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Back in 2009 I posted a series of essays on my work translating The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. This essay was written, but apparently I forgot to actually post it to the website. Whoops.

In Act III of The Seagull, Trigorin threatens to leave Arkadina for Nina. Arkadina, driven to desperation, succeeds in seducing Trigorin and convinces him to stay with her. (“He’s mine now,” she says to herself. And she’s right.) Trigorin then opens the small notebook that he keeps in his pocket and jots something down.

Аркадина. Как хочешь. Вместе, так вместе…

Пауза.

Тригорин записывает в книжку.

Что ты?

Тригорин. Утром слышал хорошее выражение: «Девичий бор»… Пригодится. (Потягивается.) Значит, ехать? Опять вагоны, станции, буфеты, отбивные котлеты, разговоры…

Which can be literally translated as:

Arkadina: As you wish. However, both together …

Pause.

Trigorin writes in the book.

What?

Trigorin: This morning heard the expression: “Virgin forest” … Handy. (Stretches.) So, go? Again, cars, stations, buffets, chops, talking …

The key phrase here is “Девичий бор” — “virgin forest”. It’s pretty easy to look at the juxtaposition of “I heard an expression” and “virgin forest” and leap straight to the common English phrase: “virgin wood”. And, indeed, a casual survey of translations of The Seagull reveals that virtually everyone goes for the easy solution.

But there is a problem here: Trigorin jots it down as something worth remembering; an oddity that must be recorded. Generations of English-speaking actors and their audiences have struggled with making sense out of Trigorin’s seeming unfamiliarity with a common phrase.

A quick search of Russian sources, on the other hand, reveals what I suspected: Unlike “virgin wood”, the phrase “Девичий бор” is virtually unknown outside of The Seagull. So one can immediately intuit that there is an important context for “Девичий бор” which is being lost when we translate it simply as “virgin wood”.

My next step was to pull open a Russian-to-English dictionary.

Девичий — maiden (girl’s, maidenly, virgin, maidenish, maiden-like)

бор — boron, chemical element; forest, thicket

I think we can safely discard the “boron” definition. But this may suggest that we should be wary of putting too much weight into the word “virgin” here. “Maiden” has a very different connotation to it.

Poking around the Russian Google for awhile, I dig into a few of the obscure non-Chekhovian uses of the phrase. One is a 1939 book called Montenegrin’s Tales (Черногорские сказки), which appears to be a collection of folklore by P. Stiyensky (Стийенский Р.). One of the stories has this phrase as the title, but I’ve been unable to find out any details about it.

Another reads: “Их было четверо, девичий бор, кружок, тайное общество, можно сказать. Учились в одной школе.” In English: “There were four in theдевичий бор; a circle, a secret society you might say. They studied together at school.” And the phrase is used again in the same work, once again to describe this small group of girls.

This is intriguing to me because it suggests that the use of the word “forest” or “grove” or “thicket” might be the metaphor in this phrase (rather than “maiden” or “virgin”). In other words, it is not the wood which is being described as virginal, but rather the maidens who are being described as like a forest — like a thicket of trees grouped together.

And, looking at the context of the scene, it begins to make sense why Trigorin would suddenly be struck by such a phrase: He has been beset in rapid succession by Nina and then Arkadina. He feels pulled this way and that by the women around him. They are a thicket penning him in.

I have now defined the parameters of the problem: I need a catchy turn of phrase which is (a) original rather than proverbial and (b) invokes the imagery of a covey of women.

What I eventually came up with was “girlish gaggle”. I was unhappy to lose the sense of “forest” or “trees” from the phrase, but I think it nevertheless strikes closer to home than “virgin wood”.

(EDIT: Intriguingly, a reference that has cropped up on Russian Google since I originally translated the script seems to suggest that Девичий бор might be a “paraphrasing” (typo?) of девичий вор — which can be translated as “maiden’s burr” or “girl thief”. I wish I had a better understanding of Russian to fully appreciate the argument being made, but if I accept it at face value then it raises the interesting possibility that I had it backwards: Is Trigorin actually referring to himself as a burr which catches upon women? There is invocation of both injury and clinging which I find intriguing.)

I Talk About Shakespeare

May 20th, 2010

Twin Cities Theater Connection recently put a panel together of local artists working on summer productions of Shakespeare. You can hear the discussion on their “Summer of Shakespeare” podcast. So if you’ve always wanted to know what I sound like (and can’t afford to spring for the Call of Cthulhu audio book I did), this is your chance.

Transdimensional Couriers Union

For the past couple of months I’ve been working as an assistant director on Transdimensional Couriers Union, a new play written and directed by John Heimbuch for Walking Shadow Theater Company. It’s a pretty amazing script that tackles time travel head-on and emerges with something smart, savvy, and perhaps even a little transcendental.

I’ve always wanted to see a true science fiction story given proper justice in the theater. What I’ve found instead are a lot of disappointingly cliche-ridden, illogical, and genre-stupid plays. Transdimensional Couriers Union finally delivers exactly what I’ve been looking for.

But I really shouldn’t be damning it with such faint praise: Screw the comparisons to mediocre theater. I think Transdimensional Couriers Union can be placed side-by-side with Vernor Vinge and Charles Stross and Iain Banks. The script is that good.

Basically, I think you should check it out:

May 7th – May 29th

People’s Center Theatre
425 20th Ave S. Minneapolis, MN 55454 (map)
At the NE corner of Riverside & 20th Avenue, 3rd floor

Post-Show Discussions on May 13, 22, and 27
Pay What You Can performance on Monday, May 10
Audio Decribed performance on Saturday, May 15
ASL-Interpreted performance on Friday, May 21

Light Up the Sky

January 16th, 2010

Light Up the Sky - Starting Gate TheaterI’m currently appearing as Tyler in Starting Gate Theater’s production of Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky.

Set in the suite of the leading actress in a new play, Light Up the Sky is a light comedic romp through the travails of an opening night.

January 15 through February 7, 2010

Fridays – Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday Matinees at 2:00pm
Pay what you can night Monday, January 25, 2010 at 7:30pm.
Audio Description Performance February 7, 2010 at 2:00pm.

The Shakespeare Wars - Ron RosenbaumI’ve recently been reading The Shakespeare Wars by Ron Rosenbaum and writing a few essays in an effort to dissect some of the irrational examples of scholastic exuberance he highlights in the book. This essay, however, changes the focus to Rosenbaum himself.

The topic: Shylock.

Rosenbaum’s position:

It’s the most truthful and the most terrible Shylock I’ve seen. Truthful, in part, because it’s a throwback to the original, a throwback to the deeply repellent character Shakespeare created. A throwback that has no truck with contemporary cant of the sort that attempts to exculpate Shakespeare and Shylock, evade or explain away the anti-Semitism. It doesn’t fall victim to the intellectual fallacy, the comforting but deluded evasion that has pervaded many recent productions of The Merchant of Venice: the belief that if you make Shylock a nicer guy, play him with more dignity, play up the cruelty of the Christians as well, you can somehow transcend the ineradicable anti-Semitism of the caricature.

The problem with the warm and fuzzy Shylock, the feel-good Shylock you might say, is that it doesn’t diminish, it actually exacerbates, deepens the anti-Semitism of the play as a whole. The more “nice” you make the moneylender, the more you end up making the play not about the villainy of one Jew, but the villainy of all Jews, a deep-seated villainy that subsists beneath the surface even in those who appear “nice” on the surface. The more warm and fuzzy you make Shylock, the more you make it a play about the fact that even such a Jew will not hesitate, when it comes down to it, to take a knife and cut the heart out of a Christian.

The central contention of Rosenbaum’s argument is that Shylock’s final act (when he attempts to commit an act of legalized murder) is a piece of unforgivable villainy that confirms the bigotry of the anti-Semitic. Thus, the nicer you make Shylock, the worse the message becomes: No matter how nice a Jew may seem, the truth is that all Jews are murdering monsters.

THE PROBLEM

But for Rosenbaum’s thesis to stick, he has to overcome a rather sizable hurdle. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock says:

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

If you prick us, do we not bleed? This is one of the most beautiful and heart-rending evocations of the basic humanity which transcends all bigotries. And if The Merchant of Venice is, in fact, as viciously anti-Semitic as Rosenbaum claims, then it seems painfully out of place.

In short, the only way to accept an anti-Semitic reading of The Merchant of Venice is if you can explain away what may be the most eloquent skewering of anti-Semitism ever written. Rosenbaum, seeing the problem, writes:

But what about Shylock’s famous speech in his defense: “Hath not a Jew eyes? … If you prick us, do we not bleed?” one is inevitably asked. Some might argue that this indicated that Shakespeare had a more advanced consciousness than the medieval anti-Semitism that persisted into his time. Perhaps. But if the speech is read to its bitter end “do we not bleed” bleeds any poignancy dry as it turns out to be a rationale for vengefulness: If we are alike in these respects, “If you wrong us shall we [just as you] not revenge?” as well.

There are two problems with Rosenbaum’s argument.

First, he doesn’t actually explain why we should ignore the speech. He seems to be relying on an unspoken premise that “revenge is evil”. But even if we accept the premise, Rosenbaum’s conclusion doesn’t follow.

Second, Rosenbaum is setting up a false dichotomy. He’s saying “if Shylock is a villain, then the play is anti-Semitic”. Then he concludes that Shylock is a villain, ergo the play is anti-Semitic. But in setting up this dichotomy, Rosenbaum may be missing the entire point of the play.

THE POINT

When we first see Shylock and Antonio on the stage together, Shylock says:

Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my monies and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
(For sufferance is the badge of all our Tribe.)
You call me misbeliever, cut-throated dog,
And spat upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to then, you come to me, and you say,
“Shylock, we would have monies.” You say so;
You that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold. Monies is your suit.
What should I say to you? Should I not say,
“Hath a dog money? Is it possible
A cur should lend three thousand ducats? Or
shall I bend low, and in a bond-mans key
With bated breath, and whispering humbleness,
Say this: “Fair sir, you spat on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn’d me such a day; another time
You call’d me dog: and for these courtesies
I’ll lend you thus much monies.”

This speech, I think, sets up the core dynamic of the play: Hatred begets hatred.

It’s not that Shylock is pretending to be a nice guy while secretly being a Jewish monster. It’s that the Christians treating him like a monster is what turns him into a monster.

Elsewhere in his book, Rosenbaum quotes a speech from the “Hand D” of Sir Thomas More that many believe may be written by Shakespeare. In reading it, I was struck by a similar theme. Thomas More is confronting a riotous, anti-immigrant crowd. As Rosenbaum writes, “the sympathy is with the immigrant-bashing nativist poor”, but then Hand D takes over. Sir Thomas More stands up before the crowd and says:

Grant them removed and grant them this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England,
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs, with their poor luggage
Plodding to th’ ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silenc’d by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions cloth’d,
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quell’d and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self-same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another.

Again, we see this theme of hatred creating hatred; intolerance breeding intolerance.

In the end I think this is not only a more legitimate interpretation of The Merchant of Venice, I think it’s also a more interesting one.

Rosenbaum presents his opinion of Shylock within the context of a larger thesis that Shakespeare’s villains don’t need any explanation or motivation — they’re just evil. I think this is, in general, an overly-simplistic, one-size-fits-all explication of the Bard. And I think it specifically causes Rosenbaum to overlook the complexity of The Merchant of Venice.

ROSENBAUM’S DEFENSE

But if Ron Rosenbaum were reading this essay, I know what his response would be, because he trots it out a half dozen times or more in The Shakespeare Wars:

Sorry, it’s just not a character you can make nice about, or rationalize as some do, by emphasizing the play’s critique of the cruel mockery of the money-hungry Christians as well. Christians weren’t slaughtered for their religious stereotypes in Europe; Jews were. None of the Christian characters played the ugly and vicious role Shylock did in Nazi propaganda. When one encounters this allegedly sophisticated Shakespeare-made-the-Christians-worse evasion, one has to ask why the Nazis put on fifty productions of Merchant. Because of its critique of the Christians?

Basically, this becomes Rosenbaum’s first and last line of defense: If you claim that there’s a sympathetic reading of Shylock to be had, then you’re a Nazi. (Or, at best, a Nazi-sympathizer.)

One could delve into the problems with Rosenbaum’s defense. (For example, just because Shylock can be played as a racist caricature, it doesn’t follow that he should be. Or perhaps the fact that the German productions would have been translated, offering plentiful opportunities to strip out Shakespeare’s theme and replace it with something uglier.) But it’s pointless, because there is no actual substance behind Rosenbaum’s repeated insistence that “if the Nazis performed it, it must be evil”. If he pulled this online, he would be rightfully called out for Godwinizing the discussion.

(And it was, in fact, this particular bit of intellectual dishonesty that prompted me to start writing this response.)

HEDGING MY BETS

With that being said, I have never performed a deep study of The Merchant of Venice. And even my casual readings and viewings have made it abundantly clear that there are no easy answers when it comes to the text. For example, before offering any other rationale, Shylock says, “I hate him for he is a Christian.” And there remains the open question of exactly how the behavior of the Christians in the play would have been interpreted by an Elizabethan audience: We see their behavior as abhorrent and are thus inclined to interpret them as negative portrayals. But if you don’t view their behavior as abhorrent, does that remain true? Is the play condemning them or are we condemning them?

But whatever complexities the text may offer, it remains absolutely true that it explicitly says both that, “Shylock does what he does because Antonio did what he did.” and “There is no difference between a Jew and a Christian.”

Any responsible reading of the text must take those elements of the text into account. It cannot, as Rosenbaum does, simply ignore them.

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