Chiltern Shakespeare Company perform 'The Merchant of Venice'

I’m going to put it out there: I love Shakespeare and I think that you are wrong if you don’t too.

On Wednesday evening, I went to the gorgeous open air theatre in Beaconsfield to watch a performance of The Merchant of Venice by the Chiltern Shakespeare Company. It was the perfect day to go as it had been the hottest day of the year so far, and was still warm late at night. I’ve never seen or read this play before – the most performed of all Shakespeare’s. For your inner geek who finds Shakespeare’s influence on the English language and basically life in general as fascinating as I do, the ‘pound of flesh’ bargain struck between Shylock and Antonio is apparently the origin of the phrase ‘to bleed someone dry’. If you aren’t familiar with the play and are concerned about why I’m talking about the delightful topic of flesh, here’s the passage where the two characters enter into the deal. This kind of agreement could have made studying contract law a LOT more interesting….

To with me to a notary, seal me there
Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,
If you repay me not on such a day,
In such a place, such sum or sums as are
Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit
Be nominated for an equal pound
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me. (1.3.17)

The location of the theatre at Beaconsfield Hall Barn is beautiful. It’s like being in a period drama. My mum said she kept expecting Mr Darcy to walk around the corner. You can get Pimm’s and cake (I recommend) as well as other refreshments, before, after, and during the interval. Having the performance outside, I think, just added a touch more authenticity and appeal than even the best West End Theatre. For a Shakespearean play especially, I literally cannot think of a more appropriate setting. My parents went to see Macbeth there last year, and in total contrast, there had been thunderstorms throughout the night, which again they said just added to the macabre and supernatural themes in Macbeth.

The wonderful Chiltern Shakespeare Co. performed the play and I couldn't fault it. I'm impressed by excellent stage acting, and this was brilliant! I'm no expert on acting/directing/casting, unlike my blogging pal Gareth, whose blog can be found here (was that seamless or just shameless?!), but I was enthralled for the whole two-and-a-bit hours. Profits go to a chosen charity.

The first half is focused on the bargain, and on various surrounding love interests between characters. I especially loved the conflicting characterisation of Shylock, the lender, and the interwoven and comical plot line of suitors battling to win Portia. The second half portrays the drama of the courtroom scene, building tension but also incorporating hilarious dialogue, where almost all the male characters become targets of Portia's and Nerissa's wit and fun, in surprising and subtle ways.

Having known almost nothing about The Merchant of Venice, the open air theatre or the Chiltern Shakespeare Co. before, I had a fab evening, learned a lot more about Shakespearean drama and can safely say I'll be going to the next play!

Unexpected Lessons in Love

As promised, a book whose title is far removed from my last post! Unexpected Lessons in Love is just as warm as it looks.

I have to admit, I wasn’t totally convinced by the first couple of chapters of this book. But just so I don’t put you off straight away: if you persevere you will find three hundred pages of sincere, intriguing and unique writing. At the start I thought that the novel was going to be syrupy sweet with not much substance (something to do with the book jacket?) but this seems to be what Bernadine Bishop wants you to think, before slapping you out of the haze of scene setting with exciting plot twists and unexpected character development.

I can’t resist the type of book that slyly introduces seemingly random new characters and builds up your interest until it becomes clear how they are all connected in different ways, and Bishop’s tale does not disappoint in this way. There’s so much depth to the characters, especially Cecilia, Leda and Helen, that you just keep peeling back right through to the last chapter. In the first couple of chapters I thought Ian, Cecilia’s son, was going to turn out to be a bit of a pathetic, wishy-washy character, but (spoiler alert!) he really strengthens up and becomes a whole new person after being abducted while working abroad.

Bernadine Bishop also deals with the topic of cancer in a refreshing way, without the saccharine sentimentality I was expecting, having suffered with it herself. She gives insights into the illness without being obtrusive, though I love the straightforward way she describes the trials and tribulations of Cecilia’s experience. The balance between poignant moral and philosophical ideas and lightness of style and dialogue is charming. In some places the story concerns and saddens you, in others it’s sunny and uplifting.

True to its name, thinking back after finishing the book, you can identify so many of the ‘lessons in love’ between the characters – between spouses, children and parents, friends, even strangers. I can’t think of anything I’ve read that’s similar to Unexpected Lessons in Love.

It’s not a book that is easy to describe. Bishop definitely stirs up some rarely-touched themes and ideas, combined with a way of writing that is surprising, intense and satisfying. Perfect holiday read.

Hardy's morbid fascination with death

Ok, so the title for this post may not be everyone's (or anyone's) idea of some light Saturday reading, but I promise my next post will be more light-hearted! Well, not based on death anyway. But, although I can't claim to have read a huge amount of his work, the geekier side of me finds Hardy's poetry profoundly fascinating and interrogative. Death is a key theme in many of Hardy’s poems- undoubtedly a reflection of his personal life, emotions and experiences, and reveals a lot to the reader about Hardy himself. However, in each poem that deals with the idea of death, it is presented in different ways depending on the subject matter of each specific poem.

Hardy’s poem ‘Afterwards’ is a clear exposure to the poet’s own thoughts on death; he presents his thoughts on his own death through euphemisms, referring to death as ‘the Present latching its postern behind my tremulous stay’ to introduce the theme in the opening stanza, and continues the utilisation of these euphemisms through the poem, postulating death as being ‘like an eyelid’s soundless blink’. Such expressions evoke Hardy’s thoughts on dying in a soft, gentle way, resulting in a somewhat optimistic perspective on death. The tone of ‘Afterwards’ is not fearful and threatening, but rather calm and pensive, as a result of imagery in the form of euphemisms. To me this suggests the poem is a representation of his fascination with, rather than fear of, his own death.

Also, it has been suggested that ‘Afterwards’ reads like an obituary and has epitaphic resonances, as it is clearly a very personal poem, shown by the use of personal pronouns when talking about ‘my tremulous stay’ and ‘if I have been stilled at last’. The use of this first person on many occasions reveals Hardy’s own emotions and musings on the concept of death.

In contrast to speaking about his own forthcoming death, Hardy's poem ‘The Going’ is about his late wife Emma’s death and his emotions since her passing. Clearly the very name hints Hardy's curiosity with death in the poem. The final stanza of this poem, in particular, echoes the recurring theme of dying, as Hardy refers to himself as ‘a dead man held on end’; this blunt and forceful line suggests Hardy’s anticipation of his own death. In a similar manner, Hardy conveys the absoluteness of death in the last stanza, describing it as ‘unchangeable’. The use of this polysyllabic adjective, followed by an unexpected full stop in the middle of the line, implies a resignation to the inevitability of his own death. Following this, he merely states ‘it must go’; this simple sentence emphasises the sense of finality in Hardy's own life.

In ‘The Voice’, Hardy’s choice of diction once again helps to put across his powerful feelings on death with the use of phrases such as ‘wan wistlessness’, which suggest a sense of regret and remorse following the death of Hardy’s ‘much missed’ first wife Emma. The sibilance of these soft-sounding words juxtaposed together reflect Hardy’s melancholy mood on the loss of this key figure in his life; indeed the poem might lead us to consider that Emma’s death was the reason for his morbid fascination with death. The reminiscent and sensuous tone, created by the words ‘call to me, call to me’ and the use of a rhetorical question of ‘can it be you that I hear?’, again convey Hardy’s morbid fascination with death in a remarkable and lyrical way.

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese May Fowler

It’s taken me a while to get this blog up and running for a number of reasons:

a) Exams.

b) The slightest glimpse of sunlight makes everyone extremely unproductive (it’s scientifically proven).

c) I’m a bit of a technophobe and regularly argue with my computer screen when things

are not blindingly obvious.

I got there in the end though, and here is my first post!

With all the hype around Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby at the moment, I thought it would be the perfect time to read Therese Anne Fowler’s portrayal of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, wife of celebrated writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Scott died aged 40 of a heart attack, following years of alcohol abuse; Zelda perished a few years later in a fire during one of several stays in a sanatorium. Since the deaths of the glamorous couple, writers have been intrigued and divided by the life of the celebrated writer and his wife, the First Lady of the jazz age.

Some accounts indicate that Zelda was the destructive force that drove F. Scott Fitzgerald to failed works, alcoholism and emotional breakdown. Fowler, adopting the voice of Zelda, espouses the opposite- that it was Scott’s obsession with fame and control that turned a self-assured and hopeful eighteen-year old from Montgomery, Alabama into a bored, depressed and erratic chess piece on her famous husband’s board of power, manipulation and violence. Several critics have slated Fowler’s account as inaccurate and biased, claiming that her dates are sometimes wrong and, more importantly, that her depiction of Zelda as the innocent victim is misleading and in places downright false. All valid criticism- but as the cover tells us, Fowler is writing first and foremost as a novelist and not as a biographer. And, in consideration of the novel solely as a work of fiction (inspired by history), I found Z absorbing, dazzling and often surprising.

We follow Fowler’s Zelda from her early adulthood in the Deep South, to which she makes many later references when the couple travel to New York, London, Paris and the French Riviera. It was these notorious adventures in the early ‘20s that helped inspire The Great Gatsby itself. Zelda’s escapades with Scott also introduced them to the glamorous yet destructive circles including Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel and, most notably, Ernest Hemingway. I’d encourage you to read Z if only for the scandalous tales of Hemingway explored by Fowler, a 1920s version of Heat magazine- type guilty pleasure. Whether they are all true is up for debate, of course, but I found the anecdotes fascinating nonetheless. It is these first two-thirds of the book that engrossed me the most; after this, there are no real surprises- it is inevitable that Zelda and Scott are driving each other to devastation and it’s far too late to turn back by this point, with a child and (more importantly, if this account is to be believed) a reputation to consider. So, the last sixty or seventy pages are less gripping than I’d found the first few hundred to be.

However, I cannot express just how much I love the vivid characterisation, the rich dialogue and the twists in the main body of the novel. Fowler’s style is, on the whole, compelling and mesmerising. The narrative carefully entwines themes of love, fame, betrayal and despair against the alluring backdrop of the Roaring Twenties to create a new, elegant and captivating story of Zelda Fitzgerald, the ‘First Flapper’ who struggled to find herself in the shadow of her legendary husband.