{"id":13007,"date":"2010-05-03T14:50:02","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T18:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2010\/05\/03\/13007.html"},"modified":"2018-03-13T18:55:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T23:55:56","slug":"book-report-playing-bit-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2010\/05\/03\/book-report-playing-bit-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If my employer had acquired Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare<\/a> under its previous title, Bit Parts in Shakespeare’s Plays<\/i>, I would probably not have picked it up. As it was, I was browsing through books on Shakespeare and performance, and I thought that (1) although Buckingham is not a bit part, he does have two acts during which he appears to be a bit part, with very few lines and a good deal of standing around, and (b) anything useful in this book will likely to be useful to me, either in this role or some other in the future. Plus, there was a whole chapter on R3<\/i>, so that was good.\n

It turns out that the book is not chock full of useful advice for the actor. I have the impression that the author, Molly Maureen Mahood, thinks<\/i> that it is chock full of useful advice for the actor, but it isn’t. It is chock full of interesting observations about Shakespeare’s plays, though. It is, in some ways, a terrific book. But it is not a terrific book in the specific way of helping an actor who happens to find himself cast in a bit part in Shakespeare.\n

For one thing, Ms. Mahood’s interpretations of the plays and their roles is likely to come in to sharp contrast with the director’s ideas, and when you are in a show, particularly in a small part in a show, the director’s ideas take precedence. For another, much of the book is simply an argument that the bit parts are very important to Shakespeare’s technique, and that therefore they should not be cut from performances. The idea that the scrivener is not expendable ultimately has to run up against the fact that the scrivener is expendable, as is shown by the fact that almost all productions do without him and have for hundreds of years, but it is good to read a vigorous defense of the scrivener and his like. Still, these are not decisions for the actor to make: if you have been cast in a bit part, the odds are good that it is being kept, and for practical purposes you can leave out the argument. And, alas, when Ms. Mahood does give concrete ideas for a bit part, they tend to Coarse Acting, which of course there is a great deal of in Bit Parts in Shakespeare, but then, that book<\/a> already exists.\n

So, not so much help on Playing Bit Parts in Shakespeare. On the other hand, Ms. Mahood uses the bit parts to bring out some very interesting (and, yes, potentially useful) things about Shakespeare. The earlier chapters, in which she discusses the various structural and thematic tasks the bit parts play, are really wonderful. The plays reward truly close reading, and Ms. Mahood has the trick of it, and puts that to good work. As a result, not just bit parts but any part in the play is opened up to possibilities: is a theme or metaphor brought out first in a minor character to be picked up and brought to full fruition later? Or perhaps is it the other way around, with a minor character bringing back a metaphor or reference, keeping it fresh or looking at it anew? Or, intriguingly, is a bit part acting as a sort of corporeal metaphor; a gardener who does not garden onstage but brings up the idea of the garden, or a messenger who might, by his presence, bring into question the direct and indirect communications we have been seeing?\n

And there are other aspects that are lovely. In the chapter on Julius Caesar<\/i>, she observes the difference in character and in audience sympathy between those bit parts we see in the first part of the play and those we see in the second. I think a skillful director could do a lot with that. Which is part of the problem with the title. A more accurate one might be Thinking about Bit Parts in Shakespeare<\/i>, or even more accurately Stuff for a Director and Dramaturge to Think About before Cutting a Shakespeare Play<\/i>. And, of course, it’s great stuff to think about whilst reading<\/i> a Shakespeare Play, which doesn’t necessarily require cutting at all.\n

I’m afraid, though, that I am a firm believer in cutting the plays; they are very long, and audiences are not used to that sort of thing. Nor can I hold it against them; I am not used to that sort of thing, myself. I would rather see a well-cut production; I would very much rather be in one. And if there is to be a maximum length (3 hours, or even better, 2 and a half) (including intermission), then the question is not whether to cut but where to cut. And Ms. Mahood is not helpful with that. She does not, for instance, vigorously argue in favor of cutting down the speeches of the main characters, or for trimming out entire subplots. No, she argues only in favor of leaving in. And as I said about Pygmalion<\/i>, when I like a play that much, I will feel like every cut is a tragic loss, even while admitting it as a necessary loss. Perhaps Ms. Mahood can convince me, or go at least a good long way towards convincing me, that the scrivener is a tragic loss. But in order to convince me to keep<\/i> the scrivener, she’s got to point to something else that can go, and be less of a loss. That, she does not do.\n

Plus, and I find this endearing, honestly, I have a sense that the whole book is put together as the way for her to make the claim that she can’t really do in a book of criticism, which is what the book might be. And that claim is a claim of the importance in The Tempest<\/i>—no, the absolute and fundamental centrality to The Tempest<\/i>—of the Bosun. Yes, I had forgotten there was a Bosun, too.\n

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Which Your Humble Blogger enjoys the book, even though it is pretty ridiculous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19080,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13007\/revisions\/19080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}