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Monthly Archives: August 2007

Coming Down From Vacation

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First of all, happy anniversary to my parents! They celebrated their 36th yesterday (that is them at their high school prom–I kind of wish my mom still had that dress, it looks so “Regency”!).

So, I am back at work this week, yet wishing I was still on vacation! Especially a great vacation that involves costumed guides and pretty carriages, apple cider, and fun writing friends. I had a wonderful time visiting Risky Diane, Deb Marlowe, and Michelle Willingham (both of them will be visiting RR very soon!). Williamsburg was a blast, as was Jamestown Settlement (where we got to tour the ships and wander their huge new museum–not to mention their huge new gift shop) and Jamestown Island. Seeing that place, so marshy and tiny, just emphasized the fact that, in many ways, those first settlers were a bunch of nincompoops (though, after seeing the movie The New World, nincompoops who look a lot like Colin Farrell and Christian Bale!). But I can’t help admiring that vast spirit of adventure and curiosity (and greed) that would make a person pack themselves into an itsy little wooden ship and launch themselves into the Atlantic, heading out for a new, strange place using a compass and some string to find their way.

In Williamsburg, they were featuring a reenactment program called “Revolutionary City,” depicting the fall of the royal government. I was hoping for some riots, maybe a bonfire or two, but it seemed to be mostly the royal governor riding around town in his fancy carriage (which we couldn’t ride in!) giving speeches. Great clothes, though. And I bought a hat to go with my costume for next year’s Beau Monde soiree at RWA (it pays to think ahead!).

Then I had to go home. But first, more fun! Thanks to the hurricance, air traffic was backed up, and I got to sit on the plane for over two hours before we took off. For a fearful flyer, this is not good. Too much time to worry. I distracted myself with one of the many books I bought in Virginia–Alan Haynes’ Sex in Elizabethan England. This was a fun book, not very long but full of all the scandal highlights of the late 16th century. The writing style made me wonder if it was a rather rambling university lecture transcribed into a book, as it had several asides with no info at all to explain them (like “not long after that lamentable fracas at Mrs. Bull’s…”, which, if you didn’t already know Christopher Marlowe was killed at Mrs. Bull’s lodging house in that year, would be meaningless. They could have at least had some footnotes). Then I read Vogue.

I’m sure you’ll be hearing lots more about my book purchases in the next few weeks, as I work my way through them! And more of the historical tidbits we gleaned from the tours (ask Diane about printing presses!!).

What would your ideal vacation be like?

(And don’t forget to join us this weekend for Christine Wells’s interview! Her debut book from Berkley, Scandal’s Daughter, is out next month…)

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Kemble’s THE WINTER’S TALE

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Hurrah! I finally got my hands on John Philip Kemble’s version of Shakespeare’s THE WINTER’S TALE.

For those of you who don’t know — during the Regency (and for a while before), Kemble was an actor and manager at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and later Theatre Royal Covent Garden. He valued Shakespeare highly. Under his wise yet despotic rule, London theatre saw (for the first time in a long time) Shakespeare plays that the bard himself might actually have recognized.

By contrast, the Great Garrick (the theatre despot in the early to mid 18th century), although respected for also being a restorer of Shakespeare to high repute, nonetheless produced things like “Florizel and Perdita” and “Catherine and Petruchio” — hour-long things that were part Shakespeare, part bizarre rewriting. Even better: in Garrick’s King Lear, Lear and Cordelia live, and Cordelia marries Edgar.

Kemble, though, did his best to be true to Shakespeare.

The illustration here, by the way, is Sarah Siddons playing Hermione in THE WINTER’S TALE.

My favorite part of reading Kemble’s versions of Shakespeare is seeing just how prudish (or not prudish) the Regency stage was. My conclusions in the past have been that, though Regency theatregoers clearly tolerated less vulgarity than their Elizabethan ancestors, Kemble’s scripts are far closer to Shakespeare’s than to Bowdler’s.

Or, to be more precise, sex and violence are welcomed on Kemble’s stage, but indelicate expressions rather less so. (For example, the characters still talk about virginity, but don’t use such a crude word for it, instead terming it purity or honour or the like.)

(To read my earlier posts on the subject, click Regency Shakespeare or Regency AS YOU LIKE IT.)

So much for my past impressions of Kemble’s changes. Now, today’s project: let’s find some bits in THE WINTER’S TALE which Kemble changed!

This is a picture of Drury Lane Theatre in 1804.

What follows is the original passage of Shakespeare’s in which King Leontes rants (half-madly) about his conviction that his wife has slept with his best friend, and is pregnant with the friend’s child. I have put in purple the portions that Kemble cut out:

There have been,
Or I am much deceiv’d, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is (even at this present,
Now, while I speak this) holds his wife by th’ arm,
That little thinks she has been sluiced in ‘s absence
And his pond fish’d by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour; nay, there’s comfort in’t,
Whiles other men have gates, and those gates open’d,
As mine, against their will. Should all despair
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for’t there’s none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where ’tis predominant; and ’tis powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south; be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly. Know ‘t,
It will let in and out the enemy,
With bag and baggage: many thousand on ‘s
Have the disease, and feel ‘t not.

When the first cut above appears, Kemble has Leontes trail off (indicated by a long dash), and a hand-written stage direction reveals that another character approaches Leontes at this point (the implication perhaps being that Leontes would have finished the thought, had he not feared being overheard.)

So, that’s one example of things Kemble cut out. What are some passages, risque though they might be, that Kemble let alone? Here are a few:

You may ride us,
With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ere
With spur we heat an acre.

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!
And arms her with the boldness of a wife
To her allowing husband!

Go, play, boy, play;–thy mother plays, and I
Play too; but so disgrac’d a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave;

My wife ‘s a hobby-horse; deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to
Before her troth-plight:

There you have it! Kemble’s alterations of Shakespeare — one of my little obsessions.

However, I have no idea if any of you are at all interested in this subject. I could happily do more posts detailing which bits of Shakespeare Kemble left in, and which he cut out — but I’ll only do so if I know it’s of interest to someone! So if you’re interested, do let me know in a comment.

And remember: our next Jane Austen bookclub meets the first Tuesday in September, to discuss the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson version of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY!

Cara
who thinks those flax-wenches got a bad rap

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More of Diane and Amanda’s Excellent Adventures

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The fun continues in Williamsburg, Virginia! On Friday Amanda and I took a break from sightseeing and went shopping. Book Shopping, especially at the William and Mary Bookstore where I’ll be joining other authors (including Harlequin Historical author Michelle Willingham, whom we met for dinner on Thurs) for a Romance booksigning on Sept 15.

On Saturday we met our friend and fellow Harlequin Historical author Deb Marlowe (Scandalous Lord, Rebellious Miss, Nov 2007 in the UK, Feb 2008 in North America-her debut book!) for a day of sightseeing and working. Amanda, Deb, and I are going to do a Regency Anthology to come out in 2009 (so start saving your pence now!). The photo is of us at the Kings Arms for Sunday lunch, the same restaurant where we ate with Michelle Willingham (The Warriors Touch, Sept 2007) .

At Williamsburg there are reenactments all day long starting with the Governor arriving in a carriage at the Capitol where he addresses the people after word arrived about the Boston Tea Party, and dissolves the House of Burgesses. Well, what was the man to do? These pesky Colonials and their addlebrained ideas of Independence. It was enough to make George III go mad….well, maybe that wasn’t what made him go mad…

Anyway, we had a terrific time working our way from exhibit to exhibit and gift shop to gift shop all the way to the other end of the Historic area. One of the exhibits was the Print Shop, where we watched the Reenactor run the press and I learned things I need for the book I just turned in. I’ll add them during Revision time. We also visited the Milliner who was making stays and the Apothecary, the Silversmith, the Blacksmith. We even worked a little.

Sunday Amanda and I returned to Jamestown, this time to the actual site. We could not see much of the archaeological work that is ongoing because it was all covered over in case of rain, but we toured the museum and walked where John Smith walked all those years ago. Then we met Deb for lunch and then…..we had to drive home. I’ll take Amanda to the airport today.

It was a very excellent adventure, indeed!

What were you all doing while we were in Williamsburg??

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Colonial Fun!

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Greetings, everyone! Amanda, reporting from hot and sunny Virginia. I’m here until Monday, but Diane and I have already been having loads of fun touring everything historical we can find–and hitting every gift shop (the most important part, of course!)

Yesterday, it was Jamestown, touring the ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery (trying to figure out how Balthazar and Bianca, the hero and heroine of my “Caribbean” romance, are going to get it on in that tiny berth), wandering the fort, and exploring the huge new museum where I got to ooh and aah over things like Elizabethan lutes and a recreated 17th century London street. I wanted to get one of the tour guides to let the ship slip its berth and head out for a cruise, but no one seemed willing to take that chance…

In the evening, we met Harlequin Historical author Michelle Willingham for an “authentic colonial dinner” at the King’s Arms Tavern in Williamsburg, where we closed the place down drinking apple cider and listening to lute music. It’s going to just be a “Harlequin festival” all week here, since Deb Marlowe is coming in this evening (and I hope she is also prepared for gift shop mania! Maybe I should say “gifte shoppe,” since every sign seems to add e’s to the end of every word here!).

We’re off to Williamsburg now! I need to get a tricorn hat and maybe some tankards. I’m sure Diane will share more of our historical fun Monday…

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Watching Clarissa

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I will warn everyone in advance: I do not know where I am going with this post.

And then I will say: Cara, avert your eyes. I’m talking Richardson.

Awhile ago, I got a copy of the BBC production of Clarissa, starring Sean Bean and Saskia Wickham.

When I was a teenager, I read and re-read Samuel Richardson‘s Clarissa; it is a tortured, compelling story of an honorable woman stuck between a rock (her family’s insistence she marry an awful man) and a hard place (Lovelace, a rake who falls violently in love with her). Honestly, I love this story. Each time I read it, I hoped Lovelace would reform earlier, or Clarissa’s family would relent, and each time I cried at the end.

I started watching the other day (my reward while ironing a random dozen of my husband’s shirts), and the televised version puts in an uncomfortable plot point: Clarissa’s sister and brother are dabbling in incest.

I was miffed that they would choose to make that a plot point because the book makes it clear why her siblings are being so terrible to her, but then I thought again that it might’ve happened more often back then.

Think about it: After a certain age, the sons were sent off to school while the daughters remained safely at home. They were separated so they didn’t have that sibling contempt (as in ‘familiarity breeds . . . ‘), but when they were together, they lived in the same house, so they had access to people of the opposite sex. And being teenagers, they probably were interested in sexual experimentation, and found the easiest solution: Their siblings.

We’ve all read with horror–and some salacious interest–of Byron’s suspected affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. They were raised separately, and began keeping company again when they were adults.

But back to Clarissa. One thing that made the book so compelling for me is that although Clarissa is a virtuous girl, she is indeed intrigued by Lovelace; certainly, he is far more appealing than the suitor her family has chosen, whom Lovelace warns her will be the cause of her early death. And who wouldn’t be fascinated by him? He has a shocking reputation as a rake, he is handsome, charming, and persuasive (that he is played by Sean Bean in the miniseries certainly does no damage in my eyes, either).

But since she is so pure of heart, and of motive, she decides against Lovelace, but circumstances ultimately force her to him. Which, in turn, forces her to her eventual demise.

If Clarissa were a romance novel, she would have reformed her rake early enough to achieve her happy ending. But Richardson wasn’t writing romance, he was writing virtue, so while Lovelace and Clarissa’s siblings get what they deserve, Clarissa herself does not.

I don’t think I would actually like Clarissa if I met her, whereas I would definitely have a great time with Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet.

Let’s see: I’ve brought up incest, sexual taboos, great (or not) works of literature, non-romance novels, unhappy endings, just rewards, and which heroine you’d get along with. Pick any or all and discuss, if you like. Thanks for following along with my train of thought, which has gotten very, very derailed.

Megan
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