Re: The Demonization of Shakespeare

On Wed, 9 Jul 2025 15:24:33 -0700, Bobbie Sellers
<bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:

>
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On 7/9/25 09:04, Paul S Person wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jul 2025 23:28:38 +0100, Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On 08/04/2025 16:49, Paul S Person wrote:

<snippo Shakespeare examples of what the alt-right calls "woke">
<I should note that is has always been my understanding (probably from
something I was told or read) that Romeo and Juliet would have been
about 13, but who can say for sure?>

>
I seem to remember that in several U.S. states,
that isn't a problem.

 
I don't think its a problem here, either, except, of course, that
being 13 they are very excitable.
 
Young teenagers with swords duelling in the streets -- what could
possibly go wrong?
 

However, "Juliet" originally is a boy actor
in a dress.  This could be brought up.

 
I believe Hamlet remarks on the hope that a boy actor's voice hasn't
yet changed. At some point, the idea of having female actors caught
on. IIRC, there was at least one female who played Hamlet. And was
very effective in the role.

>
Sarah Bernhart in the 19th and early 20th Century.

 
Actors did not enjoy the best of reputations. Originally, IIRC, this
was because they were always lying about who they were.

>
Well before actors started acting in Christian dramas they were wed to
the mystery plays of the pagan cults of the Romans.  So that prejudiced the
ecclesiastic arm against them.

I think the problem went back a lot further. Perhaps back to the
Athenians or before. Or perhaps not.

And this was in Egypt, so it would have been "pagan cults of the
Greeks".

They were always lying about who they were, of course, because they
were always claiming to be someone else while on stage. Although
nobody seems to really care about lying nowadays, in the past it was a
/very/ serious thing to be accused of.
 

One of the tales in /The Desert Fathers/ (I think) features an actor
who descended to that low rung of society when the armed robber band
he had been in tossed him out and nobody else would take him in.
 

In some British actor's recent memoir that
I heard on radio, I've forgotten who, the
school drama was similarly cast, since that's
all that they had.  I also don't remember if
he was Juliet or Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth,
but apparently the male lead role was a
good-looking young man.
>
Ian McKellen?
>
Gregory Doran?

 
The film /Bridge on the River Kwai/ does something like that. The book
/King Rat/ goes a bit farther.
 
And I'm not even going to mention /Mrs. Doubtfire/ and other films
that play with the idea but aren't really the same thing.

>
But it ws done in Japan as well where the actresses that originated Kabuki
were barred from perforing and the roles given to males. The actresses were
demeaned with the world prostitute as were female actors when they started
working on the stage.

I have never claimed that prejudice and discrimination are unique to
Western Europe. In fact, I have, from time to time, denied it.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"