The Way to Shakespeare

This semester I have had the chance to watch several of the REP's performances on campus.   I couldn't help thinking of these performances as I watched "Shakespeare Behind Bars" and began thinking on what my Rumination should be about.    Of the three plays that I've had a chance to watch on campus, one of the most recent plays, "Way To Heaven" seemed to stick out to me as I watched the movie.   However, It wasn't the plot of the play that seemed to draw me to it while I was thinking.   It was the way it was performed and the emotion the actors put into the play that made it stand out in my mind.    The reason why I bring this particular play up in relation to "Shakespeare Behind Bars" is because one of the main characters of the play also seems to be seeking some form of absolution for the acts he is forced to commit against his will, just like how the criminals in this movie say they were forced to commit their own crimes.   Unfortunately, there might be some spoilers for "Way To Heaven" so read at your own risk.

 First I'd like to look a little bit at the inmates of "Shakespeare Behind Bars" before addressing the play I chose.   Over the course of the one and a half hour movie, we get to see into the minds of a group of inmates that have a chance to make positive memories for themselves after committing an act terrible enough to remove them from society.   We see into their minds, hear how they were abused and witness what has become of them since then.   We watch them struggle with their pasts as they try to relate with the characters they are to portray in "The Tempest" and work together to put on a performance almost next to their fellow inmates.   In the end, they all manage to work through their own problems, and though they might not have found complete forgiveness for themselves, they have found that acting will help them towards that goal.

"Way to Heaven" also has characters struggling with their emotions in front of and around the audience.   Rather than being performed in front of the entire audience on a stage, the audience is practically in a circle around the stage, watching the actors move in front of and around them. The audience watches on in silence as a red cross official come to grips with and try to defend his report years ago with what he saw at was should have been a Nazi concentration camp.   He shouts in front of everyone that he knew something was wrong with what he saw before him, but since there was no concrete proof for him to show his superiors there was no way he could write anything other than what was acted in front of him.   He admonishes himself for not opening a door that might have revealed the truth to him, because if he was wrong he would have only made himself look like a fool.  

Then we also have the leader of the Jews who was at the camp while he struggles with a horrible choice he has to make.   He needs to pick 100 people to live and act in front of the that same official so as to make the fantasy of a happy town look real, while sacrificing everyone else who couldn't make the cut.   He tries to defend each person as much as he can until he is forced to ultimately make the horrible choice.   One of the key points is when he hands the 100 names to the Nazi commandant and intentionally leaves himself out of the 100.   Even though this "error" is corrected, he still hates the choice he had to make to try and spare the few he could from walking up the "Way to Heaven" that would lead to death.

Finding forgiveness for yourself  for the terrible choices you have to, or have had to make is often seen as a major theme in stories.   I believe "Way to Heaven" and "Shakespeare Behind Bars" both show this internal struggle in some depth.   Watching the results of such a struggle or the struggle as it happens are part of what makes movies and plays so interesting to see.   We'll likely never see if the people affected in "Shakespeare Behind Bars" will all come to terms with or become absolved, but we did get a chance to see how far they've come along so far.

The Importance of Names in Volpore.

In Ben Jonson's Volpone nearly all the characters have symbolic names, usually related to animals in some way.  The meanings of most of the characters names are revealed early in the play and the title itself contains the translation of Volpore's name to English, that being fox.   Besides Volpone, there is also Voltore the vulture, Corvino the crow, and Corbaccio the raven whom he has been conning since before the play, and continues to con over the course of it.   The symbolism of those animals hasn't changed much in most cultures between the time Jonson wrote the play and today.

First lets look at Volpone, the fox that leads all of the other characters around in circles until the end of the play.    Volpone, who should be a simple well to do Italian nobleman is revealed as a simple greedy trickster at the beginning.   He does the things you would expect a fox to do if it were a human too.   Pretends to be dying, disguising himself as other people, and even fakes his own death in the end.   He tricks others for his own gain until eventually he is forced to reveal himself when his confidant decides to trick him back.   The obvious moral being that the trickster will always have to pay for his tricks in the end.

Followed by the sneaky fox, we have the carrion birds, Corvino, Voltore, and Corbaccio.   Each of them try to live up to their names as they attempt to take all of Volpone's estate, similar to how the living bird feasts on the long since dead.   Unfortunately for them, they are too greedy and gullible to realize that the fox they're after isn't anywhere near dead at all.   They are tricked into giving him gifts for good health, and, for Corvino at least, to offer him his wife for a night just to show the endless depths of their hunger for Volpone's wealth.   In the end all they gain is their own misfortune just like Volpore.

When the play comes to its close, all the greed that each character had has turned against them as Volpore reveals the truth.   Of the three birds, Corvino is humiliated just as he tried to humiliate his wife, Corbaccio loses all he owns for trying to give it to Volpore, and Voltore loses his job trying to manipulate a court of law to his benefit.   Finally, Volpore himself is sent to jail just like a thief deserves.   A fitting reprisal for all of them.

 However, Jonson's play is also quite true to how things usually end up for schemer's in today's world.  One example was Bernie Madof who has been in jail for the damage he has done to many people by trying to rob them of money.   Similarly, even though he wasn't specifically after money, Osama Bin laden has also had his "justice" as the White house put it, even though he desired to end life rather than steal money.   These are but two of many such examples of how a person's greed for one thing or another tends to eventually bite back.  "You reap what you sow" indeed.