Shakespeare live.
I want to do a little mini version of that
work with some regular people who've had a little touch
of William in their lives. I asked around San Diego
and found two wonderful folks who were all about it.
(07:24):
I'll coach them for their Shakespearean debut after a short break.
A few months ago, the Old Globe sent out an
email asking San Diego if anyone was looking to quote
(07:45):
some Shakespeare on a special occasion, and so I thought, well,
that'll be fun. Let me just submit. What have I
got to lose? That's Lorraina Santana. I was born in Tijuana.
My father was a physician in Tijuana and was from
the state of Jalisco. My dad was very passionate about Shakespeare.
(08:05):
He would talk about how Shakespeare was able to stand
all the human emotions and write about them, and so
I grew up hearing this, and I also love Shakespeare.
Jonathan Mellow also responded to The Globe's email. I am
a long time union organizer and part time theater fanatic.
(08:27):
And what shape does that theater fanaticism take um at
this point in my life? It takes a few of course,
reading and seeing every play that I can possibly find
time and money to see, and on occasions struggling to
write as well. You're a playwright. That's yes, Yes you are,
(08:48):
say it loud and proud, and I'm a playwright, all right.
That's that's fantastic. I spoke with Jonathan on a special day,
Happy birthday. Thanks, So it's yesterday. I met some union organizers,
of course for dinner. That's great that they didn't organize
the rest, didn't organize the restaurant, no, shan. Jonathan told
(09:12):
me why he responded to The Globe's email. It so
happens that my truly wonderful life partner, Melissa, is having
a special turnaround the sun next year, and I thought
it would be nice to not only read some Shakespeare,
but do it in such a way where it didn't
sound like a complete goofball. So Melissa's birthday is coming up,
(09:34):
and you're going to read some You want to read
some Shakespeare? I want to, and I want to do
it well enough good. The passage Jonathan chose from Melissa
is not from one of Shakespeare's plays. It's one of
his poems instead, Sonnet eighteen. It's pretty famous. It starts.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day as it happens?
(09:55):
Lorena chose a sonnet too, and so I submitted this piece,
Sonnet one hundred and sixteen. Sonnet one sixteen is one
of Shakespeare's best known poems. It's the one that begins,
let me not to the marriage of true mind, admit impediments.
And because it's about marriage, it's read a lot at weddings.
(10:15):
People also really cherish it for a vision of love
that endures. I think that sonnet is just a beautiful
message about love, and I have recited I actually recently
recited it for my boyfriend's parents who had their sixtieth
wedding anniversary. Oh, we were sitting at the dinner table,
(10:38):
and I just recited it for them. Really, Oh, they
must have loved that. I think they were just taken aback.
Everybody was just a little bit like shocked. Shocked. How
in the sense that who pulls out a sonnet out
of their back pocket and starts reciting it at the
dinner table. Do you haven't spent a lot of time
(10:59):
at my family dinners? I'm sure. Please invite me over
for dinner. Two folks in san Diego to Shakespeare in Sonnets.
Let me take a moment to talk about what those
poems are. Most of all, Shakespeare's sonnets are remarkable pieces
of writing. There are one hundred and fifty four of them,
(11:19):
first published together in sixteen oh nine. Shakespeare had been
writing poetry since the early fifteen nineties, before he'd had
even one play produced, but by sixteen o nine he
was already famous, the author of beloved masterpieces of the
London stage, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet Henry the Fifth. And
there's some evidence that perhaps he didn't really want these
sonnets published, because they're very personal. When you read all
(11:45):
one hundred fifty four in order, you get a story.
It centers on a middle aged male poet, very likely
named Will because he can't stop punning on that word.
He gets involved in the life of a charismatic, aristocratic,
and extremely beautiful young man and develops a romantic attachment
to him, but he's conflicted about his feelings, not least
(12:06):
because the young man is having affairs all her town.
A rival poet appears who's also obsessed with this young man,
and then a woman arrives, the so called dark Lady
of the Sonnets because of her dark hair and dark eyes,
and our middle aged poet turns his attention toward her.
Along the way, some of the poems detour from this
group of people to meditate on larger themes about love
(12:30):
in the abstract, about time, art, and the meaning of life.
The Sonnets are celebrated for how moving and powerful they are,
but they're also fascinating for a whole other reason. They
seem to reveal little hints about who Shakespeare was. For
four hundred years, there have been literary parlor games trying
(12:50):
to identify the handsome young man, trying to match the
rival poet to one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, trying to name
the dark lady. There's no way to know who any
of the more are, of course, or even if they
existed at all, as anything more than inventions of Shakespeare's imagination.
And yet the sonnets do give us a glimpse of
Shakespeare the individual in ways that the plays don't, and
(13:14):
they seem to reveal aspects of his personality and his sexuality,
and his humor and the nature of his heart. I
shared all this information with Lorena and Jonathan Wow. Everything
about that I mean, it's just so many possibilities. All
(13:35):
one hundred and fifty four of the sonnets have the
same form. They're written in iambic pentameter, or lines of
ten syllables. They have fourteen lines, organized in three groups
of four called quatrains. That's twelve, and then a couplet
of two lines for fourteen. There's a complicated rhyme scheme,
and in almost all of the poems, the story they're
(13:55):
telling goes in one direction until almost the very end,
when it makes a turn in another direction that's surprising
or even contradictory. All of this is to say that,
as I told Jonathan, these little poems have a lot
going on in them. Okay, there you go. That's a
minute and a half on the form and history of
Shakespeare's sonnets. A masterclass in less than two minutes. But
(14:18):
there you go, there you go. I don't know about
a masterclass, but a quick drink out of the fire
hose in less than two minutes. I propose to Lorna
and Jonathan that we dig into the words of their sonnets,
pick them apart, figure out what makes them tick, and
then put them back together again in beautiful, expressive form
Step one. Give the poems a first read Sonnet one sixteen,
(14:40):
first Lorna. Oh, and by the way, you can follow
along if you'd like. We've placed sonnets eighteen and one
sixteen in the show notes for this episode. Okay, you
ready to give it a go? Sure, all right, go ahead.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediments.
Love is not love, which alters when it alteration, finds
(15:05):
or bends with the remover to remove. No, it is
an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is
ne'er shaken. It is a star to every wandering bark
whose words unknown. Although his height be taken, Love's not
Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending
(15:29):
sickle's compass come. Love alters not but bears it out.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but
bears it out even to the edge of doom. If
this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ
(15:49):
nor no man ever loved fantastic Lorena. That was just beautiful, wonderful.
And now Jonathan's turn, Shall I compare the leader a
summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate rough
winds do shake the darling buds of May. And Summer's
(16:09):
lease hath all too short a date, some time too hot.
The eye of heaven shines, and often in his gold
complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair, some time declines
by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal
shall not fade, But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
(16:31):
nor lose possession of that fair. Thou owest, or shall
death brag? Thou wanderest in his shade. When an eternal
lines to time, Thou growest. So long as men can
breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and
this gives life to thee spectacular man. Great, you're gonna be,
(16:55):
You're gonna You're gonna move Melissa deeply. Wow, you're gonna
she's she's gonna love it. That's my prediction. Next, understanding
actually what you're saying. Every Shakespearean actor has to make
sure they know what the words mean, what the thoughts
in the lines are trying to express. Jonathan's Son at
(17:18):
eighteen is about a poet trying to find the best
way to write about the person he loves. Okay, so
let's do this. Let's go through and make sure we
understand what's being said. Yeah, yeah, all right? Shall I
compare THEE to a summer's day? This question? You have
to ask a question. You've just compared her to a
summer's day on your piece of paper, right, Melissa reminds
(17:39):
me of July twelfth, And you read it and you go, ah,
is that what I'm going to do? Shall I compare
THEE to a summer's day? And the answer is, well,
there's a problem doing that. Why Because thou art more
lovely and more temperate. You're better looking than a summer's day,
(18:01):
and you're more temperate, you're more balanced. Right. Summer days
are hot or there's a storm in summer's days, right,
but you're not like that. You're more beautiful than a
summer day, and you're more even tempered than a summer's day. Right.
So it's a bad idea to compare Melissa to the
summer because she's so much more appealing than a day
and summer. It's beautiful. With the sense of the words
(18:26):
now clear in his mind, I asked Jonathan to read
the first four lines of the sonnet again, but this
time with a special technique we use in rehearsal. I
call it the paper trick. You got a piece of
paper nearby, Yes, cover up all of the poem except
for the first line. Okay, so you can't see you
(18:47):
can't see any of it except for the first line. Okay.
You're not allowed to move the paper down until you
get to the end of the first line. Then when
you get to the end of the second line, move
the paper down and reveal the next line, and read
that one line at a time. Okay, try it again.
Shall I compare lead to a summer's day that aren't
more lovely and more temperate? Rough winds do shake the
(19:10):
darling buds of May and summer's lease at alt short
a date? It's clearer, right, feel clearer to you? Did
it feel clearer? I think maybe it did feel clearer
in the saying of it. Imagine that all you're responsible
for is just that one line. You're not responsible for
the whole fourteen line poem, just the one thought. Jonathan
(19:33):
and I worked through the whole poem in this way,
and I did the same with Lorena, paraphrasing it, figuring
out what it means. She and I also talked a
little bit about the Sonnet's peculiar rhyme scheme. So do
me a favorite. Just tell me the words at the
end of every line. Just make a list of the
word at the end of every line. Minds, love, find remove, mark, shaken, bark,
(19:58):
taken cheeks, come weeks, doom, proved loved perfect, So you
can hear the rhyme minds love, finds, remove, love and removed.
Don't exactly rhyme. They're called a near rhyme, but you
get that they're meant to mark, shaken, bark, taken, cheeks,
come week's doom, proved I guess loved right, No, we
(20:24):
would say loved right, proved loved. So there's the rhyme
scheme that we were talking about, right, Wow, okay, all right, okay.
With material this complex, it's easy to get bogged down
in technical stuff. You can talk about iambic pentameter and
rhyme schemes and verse structure and antithesis and alliteration and
(20:46):
all sorts of other literary details all day long. As
interesting as all this is, what matters most is that
Shakespeare writes people trying to express themselves, people who have
thoughts and then choose language to communicate them. So I
asked Lorena to imagine a real life situation in which
she herself might actually say the words of this sonnet.
(21:10):
You've been to weddings, right, I presume you've been in
many weddings. Yes, I was just at a wedding last weekend. Okay.
So now, in the church of Shakespeare's period, and is
many many churches, there's a time in the wedding ceremony
when the priest or minister or efficient will turn to
the congregation and say, if anyone has any reason why
this marriage should not take place, speak now or forever
(21:33):
hold your peace. Right. So, now you are at that wedding,
and the priest says, if you've got a reason to
object to this wedding, speak now or forever hold your peace.
And you leap up and say, I'm not going to
be an impediment. Okay. So imagine that the priest has
just turned to the congregation and asked this question, and
(21:55):
this first quatrain is your answer to that question. Let
me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediments.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration fine
or bends with the remover to remove you're doing amazingly, amazingly,
amazingly well. I asked you to imagine that you are
(22:17):
in a dramatic situation. You're at a wedding, and now
you have a reason to speak this language. Right, Whereas
if you're just sitting around at home in your living
room and you say, I want to read this poem, now,
let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit
impedim right. It's may be pretty, but you don't have
(22:37):
any need to actually say it. So what I want
to do is give you a need to speak so
that this language becomes from inside of you because you're
trying to get an idea out into the world. Got it.
So what I'm trying to do here, Lorena, is activate
your brain. I want to hear you think up this
(22:58):
language as you go, so that you're not reciting a
poem that some guy wrote four hundred years ago, but instead,
what you're doing is putting the language in your own
brain and making your own brain come up with this
language as you speak. Got it. Lorraina and Jonathan were
(23:19):
incredibly good sports as I put them through their Shakespearean paces.
They worked hard to think their way through Shakespeare's language,
and to try all the tools and techniques I could
throw at them. When our work session neared its end,
I propose that they give their poems one good go
our own little where there's a will podcast, Shakespeare Festival.
(23:41):
We'll hear it after this break. All right, Lorena, whole thing?
You ready for it? Ready? How long do your actors
get in rehearsal? Barry, They got a little more time
(24:03):
than this. It's wonderful. Lorraina and Jonathan, citizens of Sandy Ago,
not professional actors, not trained Shakespeareans. Found two of the
most famous of Shakespeare's sonnets and spent an hour or
so working on them with me, so that through them
they could express their feelings to people they care about.
We put these poems into the microwave and pressed start
(24:26):
and now pressto though where there's a will thinking Shakespeare
Live Sonnet Extravaganza. Let me not to the marriage of
true minds, admit impediments. Love is not love which alters
when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove.
(24:47):
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art
more lovely and more temperate? Rough winds do shake the
darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all to
short a date? Oh No, it is an ever fixed
mark that looks on tempests and has never shaken. It
is the star to every wandering bark, whose words unknown.
(25:12):
Although his height be taken some time too hot, the
eye of heaven shines, and often in his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines, by chance or
nature's changing course untrimmed. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy
lips and cheeks within his bending sickles compass come. Love
(25:36):
alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears
it out even to the edge of doom. But thy
eternal summer shall not fade or lose possession of that
fair Thou owest, nor shall death brag Thou wander'st in
his shade. When an eternal lines to time, Thou growest.
(26:00):
If this be error, and upon me proved, I never
writ nor no man ever loved. So long as men
can bring their eyes can see, so long lives this
and this gives life to the that was fantastic man.
It felt funny in a good way. I have a
(26:22):
huge smile. On my face, Lorena. That was so great. Really,
that was so great. I'm so grateful to Lorena and
Jonathan for jumping in so fearlessly and so bravely. I
really loved my time with them, and I was so
pleased by how far their hard work on these poems
carried them. They really spoke this stuff beautifully and they
(26:45):
felt great about it too. I just think it's wonderful
to work on a piece and then try to just
internalize it as your own and how it speaks to
me and in my life, and put some context in
there as well. Some of the history and some of
the rhyme schemes are always really helpful. It's like heartbeats,
(27:10):
there's a rhythm to it, so it just makes it
a little bit, puts it closer to me and my heart.
I asked Jonathan if he felt that way too. Does
it strike you that somehow, over the time that we
worked on it, these thoughts became your own thoughts in
your own head, more like it was your own organically
(27:35):
arising language. Yes, in the way that a good honest
discussion feels, a good honest sharing feels like you said, organic,
or or a little electric like there's life in it.
There's life in it, and this language from four hundred
years ago becomes transparent to your own experience. Yeah, like
(27:58):
the brain, the heart, and the wordmaker are all connected.
Isn't that amazing? It's nice, not bad, not bad? Will
I know? He's pretty good. At the moment in Hamlet
when the Prince discovers that his seemingly charming uncle is
(28:20):
in fact a maniac who murdered his own brother, Hamlet's father,
something kind of weird happens on the heels of this
most intense thing he's ever lived through. Totally thunderstruck by
what he's just learned, Hamlet whips a notebook out of
his pocket and decides to write down what's on his
mind my tables, he says. He's referring to his table book,
(28:41):
which is a sort of Elizabethan notepads. Meat it is.
I set it down that one may smile and smile
and be a villain. At least I am sure it
may be so. In Denmark, audiences sometimes giggle at the
odd sight of a man who's just met his father's
ghost taking the time to jot down the general life
(29:01):
lesson he's learned in the process, but in Shakespeare's day,
the behavior wouldn't have seemed the least bit peculiar. Reader
back then, just like Hamlet, loved to take note of epigrams,
memorable turns of phrase, and other useful bits of knowledge
that they encountered in their reading or in the course
of their everyday lives. They collected these linguistic cuttings into
(29:24):
scrap books called commonplace books. A commonplace was the term
for any little adage or maxim that seemed to express
some pearl of wisdom about some universal human situation. The
English Renaissance Shakespeare's period, was the heyday of commonplace books.
They were regarded as essential to living a properly examined life,
(29:46):
and they were so beloved that they became a literary
genre all their own. Famous scholars and gentlemen published theirs
to benefit the public. Many commonplace books from that period survive,
and they share one notable feature. The author most frequently
quoted seventy nine times in one particular book is none
(30:07):
other than William Shakespeare. Even in his own day, Shakespeare
was recognized as the leading author of language that renders
in the most pithy and memorable way the immense size
and scope and feeling and sweep of the human experience
when the stakes are as high as they ever get,
(30:28):
the emotions as turbulent, and the psychic strain as overwhelming.
When we learn that our uncle murdered our father, say,
no normal utterance, no every day language can express our state.
Times like those demand something of an entirely different magnitude.
They demand the immensity and scale of Shakespeare. His is
(30:52):
a sensibility at the human frontier. His an imagination that
holds fast the wildest intangibles. His a language capable of
expressing in finite terms those outsized, shapeless, jumbled storms that
show can royal a human heart under duress, and his
(31:12):
a literary skill set that can condense all this into
a few lines. When we borrow Shakespeare to help us speak,
when we unpack our heart with words, as he puts it,
we somehow manage to not only meet the moment we're
living through, but also to lift ourselves in the process.
I think that's why there's Shakespeare everywhere. His language is
(31:37):
so precise, his range so broad, that he's got something
to offer all of us all the time, and his
cultural currency is so alive so widespread that he's there
for the taking by anyone, for any reason. It moves
me to find him in all these places, in a
baseball broadcast, at a funeral, on the campaign trail, at
(32:00):
a family dinner, in an expression of love, and also
on Gilligan's Island. There's just one other thing you ought
to do. Do thine no self, be troll. Where There's
(32:25):
a Will Finding Shakespeare is written and hosted by me
Barry Edelstein. My co host is m Weinstein. Our show
was produced by Buffy Gorilla and Nisha Vencott, with assistant
producers Jennifer Sanchez and Salmon Ahad Khan. Our executive producers
are Katherine Girardo from Pushkin and Alex Lewis and John
Myers from Row Home Productions. Our editor is Audrey Dilling.
(32:47):
Our mix engineer is Justin Berger. Our theme is an
original composition by Hannis Brown. Samuel Buzid is our fact checker.
Vicki Merrick is our voice coach. Our show was recorded
at Bill Corkery Productions, Leopard Studio, and The Old Globe.
Where There's a Will is a co production of Pushkin
Industries and the Old Globe. Thanks to Pushkin's development team LEETL.
(33:09):
Mulad and Justine Lange, Barry Edelstein, That's me is Erna
Fincy Veturbie artistic director and Timothy J. Shields is Audrey S. Geisel,
Managing director of the Old Globe for the Globe thanks
to sound director Paul Peterson and Assistant to the Sound
director Evan Eason, Director of Marketing and Communications Dave Henson,
Assistant to the Artistic and Managing directors Carolyn Budd and
(33:33):
thanks to ninety seven three the Fan for the use
of the Jesse Agler clip from benin Woods. Thanks to
Grantham Coleman as Hamlet in this and other episodes of
Where There's a Will, The Theodore and Audrey Geiselfund provides
leadership support for The Old Globe's year round activities. To
learn more about the Tony Award winning the Old Globe
(33:53):
one of America's leading regional theater companies, visit the Old
Globe dot org. If you love this show, consider subscribing
to pushkin Plus, offering bonus content and add free listening
across our network for four dollars and ninety nine cents
a month. Find the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts
or at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
(34:15):
listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.