Shakespeareans: Part 1

This past weekend, I attended the Blackfriars Conference in Staunton, VA. For those of you who are unaware or not privy to the geeky little world of early-modern studies, Blackfriars is a replication (roughly) of an Elizabethan indoor playhouse. There is, of course, a massive organization which supports it known as the American Shakespeare Center. This conference does something that seems not to happen very often: it brings together scholars in Theatre and English under one roof.

This may not seem like an overwhelming accomplishment. It is, but it shouldn't be. You see, the primary problem is that English scholars tend to focus only on text (a broadening field, but still limited) and the people in my program tend to focus on performance and history. At best, strict theatre history involves searching through primary documents to produce rich descriptive accounts of productions, theatrical movements, or historical periods. English scholars, on the other hand (all of this is based on my experience) tend to take for granted the need to look at texts that were made for performance in terms of their only purpose: performance- therefore producing scintillating analyses that lack relevant application to the theatre.

Both ideas are too narrow. English studies have a wealth of critical theory to offer theatre studies, important because it grants relevance and self-awareness to historical and textual production and analysis. No more, in my view, should we or can we be content to construct historical narratives absent the framing theoretical devices that expose the frameworks and biases by which such narratives are constructed. By the same token, English certainly has every benefit to gain from the language of performance, inclusive of theories that deal with acting, space, and live interactions that help to shape texts whose purpose has been shaped by these factors.

Additionally, I am daunted and exhausted by the narrowness by which the concept of a 'text' can be defined in both fields. We need to wake up and realize that discourses are built in a multitude of media, that performance can constitute a multiplicity of acts, and that the ignorance or inability to accept such 'truths,' as they seem to me, simply serves to keep our programs and research aloof from relevance to the society that we seek to serve. Which relevance, I do believe, is part and parcel of a process of teaching and then releasing students into the social environment. The bottom line is that our fields have all become interdisciplinary in the wake of massive (and progressive) changes in critical theory, and that that interdisciplinary quality should be embraced before our institutions finally become unable to do the one thing that they purport to do: provide the tools necessary to analyse discourses with an open and critical mind.

Critical theory, performance, and texts of all sorts, when harnessed together, represent the most powerful conjunction of critical elements and practices conceivable. To keep these disciplines artificially separated, to keep them closed off to change, will only serve to bring on the constantly impending disaster predicted by those in our fields with no ability see past their own noses. Only if we continue to share an impulse towards sharing and integrating scholarship between fields can we maintain the relevance and health of the humanities.

Finally, and this is exceedingly biased, I believe that this is also the only way to effectively combat hegemony and hegemonic impulses, to bring minoritized and oppressed groups to the table, and to effect systemic and institutional change where it is most needed. Often, our critical eyes can and should often be turned towards the endemic racism, sexism, and homophobia in our own institutions. However, if we are unwilling to expand our disciplines or definitions, how could we ever combat entrenched sexist practices, for example? If we are unwilling to engage with the stuff that constructs normative impulses, how can we begin to deconstruct or (at the very fundamental level) even become conscious of them?

Now, I am not pretending that there is not a great deal of poor scholarship on each end of the spectrum, or that this view somehow eliminates the need for the evidentiary supports on which we base our work. Absolutely not. Scholarship, in its best form, should go on. This is not an invitation to 'looseness' in the scholarly framework, but an expansion of the tools and resources that we have to draw on. Not an anarchy of definitions, but an ever more exacting and precise mode of defining. After all, the more we expand ourselves and tools, the more complex the discussion must become.

Ah, Pumpkins...

'Tis the time for Pumpkin beer, my friends. However, not all of the pumpkin beers are made equal, so let me run down what I've tried so far. Dogfish Head makes the good stuff. This 7% juggernaut has the perfect blend of pumpkin flavor and spice. To expose my bias, I think that if a beer is called a 'pumpkin' beer, it should taste like something besides pumpkin pie spices. I like for there to be some pumpkin in there as well. As I type this, I am drinking the Shipyard Brewing Co.' s pumpkin beer, and it has a little too much spice to it. However, paired with apples or cheese, it might balance out the sweetness. I'll keep you posted as I try more of the pumpkin ales.

I just recently tried a few others. The Jiahu beer from Dogfish Head is really amazing, with a Belgian style depth but without the ponderous heaviness of the white ales I've had. Also, this is a 9000 year old recipe, so its like drinking a piece of history. Speaking of history, what about a glass of Pangaea? The shtick here is that it was brewed with an ingredient from every continent. I sure can't taste all of them, but I do love the crystallized ginger on the finish.

So, I suppose I might have been leaning heavily on Dogfish Head recently. I don't know exactly how that happened, but I assure you that it wasn't intentional.

Also recent has been my first experiences with a liquor known as grappe. Be careful with this stuff, as it will put hair on your chest. However, while being highly potent it is also delicious. The one I had was redolent of cedar and dark berries.

I know it has been a while since my last post, but I have been working on a presentation and paper related to Baroque machine plays. 'What are these?' You might ask. Well, look it up on the series of tubes that you read my Blog on or come to my presentation. Do look it up though. Fascinating stuff.

"Adieu, adieu, remember me..."

The Trials and Travails of Graduate School...

Part of graduate school involves moments where the line between sanity and insanity blurs in fascinating ways. Amidst papers, presentations, and classes (which, oddly, seem to get in the way of all the other things) it is easy to lose perspective. Which is partially why this blog exists at all. I can't talk enough about the stuff that interests me to everyone who is working with me, so I apparently had to have a forum to do it more.

There's a lot of talk about balance in the graduate school experience, about being able to live a life outside of the department (where I am, in fact, typing this right now!). There are even support groups for new scholars in a lot of academic disciplines, each of which has been eager to try to provide that much needed perspective that will help to keep you sane.

This is all for nothing. As far as I can tell, finding a balance between work (or talking about work, or thinking about work, or thinking about talking about work, or...) and everything else is a fiction they tell you when you enter a program because they don't want you to rip off your clothes and run away screaming back to whatever shitty job you left to get here.

No. This is an endurance test, a test of the passion you have for a subject that you have willingly offered your entire life to. This is a test of your desire to immerse yourself in a discipline that may or may not like what you have to offer, with all of the vulnerability and suffering that that entails. In a way (and I'm sure that there are some students out there silently nodding their heads when I say this) our disciplines are like lovers. We often relate to them as such: when we turn in papers and they come back covered in red ink we take it as a rejection of our skills and ourselves, but when we manage to articulate a new and (we hope) brilliant idea we experience it as the most visceral kind of elation and joy. Our relationship to the discipline often can be more immediate than our relation to our 'real' lovers. Surely, it demands almost as much (if not more) attention.

Our desire, in a sense, creates a new being.

Now, I'm not in any way saying that this is healthy. But there is some nobility in it. The highs are very high, and the lows can be very low, and there isn't always an assurance that any of it matters any more than that shitty job you (or I) left to get here. However, the reason we do it is self-evident, so self-evident in fact, that I'm not going to write it down. You can fill in the blank yourself, can't you?

In any case, I find it all thrilling, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. Even if I have to leave in a straight jacket.

Sleep No More...

Make plans to see Harvard's American Repertory Theatre production of Sleep No More. This totally immersive theatrical experience deconstructs Shakespeare's Macbeth with compelling and powerful imagery, turning the play into a haunting multimedia experience.

Note: several spoilers follow in the review below.

The experience begins as soon as you enter the lobby of the abandoned school in Brookline that serves as the production's venue. The lobby replicates a speak-easy from the 20's, complete with band and period-style drinks. This 'club' serves as a safe-zone, a liminal area between the outside world and the world of the play. As you enter the space, audience members (from here on, I will call them participants) are given masks that serve both practical and artistic functions. For one thing, the only people not wearing masks are the performers themselves (ushers wear black masks) so that they can be identified easily by participants. The masks also create an anonymous audience unable to see each other's reactions to the environment or acted material. As we moved through the space this alienating effect profoundly changed the way participants moved and interacted with each other. Participants are also discouraged from talking on their way into the space, thus fully controlling the ambient sounds in the environment and heightening the distancing effect.

Once released into the theatrical environment, we discovered that space was organized into discrete rooms based on imagery and thematic elements. Hallways themselves often served to increase feelings of continuity or discontinuity between rooms, therefore producing an overall design effect that perfectly balanced the disjointed chronology of the acted performances with painstakingly-produced detail. Indeed, the level of detail present in the design convincingly entraps the participants in this dream-like and labyrinthine world, the sheer scale of which overwhelms the imagination.

The performances themselves take place on tracks that make up over ten hours of acted work over the course of an evening. The performers (at least, that we saw) were silent, at times cognizant of participants and interacting with them, and at times seemingly ignorant of their presence. The silence of the performers focused all the attention of the participants on the actions and imagery surrounding them, while the interactions (or lack thereof) with the audience destabilized their perceptions of the same, since it was impossible to judge when or where such interactions would take place. Participants were able to follow actors from room to room, or not, as they wished. For me, this convention effectively called up specific lines and situations from the play out of step with the chronological context of the original play, and each 'scene' presented a novel and bold exploration of the space and metaphor that seemed to be its subject.

As the evening progressed, a kind of psychological terror set in. As mentioned before, wearing a mask limited the ability of participants to see and differentiate each other. Additionally, the labyrinthine and massive qualities of the space seemed to be designed to confound our ability to get from one point to another with efficiency. Not only is the action of the play decidedly non-linear, but the very act of moving through the space inevitably enhances this concept.

All in all, I will be going back to see more of this remarkable and ground-breaking experience. This kind of immersion proves again that theatre has much more to offer experientially than any other medium. Indeed, the piece harnesses every possible sense and artistic medium to create its powerful effects.The power of the interactions in this space have profound consequences for the way one thinks of Shakespearean imagery, and I think, successfully brings it to life through means I have never imagined. I will continue to update my experience with the production as I continue to attend.

A Fabulous Link...

Additionally, this Blog is way better: http://earthboundkitchen.com/

Amy knows her food. 'nough said.

I don't like 'weeks' as a concept of time management. The reason why is that as soon as a week begins, we're all hoping that it will end so we can get to the 'weekend.' What this means, inevitably, is that we're all rushing gleefully past an enormous chunk of life. And then you're dead. There aren't any more weekends when you're dead (that I know of). Cheery, huh?

Mustard, however, is a perfect food. No, really. And I don't mean that French's shit either. I mean the good stuff. The stuff where you can see the whole grains of mustard. I particularly like it when that mustard has horseradish added to it, to give it a kick. If you've been buying the yellow kind, just stop. Look right beside it on the grocery store shelf, and for a buck more you can have the real deal. If you really want to get your hair blown back, get the Coleman's Dry Hot Mustard. Mix it up the way the box tells you to and go to town. Come back and tell me what you think.

Also, cheese. Arguably the greatest thing that man has ever eaten/created besides wine, chocolate, beer, and bread. I just ate this fantastic Spanish Blue. No, I have no idea what it was called, but it was delicious. However, I don't advise you try to grope anybody after eating this cheese, because you will be unsuccessful. Your breath will stink to high heaven.

As for chocolate, I am constantly stunned by the dark hot chocolate at Burdick's Chocolate in Harvard Square. This is the best I've had ever, and I have drunk every hot chocolate I can get my hands on. If you don't try it soon, you're cheating yourself. Only, get the 'Small' people, 'cause you won't be able to handle anything bigger. Also, if you get it while its snowing (which it will be, very soon), you get, like, a million bonus points.

Oh, and beer of course. This is the time when every microbrewery on the continent comes out with multiple seasonal brews. You know, back in the day they used to pretty much survive on this stuff, because the water was full of nastiness. Trivia. Anyway, the Oktoberfests are tasting delicious right now. My favorite of the moment is Sam Adams, but Harpoon is a close second. Also, you need to try their new line of high gravity beers. If you think you've already tried them all, you're wrong, because they just came out with the Saison Royale. Delicious. Pair this with some Strong English cheese (or the French stuff, something creamy perhaps).

Or you can have some wine. Wine and cheese is classic of course, and my wine region of the moment is Portugal. First of all, I'm not talking about Port. I'm talking about big, delicious, affordable, red wines from grapes you've never heard of. However, you're not going to care what they are after you taste it on a crisp Fall evening with a rack of lamb. I like Panarroz. This is by no means a perfect wine, so don't whine and moan at me if you don't love it. The thing is, you're not going to get a better wine for eight bucks. Remember, we're being frugal here...sometimes.

Bread. The Staff of Life. Just try Iggy's...anything. Great stuff. Available at lots of good grocery stores. Or make your own damn bread with the great beer you bought, all-purpose flour, and baking soda (The double-acting stuff works best). Yeah, that's all you need. Oh, and salt (don't forget the salt). Make some good hard loaves of the stuff, hollow them out a bit and you have trenchers you can fill with your favorite stew. Fantastic medieval entertainment. Oh, and DON'T use an IPA. That makes very bad bread.

What am I reading right now? Well I'll tell you. I'm reading Anti-Oedipus:Capitalism and Schizophrenia. This one is for my thesis. When I know more about it, I'll let you know.

I Bid you Peace.

A Blog about Life and Food...

Once upon a time, I had a LiveJournal. While it may still be out there somewhere, I'm sure that re-reading the angst-ridden postings of a young undergraduate might make me nauseous. So, here I am with a brand new Blog!

This Blog will be about a lot of things, but as evidenced by my pithy reference to Jeff Smith and the Frugal Gourmet, it will often be about food: What have I eaten? Where did I eat it? Was it any good? How did I make it? However, that's not all. I'm interested in writing about the things that, in my mind, make a life worth living, whatever that may be. Frugality, in this regard (and for those of you who were not fortunate enough to see the show) is a kind of lifestyle. It isn't about being cheap, but it is about simplicity. Frugality to me implies good, fresh, simple food, and good friends to eat it with. That can mean everything from cooking at home, to sitting with friends at your favorite local pub.

This can also mean making space in your life to do what you love. For my part, I go to Graduate School, and I love it. I forget all the time that I love it as well, so I'm hoping that this Blog will help me to remind myself (and, perhaps, some of you) how lucky it is to be able to pursue what one wants and loves in a culture that denies that dream to too many people. Inevitably, the Blog will also be about theatre because that's what I study, and that's what I spend my life talking about.

More than anything else, I'd like for this Blog to inspire people to open themselves to sensations. We live in a sense-deprived world, in a culture that typically denigrates fine or beautiful things or experiences. We live in front of computers, separated from each other by cubicles; our own sensory deprivation chambers. We eat poor-tasting food, processed to withstand nuclear holocaust. We live isolated from the world, each other, and the beautiful things the world has to offer us in the tiny time we are allowed the run of it. We have even reached a place where a love of pleasurable experiences make you a snob, and while I don't doubt that there are snobs (and I might, occasionally, be one of them), I believe that this is a belief spread by the few to keep the multitude away from good things, to keep them wanting, to keep them unhappy.

This is Nonsense.

I'm not interested in laying blame at the door of any particular school of thought for this circumstance, but I am interested in doing away with it. Because this is an insane and unnecessary circumstance. I'd like to bring back a love of sensory experiences for their own sake, for (horror of horrors!) their own enjoyment. All people should be able to make good food in sustainable communities, to be supported by a life of the mind and the spirit, and to change what keeps them from their full potential.

I suppose that this all reads like a kind of manifesto. I suppose, in some regard, it is.