Ron tells me the Branagh version (which he likes) also cuts over half of Rosalind's lines, which seems pretty strange. I'd like to check out the BBC version with Mirren. I'll have to look in the local video shop, which has a small Shakespeare section.
I thought the melancholy Jaques was an interesting character, although I didn't quite know what to make of him. All his jokes about how Touchstone's marriage was doomed certainly appealed to my own melancholic humor. (Black bile, I think that is.) The introduction to the edition I read (by Jonathon Bate) mentions that Shakespeare's comedies usually have at least one character who sits outside the reconciliations/marriages at the end, with Malvolio being another example. Then again, Shakespeare's view of romance always has a certain bite to it. A Midsummer Night's Dream always strikes me as pretty sad beneath the surface, which is one reason I like the movie version with Kevin Klein as a melancholy Bottom. As I said the last time I watched it, he spends a night in heaven, but it leaves him bereft.
If all goes as planned, I'll be seeing a live production of As You Like It on Friday. It will be outdoors in a park, too, which seems an appropriate setting.
And don't tell me that "bastion" is another nob joke!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-07-11 10:15 pm (UTC)I thought the melancholy Jaques was an interesting character, although I didn't quite know what to make of him. All his jokes about how Touchstone's marriage was doomed certainly appealed to my own melancholic humor. (Black bile, I think that is.) The introduction to the edition I read (by Jonathon Bate) mentions that Shakespeare's comedies usually have at least one character who sits outside the reconciliations/marriages at the end, with Malvolio being another example. Then again, Shakespeare's view of romance always has a certain bite to it. A Midsummer Night's Dream always strikes me as pretty sad beneath the surface, which is one reason I like the movie version with Kevin Klein as a melancholy Bottom. As I said the last time I watched it, he spends a night in heaven, but it leaves him bereft.
If all goes as planned, I'll be seeing a live production of As You Like It on Friday. It will be outdoors in a park, too, which seems an appropriate setting.
And don't tell me that "bastion" is another nob joke!