veritas et rumusculus

November 19, 2008

I remember studying Henry V my sophomore year of college. It was part of a class using literature to examine war in history. We talked quite a bit about the Battle of Agincourt and the downfall of the mighty French, in spite of their heroic shining armor. Armor that could not move… that was so heavy they needed to be hoisted onto horses with a crane. Or so the professor told us (influenced no doubt by Larry Olivier's cinematic interpretation of that history play). A little less than a year later I found myself working at Higgins Armory, where I learned almost immediately that there were no such things as cranes to hoist knights up on horses while wearing armor. Armor had to allow for agility – especially on the battlefield, especially atop a horse. The problem the French had in 1415 was really… just… mud.

This clarification of history came to mind the other day while reading an article sent to me by a museum colleague. It was an amusing collection of vignettes about the misinformation distributed by guides on historic house tours. Some of the stories had an element of truth from which their yarns stemmed, but most were just the polar opposite of truth. I was amused – not just because I've encountered and no doubt told some of my own hyperbolic tales of the past – but because it goes along with my theory that history is just a bunch of antiquated gossip.

When I traveled around New England with Lady Erica and Lady Catherine, we used gossip as exposition to our armor demonstration. We filled the gaps between mail and combat armor with jabs at the greasy, non-toothed graybeard, the six fingered Anne Boleyn, or the audacious young women who dared to expose their legs. It certainly wasn't the most reverent dispensation of historic facts… but I'm sure the idea of Sir Monkeyface made the concept of ceremonial armor stick a lot better than an explanation of metallurgy.

But none of those two shows were ever the same – whether altered by a cast change or an audience change. The nuance of the history certainly varied each time… especially when there was a determination to suppress giggles from unintentional innuendo or there was a question from a spunky eleven year old determined to prove we were in fact not from the 16th century. So while I like to think I know a thing or two about the era of knights and feasts that served up a cockatrice, I'm not going to deny I would play the story to the audience to make it a little more interesting.

I was – and am on Eastern Point every summer – a history gossip.

The ends to justify the means, I tell myself. Because on the page history can be so dusty and moldy and dull. A little embellishment makes it more appealing and intriguing. Because… isn't it better to walk away intrigued enough to learn more than to walk away bored out of one's mind and never wanting to revisit that corner of the past? Besides, those people are dead and can't be hurt by the distortions of conjecture. I imagine the servants would probably hear one of my tours and laugh with a disapproving shake of their heads. What the hell do I know about Beauport? Really, what do I know? I just imagine myself there… and try to take the tangible objects and put myself in the shoes of the people who were actually able to touch them.

But I can't touch the objects, or the people. I can only imagine. So I fill in the gaps with a clever description or romantic guess about what happened between the walls. I make a disclaimer that some of what I say is a guess… but I know that the disclaimer won't linger so well as the good story. And the good story makes me the center of attention and earns the praise of a satisfied audience. No matter the omission of truth.

But … really… will we ever KNOW the truth of the past? It's hard enough to get it straight with what happened yesterday… never mind nearly six hundred years ago on a rainy battlefield in Northern France. For all I know students in a few decades may be learning that the French were just actually really hungover… and that's the reason they lost England that day.

Who knows? Not even Shakespeare was true to the truth... not even about himself.

An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told

June 6, 2008

I recently had the question posed to me if I took a 'traditional' approach to Shakespeare.

What does that mean? Well, the asker wanted to know about the setting – a reasonable enough inquiry. And yet, I have had several discussions since the idea first floated into my brain about revisiting Rom & Jules relative to setting. Some people get very excited about my inspiration for interpretation, to the point I found myself red-faced at a Wednesday night dinner with the urge to explain. I've also had a fair share of raised eyebrows and mutterings about Leonardo DiCaprio.

Whatever.

And yet… I have to admit… I find this debate fascinating.

I will likely always end up on the side of leaving the 16th century. I mean… really… why would you want to go back to it? People smelled bad, mostly because they were always stepping in horse poo and people poo on the streets. They bathed… but they wore the same clothes and probably had a nice hazy cloud of insects around them. But you were probably used to it… not that anyone could get really close to you. As a woman you were tied up in a corset that pointed between your legs, not giving you any option but to sit up straight. And then there was a circle of bone and wire encompassing your hips. Ah… women's fashion… white make-up made from mercury, rouge made from the blood of insects… and then you shaved your forehead. Not that it mattered because women couldn't act anyway, not even as themselves. Women were too busy being pregnant 15 times over (if they lived) or sewing endless hems on linens or being allowed to be beaten or killed by a father who suspected that she was compromising her chastity. Never mind the fact she fainted all the time from her freakin corset.

Don't get me wrong. It's a very romantic era. Those knights in shining armor… who would kill you if you went to the wrong church. You had to go to church and believed all that fire and brimstone stuff. Those roomy castles with bone chilling drafts and rats that scurried across you while you slept. The majestical feasts of meats loaded with cloves and spices to conceal the rotten flavor. And Sir Monkeyface Greybeard vying for your hand in marriage at age 14. Good times.

But… is that essential to telling the story of star crossed lovers? Does it matter if they wear farthingales and codpieces? Is the story not the same if they are wearing jeans and listen to their iPods? Isn't the beauty of Shake-speare the very fact that it doesn't matter the clothes they wear or what dance it is that Romeo bows out of… but we still get swept up in his teenage passion?

The feelings don't change, no matter our bathing habits or costumes or dietary preferences. Is not Romeo & Juliet as relevant today in a world of violence and sex and impulse as it was 400 years ago in Italy? Or 2000 plus years ago in Greece? Speaking of… how Grecian was Midsummer anyway? Old Willy himself did not feel any need to be 'true' to the time of Pyramus & Thisbe in his tale... so why on earth does it improve the storytelling these days?

This all isn't to say I detest the era of the writer. I spent how many years living, eating, and breathing the 15th and 16th centuries? I loved wearing my red dress and teasing unsuspecting cub scouts about their evil left-handedness. And from that I learned you have to use the present to make the past interesting. Not everyone gets excited about iambic pentameter or the fact that there are truly three separate purposes of armor… and gold is the absolute worst metal with which to protect oneself. Our student audiences would let their attentions wander with the details of metal-making and the specific rules of jousting. But they always came back to the stories about relating to other people, the details of marriage and parties and wearing the right clothes to impress someone. Those things may change shape over the years… but ultimately we relate to them because somewhere in ourselves, we have felt similarly.

Romeo & Juliet speaks to me not because of the amazing description of Elizabethan swordplay or its references to Verona. I go back and listen to the dialogue over and over because there are still romantic and hotheaded teenagers walking amongst us. There is still a society that uses violence to deal with anger. There are still parents who are oblivious to what their children want and push them into lives that fulfill their own ambitions. There is still a hope we can learn to mend from this two hours traffic on the stage.