**CAUTION: Post contains some images and ideas that some may find disturbing.**
Anticipating twilight may be internal as well as external, and the two may not always be in synch. Crepescule may fall across our inner landscape before it falls outside. The best course may be to remain vigilant, and be aware of both.
Speaking of the end of the day, the title line for this blog post belongs to Brutus, who, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, is in some ways a bit of a stoic. Or at least he tries to be so. In the full exchange, Brutus and Cassius are saying their final farewells in case the upcoming battle against the forces of Marc Antony and Octavius Caesar at Philippi has an unfavourable outcome for them:
CASSIUS Then, if we lose this battle,
Julius Caesar 5.1.118-36
You are contented to be led in triumph
Thorough the streets of Rome?
BRUTUS No, Cassius, no. Think not, thou noble Roman,
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome.
He bears too great a mind. But this same day
Must end that work the ides of March begun.
And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take.
Forever and forever farewell, Cassius.
If we do meet again, why we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.
CASSIUS Forever and forever farewell, Brutus.
If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed;
If not, ’tis true this parting was well made.
BRUTUS Why then, lead on.—O, that a man might know
The end of this day’s business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.—Come ho, away!
At this moment in the text, and at this moment in the play, the final farewell is foregrounded against an internal landscape, against the finitude of human understanding, knowing, and existence. Metaphorically, it is the end of the day. Brutus has had ample warning about Philippi already. The ghost of Julius Caesar (the dear friend whom Brutus helped to assassinate) has, on the night before the battle, appeared to Brutus in his tent, and more about Brutus’ encounter with the ghost of his erstwhile friend may be read here:
http://bloggingshakespeare.com/great-caesars-ghost
When Brutus argues to Cassius that ‘it sufficeth that the day will end’, he also makes the argument to himself. He dismisses subsequent speculation in spite of the fact that the memory of his previous encounter with Caesar’s ghost would still be with him. Yet, Brutus also laments that we cannot help the longing to look into the future.
Sometimes, day’s outlook may be bleak indeed, especially if our lives seem confined to narrow circumstance. The lyrics to “At the End of the Day” from the musical, Les Miserables describe the life of the poor in such terms:
At the end of the day you’re another day older
“At the End of the Day” from the film version of the musical, Les Miserables.
And that’s all you can say for the life of the poor
It’s a struggle, it’s a war
And there’s nothing that anyone’s giving
One more day standing about, what is it for?
One day less to be living
At the end of the day you’re another day colder
And the shirt on your back doesn’t keep out the chill
And the righteous hurry past
They don’t hear the little ones crying
And the plague is coming on fast, ready to kill
One day nearer to dying
The cinematic clip captures the drama:
Yet, as oppressive as our lives may be, they may also be marked with strange kind of hope. Ironically, when threatened with extinction, we may then find our most powerful voices, and a truer vision of our potential immortality.
Even in the face of death, we may seem to transcend it.
Naturally, the end of the day may take us in many directions, and sometimes they may be good as well as bad. Yet, we live in scary times, and it so often seems that we also inhabit a fading world. In an interview with Greta Scacchi, Jack Watkins notes that the actress had “lent her support to an ongoing £25 million refurbishment campaign” for the Bristol Old Vic, which he notes is the “oldest continuously functioning theatre in the U.K.” Scacchi says, “These old theatres are rather like fireplaces or chimneys. They don’t know how to build them now.”*
The problems with theatre go much deeper than the loss of old theatres, however tragic and substantial that loss may be. With the growth of the internet and streaming television platforms, even cinema struggles to remain relevant. How much more so for live theatre, and the increasinly aged audiences who actually still attend it? Just as cinema and television tend to rely on formulaic constructs (even as artists within these realms strive to transcend those) live theatre has always relied on ‘chestnuts’, or popular best selling shows, to survive. Yet, its direct appeal is increasingly sidelined by rising ticket prices, and the ready availabilty of on demand movies and television series that viewers may watch in the comfort and privacy of their own homes, simply punching a button or two in order to see what they want, even after a long day’s work.
Perhaps deeper still is what seems to be a marked change in actor attitudes and training. As Greta Scacchi reminds us, when she attended the Old Vic (in 1977), “the training was about the spoken word, the quality of writing for the stage through periods of history and of the theatre as a sacred space.” She believes that “When [current drama schools] say they’re doing a film-acting course, that has to be a scam, because a student cannot possibly think ‘I want to be a film actor and that’s it.’ It’s not realistic.”
Of course, conservatories and university programmes may offer film or television acting as ancillary to their central training. In the United States, many young performers look to television and film because they seem much more lucrative than the diminished theatre, which appears to be dying on the vine. Theatre seems to be dying in the United Kingdom too, perhaps remaining most dynamic and vital in places like South America, Asia, and a few other hotspots where ongoing innovation in live theatre serves as a momentary resistance the withering onslaught of spreading cultural blight.
Again, however, Scacchi’s voice cautions us. “If you’re not interested in watching actors on stage, I don’t see how you can be interested in acting of any sort. The stage is a perfect cipher for all the skills you’d need for film. The way you adjust your voice or your physicality to a big theatre or a smaller space is the same kind of gauge you’d use for a film wide shot or a close-up.” The underlying sentiment is echoed by Sir Michael Caine, who advises aspiring actors to “work to be the best possible actor you can be”.**
It’s difficult to argue with this, yet there does seem to be a difference in perspective, especially between actor training in the United States and that in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the performance vernacular seems to be more cinematically based, which may again stem from economic considerations. Also, the cult of personality tends to dictate that motion picture and television stars remain a kind of social rage, with projects often being marketed on the basis of the personalities performing in them as much as they may be promoted on the virtues of the project itself.
Not that the United Kingdom doesn’t have its celebrities as well. Yet, training in the United Kingdom also seems to place more an emphasis on a given actor’s performative flexibility and adaptability. As U.S. actress Julia Eringer (who is originally from London) says, “In the UK, there’s a greater emphasis on an actor’s ability to play characters who are different from themselves… being able to walk their walk, talk their talk.”*** In the same article, Eringer says that “UK actors are highly regarded in LA; they’re known for being on point. They know their lines, they work hard and they’re not messing around. In general, I find US actors a little looser, perhaps not quite as sharp or on point, but as a result they often have very fluid emotional lives and can have very magical moments.”
Of course, there are great actors in both countries, and in many other countries as well. In terms of developing acting skills, however, is there really a best way? Dario Fo says:
In conclusion, practice is the best means of learning to read any theatrical text, and in theatre practice involves not just staging plays personally, but also going to see how other people, particularly performers of talent and experience, set about the business. I myself acquired the basics of the craft by standing night after night in the wings, spying on the more seasoned practitioners in the variety of companies I worked with. I would urge this course of action on young actors — go and watch every move, if necessary from behind the wings, even if the stage manager throws a fit and threatens to kick you out.****
In the end, balance in playing may be the very thing. Hamlet’s advice to the players is often quoted:
. . .let your own discretion
Hamlet 3.2.16-30
be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
word to the action; with this special o’erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
o’erweigh a whole theatre of others.
Like in Simon Brook’s film of his father’s acting exercise, Peter Brook: The Tightrope, perhaps finding the middle way between the physical, emotional, and intellectual faculties may be the best way to perform, and this is, arguably, a middle way that can be solidified in actors by working with the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.*****
But we digress. As theatre becomes increasingly marginalised, do we lose performance altogether? Obviously not. Streaming entertainment studios will continue to produce projects designed to be as addictive as possible–series designed to keep the public watching, even binge watching when possible. At the end of the day, the death of live theatre would not take drama from us, but it would change its form, perhaps more drastically than we imagine.
In many ways, these changes are already taking place, sweeping the world of entertainment even as climate change sweeps over the earth. Will we gain even as we lose? Of course. The increasing production of projects for television may offer current actors more opportunity than they have had at any other time in history. Yet, we must bear in mind that we also pay for each of the gains we make. As live theatre disappears, so does its immediacy. The performers in our living rooms never seem to miss a line, miss an entrance. They never need to ad lib. All need for theatrical covering skills may be alleviated by simply recording another take.
Perhaps the loss of live theatre’s immediacy, intimacy, and mutual participation remains less important in the larger view, in the ‘big scheme of things’. What we gain, what we embrace may be far more relevant to our lives now. Still, it is good to recall that when we move towards something, we often move away from something else. Embracing one kind of idea or method often means letting go of another, and perhaps allowing that other way to fall into disuse or be forgotten completely.
Not that people will completely forget Shakespeare or the live stage. Those streaming services still produce versions of Shakespeare’s plays, with amazing production values, filmed at real castles (or animated versions of them). Audiences will have no need to imagine the arms or the scenery. We need not worry when the Prologue in Henry V pleads with us:
And let us, ciphers to this great account,
Henry V, Prologue, 18-36.
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high uprearèd and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth,
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our
kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,
Turning th’ accomplishment of many years
Into an hourglass; for the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this history,
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray
Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play.
Things that the prologue asks us to imagine will be shown to us. Our imaginations will need to put forth no effort. We will not need to paint any clouds ourselves, or imagine any blue in some inward sky.
At the end of the day, in what may or may not be a kind of twilight for live theatre, does our choice of replacements tend to make us a bit lazy? Do we become more hesitant in our engagement, more likely to allow our imaginations to languish unused in some locked tower of our increasingly less agile minds? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps our imaginations will be spurred in other, equally challenging ways. Perhaps live theatre’s demise would initiate a cure for death, which we might have discovered sooner had we not been so distracted by those actors on the stage.
One is reminded of the theatre director who happened to be directing a Shakespearean play. Asked by an interviewer if the director were “doing [the play] in the original language”, the theatre director answered gently about ‘translating’ Shakespeare for modern audiences. The interviewer had been kind to invite the director on the show, and the director was grateful. Stil, when asked about the original language of Shakespeare’s plays, it is difficult not to ask, “Do you mean English?”
In letting outmoded methods of entertainment go, perhaps we lose little. We rush forward into our new and changing world, adapting ourselves to varied ever more hypnotic possibilities. Still, it may be, in fact it probably is, that we lose more than we realise, consciously or unconsciously.
Not that losing some part of our collective heritage matters. It is a western European heritage, after all, and the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Celts, the Anglo Saxons, Normans, the Picts and Scots, have all melted into the present. Similarly, other sages and shamans of the ancient world, both East and West have vanished, leaving only bits of their cultural understanding behind them. These bits remain as writings, yes, but are also threaded through our language and our understanding, with our cultures often seeming like struggling patchworks of the past. Sometimes our collective accretively conglomerated masses struggle so much that we can barely even allow our planet keep going without wrecking it. New voices, from previously long neglected cultural milieus must now step up and contribute to our experience and our understanding. If we wish to survive, we will need to listen to all the voices in order to do it.
Make no mistake. Our inattention can be immeasurably destructive. In embracing the new, we must not ignore the old, just as we must not discard the new in misguided support of only extant forms. If Kristof Koch’s concept of human consciousness is correct, all the voices may be threaded through our human experience in ways that we’ve only just begun to trace.******
Of course, this writer remains aware of just how much this blog ‘preaches to the choir’ as it were. Still, I urge anyone who may have just stumbled across this writing to actively support the arts. Go and see some live theatre. See something contemporary. See a musical. Just go see something. Then go see something by Shakespeare too. If you’re not used to the language, be patient and let yourself sit and listen. Absorb it without forcing it. The meaning may come to you if you let it. If it does not, if the experience is too tiresome, then try a different form of theatre the next time around. Or a concert. Or a two dimensional art exhibition.
Shakespeare may not be for everyone, but most peole enjoy live theatre. Naturally, artistic expression changes. Forms change. But our new forms are not grounded in nothing. They do not spring to us out of the air, but are derived from our history and our cultural milieu. Is there a place for Shakespeare in a rapidly changing world? The better question might be what kind of a world we might have with no Shakespeare, or no live theatre in it? If that form is derived from language, writing, words, and actions, or from our physical, emotional, and intellectual expressions of ourselves, then, at the end of the day, perhaps what we risk losing by losing Shakespeare or live theatre altogether is us.
*Watkins, Jack. “Interview: Greta Scacchi.” Country Life, June 22, 2016. Subsequent quotations are from the same interview.
**Fiorentini, Anna. “Acting in the UK vs US.” London Drama Schools, April 24, 2017. https://www.annafiorentini.com/news/blog/2017/04/24/acting-in-the-uk-vs-us.
***Hanly, Nouska. “UK vs US: how is drama training different?” The Stage, August 19, 2016. https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/2016/uk-vs-us-drama-training-different/
****Fo, Dario. The Tricks of the Trade. Joe Farrell, trans. London: Methuen, 2006.
*****Peter Brook: the Tightrope. Brook Productions, Cinemaundici, ARTE France, 2014. Available for rental online, and recommended especially for actors, and also for anyone who might be interested in the acting process.
******Koch, Kristof. The Feeling of Life Itself: Why consciousness is widespread but can’t be computed. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2019.