Bardolatry gone mad!

Well, to "tell truth and shame the Devil" it's me that's gone mad.  The Globe Theatre are about to open their productions of the two parts of Henry IV.  On various Sundays (and other days, for all I know) they will play Part I in the afternoon and Part II in the evening.  They are, of course, one play divided in two for convenience and whenever it is possible they should be played or viewed together.  Harold Bloom(*), a distinguished American critic and Shakespeare expert, said that just two characters stood head and shoulders above the great gallery of personalities that Shakespeare had conjured from his imagination - Hamlet and Falstaff.  I was lucky enough to play the fat rogue in Part II but how I wish I could have played him all the way through in a combined production.  Ah well, as Frank sang it, "Regrets, I have a few"!

Anyway, my madness had barely started when I booked for a full Sunday at The Globe in order to see both because the very next day I received an e-mail advert from the Old Vic informing me that their next programme was about to begin with productions of All's Well That Ends Well and The Tempest.  I have only ever seen one production of All's Well but several of The Tempest, Shakespeare's last play in which, I am convinced even if some experts are not, that in the final speech of the play Shakespeare, consciously or unconsciously, bids us farewell (sorry for the underline):

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

The words are supposedly Prospero's, the powerful magus, but no-one will convince me that they are not also the words of the greatest conjuror of words the world has ever known becoming aware, even if subconsciously, that he had finally said everything of importance that needed to be said.  I come close to tears just reading them.

Anyway, if you haven't already guessed, I'm booked in to see both of those plays and the 'Henries' on the Saturday/Sunday of one weekend!

(*) Oh dear, I referred to him as "the late Harold Bloom", corrected now thanks to my commenter, Ortega.

 

Comments

[ortega]

"The late Harold Bloom..."

Are you sure? I think he's alive and...reading.

[dearieme]

I've just given a second read to that WS/1599 book. It really is a cracker, isn't it?

[David Duff]

Thanks, Ortega, I must plead guilty to involuntary homicide! Corrected now, see above.

Superb, 'DM', and thank God I read it shortly before I directed Hamlet, it was an education in the very highest sense of the word.

[dearieme]

By the by, congrats to Duff the Younger for his Waterloo titivations - fine stuff.

[David Duff]

Don't encourage him, 'DM', he'll be slipping blue movies in next!