ELICA MIWA

Tag: shakespeare

  • Shakespeare Insults: The Taming Of The Shrew

    Shakespeare Insults: The Taming Of The Shrew

    The Taming Of The Shrew is full of extraordinary insults.  They are really funny and so good.  Let’s hear it.

    🎭 A pair of stocks, you rogue!

    A stock is a kind of ankle cuff of the time, a wooden bar with a hole and you put the criminal’s ankle in it to hold him.  It must have been used as a pair, so that both ankles were kept locked.  

    The hostess of the inn says, literally like “I’ll lock you at the gate, ankle cuffed, to humiliate in front of everybody, you rogue!

    The second one is:

    🎭 Y’ are a baggage.

    Sly the drunken man answers the Hostess.  A baggage meant a woman who takes in anything, which means a whore.  Hilarious

    The third one is:

    🎭 Let the world slide.

    Sly says “I don’t care”.  If the world slides, let it.  Hmm, some people may think like that to see our world of politics and wars.

    The last one for today is:

    🎭 Go to thy cold bed and warm thee.

    Well, I am not allowed to say or write in this public space.  Your bed is cold.  That means you don’t have a company to sleep with.  Thee means you, which means you must warm yourself.  Yes, this literally means “Go Four-Letter-Word yourself”.

    Would you like to use some of them in quarrel?

    Thank you for warching, from ELICA MIWA.

  • New Series Shakespeare For You: The Taming Of The Shrew

    New Series Shakespeare For You: The Taming Of The Shrew

    Hi, folks!  This is ELICA Miwa, Theatre director, actor, writer in Japan.  I am going to start a new series of One Phrase Shakespeare.  The first season was on The Two Gentlemen of Verona.  We still don’t know which one is Will’s first play.  But we surely know The Taming Of The Shrew is one of the earliest plays he wrote.  Yes, it is a problematic play in this age when many of we women think we should not be suppressed by men.  How can we read the play now?  Is the play still relevant to our age?  Let us think about it together.

    This play has a peculiar form.

    Many of you know Romeo & Juliet has a prologue; it gives us a form of a story-teller telling a story of another time and place.

    The Taming Of The Shrew starts with a drunken man called Sly.　　He falls asleep and tricked by his Lord to believe he is the Lord now, and actors give a play for him:  it is a play about a shrew’s marriage.

    So, the character Sly becomes the audience to watch a play The Taming Of The Shrew, with us the real audience.  Quite strange style to give a play.  I also need to think why Shakespeare needed this structure.

    Anyway, the first word of the play is this:

    I’ll pheeze you, in faith.

    Being kicked out of an inn by the hostess, heavily drunk, and without a penny.

    The hostess left him outside.

    And Sly falls asleep.

    And there comes…  That I will tell you next cast.  See you, Bye!

  • I Hold Him But A Fool [Shakespeare For You]

    I Hold Him But A Fool [Shakespeare For You]

    🎭 I hold him but a fool that will endanger 
    His body for a girl that loves him not.

    — Turio, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4

    [ACTING TIPS]

    Turio was just told from Valentine that if he were to claim Silvia, he would be seen as an enemy of Verona.

    Thus he immediately changed his mind and said this.

    He is a petty, trivial man, whom you may know so many of such kind near you.  You know how to play him.

    We also know that he is not in love with Silvia any way, but with the future position of Duke of Milan, by marrying her.

    #shakespeare #english #actingtips #directing #turio #twogentlemenofverona #lifeinJapan #kimono

  • That One Error Fills Him With Faults [Shakespeare For You]

    That One Error Fills Him With Faults [Shakespeare For You]

    🎭 That one error 
    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins.
    — Proteus, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4

    [ACTING TIPS]

    There is a Japanese proverb; Ichi-ji ga Ban-ji, meaning:  one thing leads to all.
    Proteus realizes the same.

    To play the words, I would say Proteus must be filled with remorse.

    I am not yet quite sure what, for Proteus, is the first “that one error”.

    When I don’t yet know the answer, I try acting all the possibilities.

    Was the first error to leave Verona?
    Or to obey his father?
    Remember the first lines of Act 2, Scene 6, when he counterbalanced the weight of the sins he was about to commit.  

    “O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned,
    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!”

    #shakespeare #english #actingtips #directing #proteus #twogentlemenofverona #lifeinJapan

  • Women To Change Their Shapes [Shakespeare For You]

    Women To Change Their Shapes [Shakespeare For You]

    🎭. It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.

    — Julia, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4

    [ACTING TIPS]

    Finally Proteus has found out this young boy named Sebastian is Julia in disguise.

    Julia strongly blames how cruel Proteus has been, and says this.q

    Remember, Julia has been acted as a boy.

    Through that, she must have found strength and straightforwardness in her.

    I would perform the scene with my heart hurt, broken, sad, losing hope, and with direct, strong, honesty.

    I may be crying or shedding tears, but never pity-forcing.

    #shakespeare #english #actingtips #directing #julia #twogentlemenofverona #lifeinJapan

  • O Me Unhappy! [Shakespeare For You]

    O Me Unhappy! [Shakespeare For You]

    🎭 O me unhappy!

    — Julia, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4

    [ACTING TIPS]

    This Act 5, Scene 4 is really not understandable for reasonable people.

    Listening to Valentine, Proteus apologized.

    And what happens?
    Valentine gives Silvia for thanks to his apology.

    Whaaaaaat???!!!

    And Julia says this.
    And she swoons.

    Swoon means one faints out of extreme emotion.
    That’s what we have to act.

    But how?

    How are we going to go through extreme emotion safely on stage?

    Part of us must be really take control over the character.
    By doing so, let the character go.

    Very very difficult.

    There are many safe ways to make extreme emotions.
    If you do not know the safe way, you and the people around you would be in danger (mentally, physically, socially).  

    So, have a proper acting coach during the rehearsal of this kind of scene.

    #shakespeare #english #actingtips #directing #julia #twogentlemenofverona #lifeinJapan #kimono

  • The Private Wound Is Deepest [Shakespeare For You]

    The Private Wound Is Deepest [Shakespeare For You]

    🎭 The private wound is deepest:  O time most accurst, 
    ‘Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!

    — Valentine, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4

    [ACTING TIPS]

    Valentine, hiding in the woods to see Silvia is about to be raped by his best-friend Proteus, jumped out to stop him.

    He means that this is the most hideous time to know his friend is in fact the very enemy.

    There are so many ways to play this scene.  He speaks some lines before saying this, which means he cannot shout all the time.  He appears with shouting, maybe.  But after this, I would try “how am I to tell what I feel”.

    It is not just cascading his awful feeling.

    It is a way to make Proteus understand and see things more clearly so that he could gain his proper mind back.

    In fact, after this line, Proteus says sorry, and it feels too easy for me to grasp the change in his mind.

    If I make the audience feel the same, the play is not successful.

    That’s why I think I need much more time and varied skills to make Proteus really feel sorry, right after Valentine speaks the whole lines.

    However, another way of acting and directing is to make Proteus really a villain and he never feel truly sorry and just give a “sorry” word as if it is a true word for Valentine.  Yes, a type of LOKI.  

  • Here Can I Sit Alone, Unseen Of Any [Shakespeare For You]

    Here Can I Sit Alone, Unseen Of Any [Shakespeare For You]

    🎭 Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
    And to the nightingale’s complaining notes
    Tune my distresses and record my woes.

    — Valentine, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4

    [ACTING TIPS]

    Valentine is not just talking about a nightingale.

    He really misses Silvia, his Love.

    (Valentine has been banished from Milan by Silvia’s father the Duke of Milan, is now the big boss of vagabonds in the woods.)

    Since this is a soliloquy, I will tell my feeling to the audience.

    Never speak as a “talk-to-myself” on stage.  TALK TO THE AUDIENCE DIRECTLY!

    Never speak soliloquy as a poetry or “reading it”, “reciting it”, as if “it is written”.

    Speak it as you just making up or thinking up the lines. 

    Think “how can I express this feeling in words?” and create the phrases as your instincts leads.

    I would play Valentine here, as…

    Cannot sleep, because I miss Silvia so much.

    Being awake, I hear nightingale singing.

    Nightingale’s song is supposed to be nice and beautiful and soothing and bring joy of life, but for me, it is like the bird is complaining the life.

    And I envy the bird can complaining so honestly and freely, which I cannot.

    So I will tune my distress to its song.

    Now I can express the thought with words.

    #shakespeare #english #actingtips #directing #Valentine #twogentlemenofverona #lifeinJapan #kimono

  • How Use Doth Breed A Habit In Man [Shakespeare For You

    How Use Doth Breed A Habit In Man [Shakespeare For You

    🎭 How use doth breed a habit in a man! 

    — Valentine, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4

    [ACTING TIPS]

    Valentine, the true Love of Silvia, who has been bannished from Milan by Silvia’s father the Duke of Milan, is now the big boss of vagabonds in the woods.

    We have the same kind of proverb in Japanese:  Where you live becomes your ideal place.

    I will play this either with sadness, or with contempt, but never forget my Love, and terribly missing her.

    #shakespeare #english #actingtips #directing #Valentine #twogentlemenofverona #lifeinJapan #kimono

  • And I Will Follow [Shakespeare For You]

    And I Will Follow [Shakespeare For You]

    🎭  Turio: 
    I’ll after, more to be revenged on Eglamour
    Than for the love of reckless Silvia. 

    Proteus: 
    And I will follow, more for Silvia’s love
    Than hate of Eglamour that goes with her. 

    Julia: 
    And I will follow, more to cross that love
    Than hate for Silvia that is gone for love.

    — Turio, Proteus, Julia, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-2

    [ACTING TIPS]

    What is happening here?

    Silvia, locked in the high tower of her father’s castle, finally escaped with the help of Sir Eglamour.

    Knowing the fact, these three characters decided to follow her into the woods.

    Wow!

    I love it!!  “Following the loved one who is not in love with you, into the woods” scheme is repeated in The Midsummer Night’s Dream.

    It’s fun to play with the echoing phrases of “I’ll after”.

    Turio’s love toward Silvia is already known, so he can declare his action.

    Proteus has hidden his love toward Silvia to Turio, but already revealed to Sebastian (who is Julia), so he can declare his action to Sebastian.

    Julia has not revealed her true state, so she alone share her thought only toward the audience.

    It would be fun to see that on stage.  

    This kind of stage movement in action may be thought as a director’s work, but when the actors all have this director’s eye, this is easily done without the director.

    #shakespeare #english #actingtips #directing #julia # turio #proteus #twogentlemenofverona #lifeinJapan #kimono