1. I was reminded by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samhenderson that while David Tennant actually made a very good Hamlet and I recommend the production as a whole, the character I am still thinking about a week later is Patrick Stewart's Claudius. I'd never seen this particular take on Hamlet's uncle before—a politician-king, unruffled as oil on water and capable of the same chameleon shimmer; in his first scene, he plays the public grief over his brother off the consolation of his royal marriage so effortlessly, we wonder for a moment if we've stepped into Richard III by mistake. There seems to be nothing to him but surfaces. He can't be read by the audience, he gracefully deflects his conscience-catching stepson. He might be any smiling murderer until we reach the confession scene: and then as suddenly as whiplash, we are made to understand that this "bloody, bawdy villain" has a conscience and he is suppressing it by sheer visceral force of will. "It revolts me, but I do it." That was facetious for Pooh-Bah, but for Claudius it's an honest state of mind; it's not even cognitive dissonance. There are things in Denmark he found worth the damnation of his soul and once determined to obtain them, however sickeningly he feels their guilt—my crown, mine own ambition and my queen—he is not going to renege, recant, or turn it all over to Hamlet now. Among other things, this is a Claudius who loves Gertrude. After the murder of Polonius, he soothes her not like a puppetmaster reestablishing control, but like any husband distressed by his wife's pain. (A touch I loved: while she promised to cut off all physical intimacy with Claudius, of course she lets him comfort her. Her son is so hair-trigger and wild-eyed, she'll tell him whatever he needs to hear in order to get him out of her bedroom without killing anyone else; her husband is not the one she mistrusts.) They are easy together. If he fears any heavenly reprisal, it might be Gertrude's discovery of the truth, not Hamlet's revenge for it: when the prince has him finally at sword's point, offering the choice of poison in a cup or on an unbated edge, he looks past his nephew to his dead queen and shrugs extravagantly—for once, showing his theatrics—takes the cup freely and drinks it down. He tries to die with her hand in his. I haven't yet seen Derek Jacobi, but this was quite different from the jovial brute I vaguely remember from Zeffirelli or Kozintsev's cunning tyrant. Stewart may be my definitive interpretation for a while.
2. I think An Infamous Army (1937) is the best novel I've read by Georgette Heyer; I wasn't expecting it to be. Her characterization of Wellington only reinforces my desire for a good biography.
3. Because it contains a new appendix of Pompeiian graffiti, I am now the proud owner of the second edition of Craig Williams' Roman Homosexuality, which cannot be read on the subway—as I discovered on Tuesday—without causing fellow-travelers to studiously refuse to make eye contact with you. It's awesome. I think my favorite new piece of information comes from the second-century grammarian Festus, who illustrated the noun pullus, literally a chick, also an older man's term of endearment for his younger boyfriend, with the story of Q. Fabius Maximus Eburnus, consul in 116 BCE, who was nicknamed pullus Iovis—"Jupiter's chick"—after he was struck by lightning in the ass. But I am also very fond of the glandes Perusinae, lead sling-bullets recovered from Octavian's siege of Perugia (41/40 BCE). They are inscribed with things like salve Octavi felas—Hello, Octavian! You suck. Oh, yes, political discourse is so much less mature and intelligent nowadays.
4. The half-price ticket kiosk in Copley Square came through again, so I was able to see the last night of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein withfleurdelis28 and Shlomo. It was supremely silly and absolutely worth getting up at sleepless o'clock for; it started by satirizing militarism and proceeded to satirize anything that moved, which meant that in place of the third-act ballet it had a can-can with hobbyhorses and it was beautiful. Stephanie Blythe owned the stage from the moment she opened her mouth, which is precisely as the Duchesse should. Frank Kelley turned up in a supporting role as the Duchesse's ubiquitous factotum, running constant interference, announcing and bowing with mathematical precision. I am so glad there is at least one opera company in the world which performs Offenbach that isn't Les contes d'Hoffmann or the "Galop infernal" from Orphée aux enfers.
samhenderson that while David Tennant actually made a very good Hamlet and I recommend the production as a whole, the character I am still thinking about a week later is Patrick Stewart's Claudius. I'd never seen this particular take on Hamlet's uncle before—a politician-king, unruffled as oil on water and capable of the same chameleon shimmer; in his first scene, he plays the public grief over his brother off the consolation of his royal marriage so effortlessly, we wonder for a moment if we've stepped into Richard III by mistake. There seems to be nothing to him but surfaces. He can't be read by the audience, he gracefully deflects his conscience-catching stepson. He might be any smiling murderer until we reach the confession scene: and then as suddenly as whiplash, we are made to understand that this "bloody, bawdy villain" has a conscience and he is suppressing it by sheer visceral force of will. "It revolts me, but I do it." That was facetious for Pooh-Bah, but for Claudius it's an honest state of mind; it's not even cognitive dissonance. There are things in Denmark he found worth the damnation of his soul and once determined to obtain them, however sickeningly he feels their guilt—my crown, mine own ambition and my queen—he is not going to renege, recant, or turn it all over to Hamlet now. Among other things, this is a Claudius who loves Gertrude. After the murder of Polonius, he soothes her not like a puppetmaster reestablishing control, but like any husband distressed by his wife's pain. (A touch I loved: while she promised to cut off all physical intimacy with Claudius, of course she lets him comfort her. Her son is so hair-trigger and wild-eyed, she'll tell him whatever he needs to hear in order to get him out of her bedroom without killing anyone else; her husband is not the one she mistrusts.) They are easy together. If he fears any heavenly reprisal, it might be Gertrude's discovery of the truth, not Hamlet's revenge for it: when the prince has him finally at sword's point, offering the choice of poison in a cup or on an unbated edge, he looks past his nephew to his dead queen and shrugs extravagantly—for once, showing his theatrics—takes the cup freely and drinks it down. He tries to die with her hand in his. I haven't yet seen Derek Jacobi, but this was quite different from the jovial brute I vaguely remember from Zeffirelli or Kozintsev's cunning tyrant. Stewart may be my definitive interpretation for a while.2. I think An Infamous Army (1937) is the best novel I've read by Georgette Heyer; I wasn't expecting it to be. Her characterization of Wellington only reinforces my desire for a good biography.
3. Because it contains a new appendix of Pompeiian graffiti, I am now the proud owner of the second edition of Craig Williams' Roman Homosexuality, which cannot be read on the subway—as I discovered on Tuesday—without causing fellow-travelers to studiously refuse to make eye contact with you. It's awesome. I think my favorite new piece of information comes from the second-century grammarian Festus, who illustrated the noun pullus, literally a chick, also an older man's term of endearment for his younger boyfriend, with the story of Q. Fabius Maximus Eburnus, consul in 116 BCE, who was nicknamed pullus Iovis—"Jupiter's chick"—after he was struck by lightning in the ass. But I am also very fond of the glandes Perusinae, lead sling-bullets recovered from Octavian's siege of Perugia (41/40 BCE). They are inscribed with things like salve Octavi felas—Hello, Octavian! You suck. Oh, yes, political discourse is so much less mature and intelligent nowadays.
4. The half-price ticket kiosk in Copley Square came through again, so I was able to see the last night of La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein with
fleurdelis28 and Shlomo. It was supremely silly and absolutely worth getting up at sleepless o'clock for; it started by satirizing militarism and proceeded to satirize anything that moved, which meant that in place of the third-act ballet it had a can-can with hobbyhorses and it was beautiful. Stephanie Blythe owned the stage from the moment she opened her mouth, which is precisely as the Duchesse should. Frank Kelley turned up in a supporting role as the Duchesse's ubiquitous factotum, running constant interference, announcing and bowing with mathematical precision. I am so glad there is at least one opera company in the world which performs Offenbach that isn't Les contes d'Hoffmann or the "Galop infernal" from Orphée aux enfers.
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