Hot Drama
Four things you must know to enjoy Shakespeare in the park: Your guide to theHouston Shakespeare Festival
Tracie Thomason as Desdemona and Seth Gilliam as Othello in "Othello"
Now in its 37th year, the Houston Shakespeare Festival, a professional projectof the University of Houston, returns to Miller Outdoor Theater July 29 - Aug.7.Photo by Leroy Gibbins
Luke Eddy as Petruchio and Tracie Thomason as Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew"
Shakespeare's everywhere — even in Hermann Park.
If ever you've waited with bated breath, called jealousy a green-eyed monster, told a friend to put his best foot forward, or insisted that discretion is the better part of valor, you've used a saying invented or popularized by William Shakespeare. In the midst of the hottest summer on record, your first instinct might not be to sit outside to watch what Shakespeare himself referred to as a "two hours traffic on our stage," especially when two hours easily turns to three or more.
But the Houston Shakespeare Festival is a great place to acquaint or reacquaint yourself with two of the great dramatist's theatrical marvels: Othello, which plays at the Miller Outdoor Theater Friday, Sunday and August 2, 4, and 6, and Taming of the Shrew, which plays Saturday and August 3, 5, and 7.
Othello, long considered one of Shakespeare's masterpieces of tragedy, tells a tale of jealousy and intrigue set in Venice. Trouble begins when the brave Moorish general Othello secretly marries the beautiful Desdemona, the daughter of one of more prominent families in the city. Add to interracial marriage the threat of a Turkish invasion and the single most diabolical manipulator on the Shakespearean stage, Iago, and you have a recipe for spectacular disaster.
Tragedy, too, is often funnier than it seems it should be. Hamlet is, oddly enough, one of the funnier plays Shakespeare wrote, but somehow those brief oases of humor make the endings even more devastating.
Taming of the Shrew seems to offer up lighter fare as it tells the tale of the proud, "shrewish" older daughter Katherine married off and tamed by the oafish Petruchio to make possible the marriage of her desirable younger sister, Bianca. Othello is mostly a cloak and dagger affair culminating in the death of the central characters. Taming of the Shrew is all about the hysteria of weddings, banquets, love and family drama, which must be why it's nearly as violent as Othello.
These popular plays are certainly popular in Houston. The Alley Theater staged Othello just a few years ago, though Shakespeare has seemed scarce on their stage more recently. Houston Ballet mounted a highly successful choreographic adaptation of Taming of the Shrew just this past season and will feature Romeo and Juliet next season.
Some time ago, I asked for more Shakespeare in town: this is a good start, but maybe Houston Grand Opera can pitch in too.
In spite of an instantly recognizable image, frequent parodies of his famously melancholic prince Hamlet (talking to a skull), and the ubiquitous references to Romeo and Juliet when speaking of love, it's easy to feel a little uncomfortable when seeing Shakespeare for the first (or even the fifth) time. But while Renaissance drama may often be a subject for scholars, Shakespeare wrote for everyone: kings and commoners, princes and pub goers.
As you prepare for Houston's own Shakespeare in the park experience, pack a nice little picnic and keep some of the following in mind.
1. Language is king on the Shakespearean stage; it's almost more important than the action. The English of Shakespeare's era is quite similar to our own, so don't struggle against the language when you first hear it. Relax and listen. Most of Shakespeare's plays were written in a very regular metrical pattern called iambic pentameter, which certainly helped the actors remember their lines.
Even if you feel a little lost, the rhythm will pull you along in no time. For the most part, the lines will not rhyme, but pay attention for the few moments when you hear a rhyme: these are usually significant moments of summing up. Here's an example from the first act of Othello, as the devious Iago hits upon a plan to wreak maximum destruction: "I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light."
2. Comedy and tragedy are never truly opposites. Taming of the Shrew is incredibly funny, as a comedy should be, but the amount of physical and emotional torment in Shakespeare's comedies is profound. In Taming, we have to decide if we feel the ends do justify the means, as Petruchio bullies and starves Katherine into submission.
Near the end of the play, she delivers what many find a very uncomfortable diatribe against proud women and insists that their role is to obey and serve.
Tragedy, too, is often funnier than it seems it should be. Hamlet is, oddly enough, one of the funnier plays Shakespeare wrote, but somehow those brief oases of humor make the endings even more devastating. Othello fairly easily sustains its feeling of tragic foreboding, but Iago, who engineers the entire tragedy, is not only funny but at moments incredibly charismatic.
3. Shakespeare often forces us to ask, "Should I have sympathy for the devil?" Iago, as I've said, is probably the most charismatic figure on the stage in Othello. Iago speaks frequently to the audience in a series of asides and soliloquies, so in some ways he's the most transparent to us. But he's also the most mysterious.
People have been guessing for centuries as to the motivation of this figure who goads Othello into murdering his bride Desdemona over some trumped up charges of infidelity. Many plays written in Shakespeare's era focus on the fidelity of women, but here the utterly innocent Desdemona is sent like a lamb to the slaughter, and no one can figure out why.
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge referred to this as "motiveless malignity" and the test of any production —or actor — is how to handle the apparent lack of motive. For productions of Taming of the Shrew, viewers are left wondering how much they should fall for the charismatic Petruchio, who is an embarrassing mess and who treats women horribly.
In an era of morally questionable protagonists, from The Sopranos to Dexter, are we hopelessly in love with criminals, brutes, and sociopaths? Does that make Petruchio and Iago more appealing? Why do they get so many of the best lines?
4. Shakespeare loved nothing better than odd endings and loose ends. At the end of Othello, Othello strangles Desdemona who briefly returns to life to lie and tell the authorities Othello did not kill her. Then Othello kills himself. Iago kills his wife Emilia, who reveals the plot, and then refuses to say anything about why he plotted the destruction of so many people.
At the end of Taming of the Shrew, Kate not only submits to and celebrates her husband but she also forces two other women to submit to their husbands. Is the irrepressible Katherine just playacting for her husband or has she found in her husband's misogyny a way of directing her anger at other women? How can we feel good about such an ending?
Shakespeare never ignored how complicated the world is, and that's why people keep coming back for more after four centuries. Somehow, with all their oddities and loose ends, his plays still feel complete and completely perfect.
That's the mark of true genius.
