2014年4月27日 星期日

Rights groups query wisdom of Hamlet tour in N. Korea

《中英對照讀新聞》 Rights groups query wisdom of Hamlet tour in N. Korea 人權組織質疑到北韓演出哈姆雷特是否明智

2014-04-20

◎ 俞智敏

Human rights groups have questioned the wisdom of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London taking a production of Hamlet to North Korea, but stopped short of calling for the plan to be scrapped.
人權組織質疑倫敦莎士比亞環球劇場打算到北韓演出「哈姆雷特」之舉是否明智,但並未直接呼籲放棄這項計畫。
The Globe will perform the play in the secretive state in September 2015 as part of a global tour marking the 450th anniversary of the English playwright’s birth.
環球劇場將於2015年9月到這個神秘國度演出,作為紀念這位英國劇作家誕生450週年全球巡迴公演的一部份。
But Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said exclusion would be the order of the day if the performance went ahead in Pyongyang. "It’s going to be an extremely limited, elite audience that would see a production in any case," said Robertson.
但人權觀察組織亞洲區副主任羅伯森則說,假如環球劇場真的到平壤演出,一般民眾被拒於門外才是必然結果。「不論如何,能去看戲的觀眾都是人數非常有限的菁英。」
Human rights group Amnesty International urged the theatre to "read up" on the reality of North Korea before going there. "No tragic play could come close to the misery that the 100,000 people trapped in the country’s prison camps endure -- where torture, rape, starvation and execution are everyday occurrences," Amnesty said in a statement.
人權組織「國際特赦」也呼籲環球劇場在出發前應「仔細研讀」北韓的現實情勢。「沒有任何悲劇能夠描寫出受困在北韓勞改營裡的10萬人的悲慘生活,那裡每天都在發生虐待、性侵、飢餓和處決。」該組織發表聲明指出。
"When the North Korean leadership gets around to reading the plot of Hamlet, one imagines they might well insist on something else from the canon," suggested Robertson.
羅伯森還說,「如果北韓領導人有時間去讀讀哈姆雷特的劇本,我想他們可能會堅持要換另一齣戲。」
The play revolves around family feuds and Hamlet’s eventual killing of his uncle, echoing recent events in North Korea where leader Kim Jong-Un’s regime ordered the execution of his uncle Jang Song-Thaek in December last year.
哈姆雷特的重心集中在家族仇恨,哈姆雷特最後殺死了叔父,這剛好呼應北韓最近的政局發展,最高領袖金正恩政權去年12月下令處決他的姑丈張成澤。

新聞辭典

the order of the day:片語,指在某段特定時期或情況下的典型活動或流行、風潮,如At the resort’s outdoor cafe, bathing suits and sandals are the order of the day.(在這個度假勝地的戶外咖啡廳裡,泳裝和涼鞋是最常見的服裝搭配。)
read up on:動詞片語,指仔細研讀、研究某事,如Read up on the places you plan to visit before you travel.(旅遊前應先仔細研究你想要造訪的地點。)
get round to:抽出時間來做或考慮某事,如I’ve been meaning to call her, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.(我一直想要打電話給她,但始終都抽不出時間。)

2014年4月25日 星期五

Alexander Smith: Dreamthorp: Essays Written In The Country



Alexander Smith (31 December 1829 – 5 January 1867, 8 January according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable) was a Scottish poet, and labelled as one of the Spasmodic School.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Smith_(poet)



External links[edit]


https://archive.org/stream/dreamthorp00smitiala/dreamthorp00smitiala_djvu.txt
許達然"非伊甸夜" 引用過
Dreamthorp
Thorp is a Middle English word for a hamlet or small village, from Old English (Anglo-Saxon)/Old Norse þorp (also thorp).[1] There are many place names in England with the suffix "-thorp" or "-thorpe". Most are in West YorkshireEast YorkshireSouth Yorkshire,Lincolnshire and Norfolk but some are in Surrey.[citation needed]

2014年4月13日 星期日

阿里德蘇薩(Ali de Souza ) 《威尼斯商人》

貪婪、情愛、歧視與同志情….莎翁經典前衛再現

導演:阿里德蘇薩(Ali de Souza )
肢體指導:盧希恩馬克道格(Lucien MacDougall)

巴薩尼歐(Bassanio),一個家道中落的貴族,為了迎娶才貌雙全的富家女嗣波希亞(Portia),向生死之交安東尼奧(Antonio)借款。雖然商船在海上遇險,但為了義氣,威尼斯的大商人安東尼奧不得不向冷酷的猶太人夏洛克(Shylock)借錢,並承諾若以自己身上的一磅肉抵債。當安東尼奧無法如期還款,只得來到威尼斯的法庭,殊不知聰慧又愛惡作劇的波西亞卻假扮法學博士,將扣人心弦的故事劇情帶到最高潮….

《威尼斯商人》是莎士比亞著名的喜劇創作,也是莎劇中,非常複雜且具高度爭議的作品。《威尼斯商人》不僅是個浪漫的愛情故事,更有不少場景發生法庭內,將觸角探向正義、種族歧視、唯物主義等等每個時代皆須面對的議題。皇家蘇格蘭藝術學院戲劇系以現代與極簡手法,重新詮釋此一四百多年前的經典巨作,新銳演員著現代服裝、使用時下潮流之台詞和口條,搭配最簡約少量的舞台設計,嶄露文學經典的時尚面容。


演出團隊介紹

皇家蘇格蘭藝術學院(Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) 成立於1845年,位於蘇格蘭首府格拉斯哥,教授音樂、戲劇、舞蹈及跨領域演出,為蘇格蘭最著名的表演藝術學院之一。皇家蘇格蘭藝術學院戲劇系是全英國培養專業戲劇演員的搖籃,著重實務課程,常與蘇格蘭國家戲劇院(National Theatre for Scotland)、蘇格蘭芭蕾舞團(Scottish Ballet)、皇家蘇格蘭國家管弦樂團(Royal Scottish National Orchestra)、蘇格蘭歌劇團(Scottish Opera)、英國廣播公司(BBC)、莎士比亞環球劇場等共製合作,每年亦舉辦五百多場演出,吸引超過五萬人次之觀眾;其畢業生常於蘇格蘭國家戲劇院、跨國電影與電視製作中演出。

演出長度:上半場75分鐘、下半場60分鐘;中場休息10分鐘

(主辦單位保留節目異動權利)
------------------------------------
2014高雄春天藝術節的一小步,21世紀國際青年劇場人交流的一大步
– 談皇家蘇格蘭藝術學院的《威尼斯商人》
文/謝嘉哲 博士(樹德科技大學表演藝術系暨藝管學程 專任助理教授)

今年是英國著名劇作家威廉.莎士比亞450週年冥誕,皇家蘇格蘭藝術學院重新詮釋莎翁的《威尼斯商人》,運用極簡風格的舞台陳設,將戲劇衝突回歸到單純的肢體張力與台詞表現,讓演員能夠盡情發揮,展現功力。身為電影、電視、舞台三棲知名演員,阿里.德.蘇薩(Ali de Souza)演而優則導,擔任此次《威尼斯商人》的導演。因著演員的專業背景,蘇薩透過其深厚的文本涵養與精煉的舞台實力,讓表演者成為舞台上最佳的說書者,在充滿意像與爆發力的走位安排中推動劇情的發展。另外,本製作也將故事背景轉化到現代爾虞我詐的金融世界,相較於過去幾年由嗜血金融機構接連引發的全球性金融風暴、金融海嘯,觀眾更易感同身受,融入劇情當中。在語言傳遞上,莎士比亞的劇本皆充滿詩意,有別於國人所熟悉的美式英文,運用正統英式英文的咬字與發音更能清楚傳遞出當年莎翁創作的優美,這齣《威尼斯商人》絕對是今年高雄春藝節目中值得期待並推薦的作品之一。

筆者在愛丁堡攻讀博士時就常耳聞皇家蘇格蘭藝術學院(Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)的製作十分精彩,每每吸引經紀人前往挑選優秀的學生。適逢今年高雄春天藝術節新增小劇場系列,亦為了促進台英劇場學生的交流,且與高雄共同發展小劇場的演出市場與質感,該校破除萬難,接受2014高雄春藝的邀演,讓筆者深深感動。

筆者相信,2014高雄春天藝術節的一小步,絕對是21世紀南台灣的青年劇場人才參與國際交流的一大步。高雄春藝既然已將小劇場納入節目策劃範疇,期待能夠藉此開創出新的格局,在每年的春天或秋天期間都可見到具品質的國際劇場學校,進行常態性的交流演出,讓高雄成為亞洲地區不可或缺的國際青年劇場人才培育及交流,甚至是將作品世界首演的重要平台。



莎劇導演提點 樹科大生大開眼界

 
 
樹德科技大學表演藝術系今天上午請來高雄春天藝術節大受歡迎的戲劇「威尼斯商人」導演阿里德蘇薩,到學校與100多位同學舉行大師工作坊,阿里德蘇薩教導學生們莎士比亞歌劇中正統的肢體及語言表現,從劇本的導讀、情緒的演出、肢體的配合各個面向,讓學生親炙大師的風範,經過一上午的課程,學生們都大呼「實在太精彩了」!

表演藝術系主任杜思慧表示,阿里德蘇薩是英國著名電影、電視和舞台三棲演員,演而優則導,他今天以4小時課程內容,讓學生深入淺出明白英國莎士比亞的經典文學,以及戲劇所激發出的能量。

2年級的鄭宇庭說,這次最大的收穫就是瞭解不用執著於台詞字面上的意義,只要揣摩角色中的情緒,自然就會帶出能量;3年級的羅賓表示,以前太執著於用腦去思考角色的情緒,但老師卻教他們只要用心去體會,就可以精準的表達情緒,真是開了眼界。(陳宏瑞/高雄報導)

 
「威尼斯商人」導演阿里德蘇(右二)今天到樹科大表演藝術系為學生上課。陳宏瑞攝
阿里德蘇(右一)親自指導學生的肢體表演,對學生表現很滿意。陳宏瑞攝
阿里德蘇執導的莎士比亞名劇「威尼斯商人」是高雄春天藝術節的熱門節目之一。陳宏瑞攝

C. S. Lewis 《中世紀和文藝復興時期的文學研究》



C.S.路易士說,我們可以採用兩種心態去旅行或閱讀,比較受教的方式,也許是「吃當地的食物,喝當地的葡萄酒,過當地人的生活……回國之後你有所改進, 想法及感受跟以前都不一樣了。……C. S. Lewis 《中世紀和文藝復興時期的文學研究》 上海:華東師範大學出版社,1999/2010,頁4


人對著玻璃看,也許只看到自己的眼睛;但如果他願意將其看穿,他就能看到天堂。  
    A man that looks on glass,
         On it may stay his eye;
Or it he pleaseth, through it pass,
         And then the heav'n espy.


-------《萬靈藥》The Elixir BY GEORGE HERBERT 1593-1633



中世紀和文藝復興時期的文學研究
-劉易斯系列

華東師範大學出版社 出版日: 99/03/05

C. S. 路易士,生於1898年,卒於1963年,是20世紀英國一位具有多方面天才的作家。他26歲即登牛津大學教席,被當代人譽為"最偉大的牛津人"。 1954年他被劍橋大學聘為中世紀及文藝復興時期英語文學教授,這個頭銜保持到他退休。 他的一生被稱為"三個C.S.路易士",意思是他在不到65歲時去世為止,完成了三類很不相同的事業:一是傑出的牛津劍橋大學文學史家和批評家,代表作包 括《牛津英國文學史o16世紀卷》。二是深受歡迎的科學幻想作家和兒童文學作家,代表作包括"《太空》三部曲"和"《納尼亞傳奇》七部曲"。三是通俗的基 督教神學家和演說家,代表作包括《天路回歸》、《地獄來鴻》、《返璞歸真》、《四種愛》等等。他一生著書逾30部,有學術著作、小說、詩集、童話,他在全 世界擁有龐大的支持者,時至今日,他的作品每年還在繼續吸引著成千上萬新的讀者。

內容簡介
C. S. Lewis 《中 世紀和文藝復興時期的文學研究》一書中收錄了C.S.路易士十三篇引人入勝的論文,其中一半是路易士有生之年沒有出版過的。書中前三篇論文對中世紀文學做 了一個總體的介紹,其餘轉向研究諸如但丁(《神曲》)、斯賓塞(《仙后》)和彌爾頓(《科馬斯》)等重要作家的作品。路易士富有洞察力和親切感的寫作,足 以吸引每位對中世紀及文藝復興文學感興趣的研究學者。

2014年4月12日 星期六

Shakespeare's The Tempest: to be read or watched? That is the question

Shakespeare's The Tempest: to be read or watched? That is the question

Can dramatic poetry only be fully appreciated on stage, as purists argue - and where do audiobooks fit into the picture?
The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe theatre
Stage presence … Roger Allam as Prospero and Colin Morgan as Ariel in The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in 2013. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
I discovered the following in my Penguin edition of The Tempest: "He is the greatest of poets, but he is essentially a dramatic poet. Though his plays have much to offer readers, they exist fully only in the performance."
  1. The Tempest
  2. by William Shakespeare
  1. Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this book
That's a quote from Stanley Wells, the general editor of the entire Penguin Shakespeare series, which I'm assuming appears in every Penguin Shakespeare out there at the moment, and is a pretty brave thing for a man who is supposed to be selling books to say. The implication is that you're better off spending time and money on a performance. A sentiment that has also cropped up in the comments on this month's Reading Group articles.
There is a problem here. Shakespeare's plays are for seeing in performance. Reading them, even for an experienced performer, is heavy going. To read any play with a large cast, it's hard to keep track of who is who and their relationships with each other. Harder still to remember who is in the scene and not saying much. Some people say you can improve things with a chess board and named pieces and lots of different voices. Reading a play aloud in an upstairs pub room would be even better but not what we have here.
Naturally, as the convener of the "Reading" Group I'm inclined to defend the text. Although, I don't want to do the theatre down. Actually, who am I kidding? I do want to do the theatre down. Several of the longest and most miserable hours of my life have been spent in the theatre. If it isn't the histrionics on the stage, it's the mock hysterical laughter in the audience as upper middle class men with hawing voices loudly let you know they've UNDERSTOOD THE JOKE.
Anyway. In spite of the fact that it isn't as good as television, theatre does still have plenty to offer. A good performance can bring a play to wonderful joyous life, wring out deep emotions and change and enrich your view of the text. I know all that. It can also, more simply, be fun.
The first thing I did to reacquaint myself with The Tempest this month was download the Naxos audiobook, starring Ian McKellen as Prospero. I loved it – and a good deal of the pleasure was thanks to the quality of the acting. Caliban was full of brute energy. Trinculo and Stephano's drinking scenes made me splutter with (yes, middle class) laughter – and it's no mean feat to make a 400-year-old joke fun. Ian McKellen was, as you might expect, delightful. He recorded the part shortly after filming for The Two Towers and sounds as if he is relishing the opportunity to do posh-Gandalf. Like his Middle-earth counterpart, this Prospero can growl menace, but essentially displays a benevolent heart. When he expresses affection for Ariel and tells him he'll miss him, for instance, it's genuinely moving. You can feel his love and regret. Even through headphones, while walking back from the school run, I felt a pang. Ian McKellen's Prospero is, in short, a force to be reckoned with.
Although, of course, it remains Ian McKellen's Prospero. Possibly not Shakespeare's – and certainly not mine. The big advantage that comes from actually reading a Shakespeare play is that it leaves each character open to interpretation. There's nothing wrong with McKellen's essentially nice guy – but nor is there a problem with seeing darker hues in Prospero, and thinking there's some justification when Caliban calls him "a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island".
Likewise, I remember clearly the first time I read the play, aged 17, I took a dim view of Prospero's attempts to dictate the course of his daughter's life. Now, although I still have serious doubts about his aims and methods, I also have more sympathy for a man doing his best to protect his little girl and help her on her way into the world. I was right to see him as a bad dad. I'm also right to see him as someone trying to be a good one.
Such variable interpretations are also available line by line. Take for instance, one of the most famous exchanges in the play:
Miranda:
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
Prospero:
'Tis new to thee.
Is Prospero mocking his daughter, or sympathising? Is he laughing or annoyed? Does he speak the line direct to her, to chide her? Or does he mutter it to himself, in weariness? Or spit at the audience, to underline her ignorance? Does he share her joy in this new world? Or is he saying that what she sees as new is all too old to him? Admittedly, some of those possibilities are more likely than others – but all are there, and the ambiguity is part of what makes the text so delicious.
Of course, reading Shakespeare isn't all joy. Not at first, anyway. I'd be lying if I tried to pretend that I understood every word of that audiobook, and while listening undoubtedly made some passages go down easier, I also missed plenty. Plenty of lines need more than one reading – you can't get past a few without the help of an editor.
And then, there's also the fact that many just have to be savoured:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Okay, okay, I can see the advantage of hearing that in the theatre. But you get my point.

2014年4月4日 星期五

Measuring America’s Shakespearean Devotion


Measuring America’s Shakespearean Devotion

April 01, 2014
In May 1911, women (and one dog) of the Wednesday Morning Club of the remote town of Pueblo, Colo., decked themselves out as Shakespearean characters.
In May 1911, women (and one dog) of the Wednesday Morning Club of the remote town of Pueblo, Colo., decked themselves out as Shakespearean characters.
Scott Rubel
New York has been handed a surplus of Shakespeare over the last six months. To celebrate the 450th anniversary of his birth, there were eight Broadway and Off Broadway productions on offer — enough, surely, for even the most ravenous Shakespearean appetite. But to a 19th-century American, this stuffed schedule might well look like slim pickings.
Two hundred years ago, Shakespeare accounted for one-quarter of all dramatic productions in cities up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Philadelphians, between 1800 and 1835, could see 21 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays. In the decade after the Gold Rush, Californians stood in line to see a raft of them. Some were presented in the palatial Jenny Lind Theater in San Francisco, where miners, the historian Constance Rourke wrote in “Troupers of the Gold Coast,” “swarmed from the gambling saloons and cheap fandango houses to see ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Lear.’ ”
Americans were mad for Shakespeare. For the evidence, look no further than “Shakespeare in America: An Anthology From the Revolution to Now,” to be published by the Library of America next month, just in time for that big birthday.
The collection, edited by the eminent Shakespearean James Shapiro, a professor at Columbia, begins with a parody of Hamlet’s soliloquy written by an anonymous Tory in 1776, responding to the Continental Congress’s demand in 1774 that all colonists sign on to a boycott of English goods. It starts: “To sign or not to sign? That is the question.” The book ends with “Nets,” a 2004 work by the poet and visual artist Jen Bervin that highlights selected words in the sonnets, eliciting unexpected meanings and associations.
There are discoveries and surprises along the way, like Lord Buckley’s beat-era “Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin’ Daddies,” an extended riff on Shakespeare’s most famous speeches (“I came here to lay Caesar out, Not to hip you to him”), and “Shakespeares of 1922,” a vaudeville sketch by Lorenz Hart and Morrie Ryskind. But for many readers the real eye opener will be the heated love affair, richly documented by Professor Shapiro, between ordinary Americans and the most exalted writer in the English language.
Since colonial times, Americans have made Shakespeare their own.
Since colonial times, Americans have made Shakespeare their own.
Associated Press
“The 25-year period around the Civil War was the most extraordinary,” he said in an interview. “You have John Quincy Adams on Desdemona having sex with Othello, Lincoln reading ‘Macbeth,’ and another president, Grant, rehearsing the role of Desdemona at a military camp. You couldn’t make this stuff up. This is how central a preoccupation Shakespeare was at the time.”
Professor Shapiro, in his introduction, leads off with Grant’s brief turn on the boards, which he rightly calls “one of the more memorable episodes in the history of Shakespeare in America.” The year was 1846, the place was Corpus Christi, Tex.
To distract the troops, a theater was hastily constructed and a production of “Othello” put into motion. James Longstreet, the future Confederate general, was originally cast as Desdemona, but was judged too tall for the part. The shorter Grant took his place. “He really rehearsed the part of Desdemona, but he did not have much sentiment,” Longstreet later recalled. In the end, Grant was replaced by a professional actress at the insistence of the officer playing Othello, who, Longstreet wrote, “could not pump up any sentiment with Grant dressed up as Desdemona.”
It was not fanciful to think that ordinary soldiers might enjoy a Shakespeare play. Americans in the 19th century absorbed him whole from earliest childhood. “There is hardly a pioneer’s hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the 1830s. “I remember that I read the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.”
Shakespeare’s words fell on fertile ground, thanks to the American education system, which stressed public speaking as an essential acquirement in a democracy and regarded Shakespeare’s works as a gold mine of political and moral set pieces.
Excerpts featured prominently in elocution books like “The Columbian Orator” and “The National Orator” and in the advanced McGuffey’s readers. “Both boys and girls gave recitations and performed excerpts from the plays,” Sandra M. Gustafson, an English professor at University of Notre Dame, said in an interview. “This was an essential part of education.”
Women seized on Shakespeare as a way to construct a homemade version of a college class. In the second half of the 19th century, women’s Shakespeare clubs began popping up all over the United States, from Worcester, Mass., to Waxahachie, Tex., some 500 of them in the peak years from 1880 to 1940.
“They’d meet once or twice a month,” said Katherine West Scheil, an English professor at the University of Minnesota and the author of the recently published “She Hath Been Reading: Women and Shakespeare Clubs in America.” “There was pretty intense study, with quizzes on the plots and the characters and memorization exercises. They’d read the roll and as each name was called, a member would recite a Shakespearean text.” Some clubs took down their minutes in blank verse.
Americans claimed Shakespeare as their own partly because he spoke to the grand questions that stirred the nation. “Issues like immigration and race that couldn’t be dealt with directly could be confronted through Shakespeare,” Professor Shapiro said. “We didn’t have a language to express our feelings about these troubling questions. There probably wasn’t another writer on either side of the Atlantic that allowed audiences to work through issues and divisions as he did.”
With the rise of a more robust American literature, the influx of immigrants outside the Anglo-Saxon tradition, and the spread of other forms of mass entertainment, Shakespeare lost his grip on the common reader. Professor Shapiro’s anthology includes Maurice Evans’s preface to a cut-down version of “Hamlet” that he presented in 1944 to an audience of G.I.s in the Pacific with the assumption that most of them had never seen a Shakespeare play. “We could not presume any on their part any knowledge of the tragedy or any familiarity with the conventions with which it is usually associated,” Evans wrote. General Grant must have spun in his grave.

美國人如何將莎士比亞「美國化」

閱讀2014年04月01日
1911年五月,一群女人(以及一隻狗)在邊緣的科羅拉多州珀布羅的周三上午俱樂部,打扮成莎士比亞的角色。
1911年五月,一群女人(以及一隻狗)在邊緣的科羅拉多州珀布羅的周三上午俱樂部,打扮成莎士比亞的角色。
Scott Rubel
過去的六個月里,紐約的莎士比亞已經過剩了。為了慶祝他誕辰450周年,舉辦了八場百老匯和外百老匯莎士比亞戲劇演出——這對於最饑渴的莎士比亞劇迷來說也足夠了。但是對於19世紀的美國來說,這樣緊密的安排恐怕根本不夠。
200年前,莎士比亞佔據了東海岸城市舞台劇目的1/4。1800年到1835年,費城可以看到莎士比亞全部37部劇目中的21部。淘金潮之後的十年間,加利福尼亞也可以看到很多了。有些劇目是在舊金山宮殿般的詹尼·林德劇場上演,歷史學家康斯坦斯·魯克(Constance Rourke)在《黃金海岸的演員們》(Trouers of the Gold Coast)一書中寫道,淘金者們「從賭場和廉價舞廳蜂擁而來,只為一睹《哈姆雷特》(Hamlet)和《李爾王》(Lear)。」
美國人為莎士比亞而瘋狂。若說證據,只需在《莎士比亞在美國:從獨立戰爭至今的選集》(Shakespeare in America: An Anthology From the Revolution to Now)中尋找,這本書將由美國圖書館(Library of America)在下月出版,為了趕上莎士比亞誕辰的日期。
這部選集由哥倫比亞大學教授、著名莎學家詹姆斯·夏皮羅 (James Shapiro)編輯。全書第一篇是對哈姆雷特那篇獨白的戲仿,由「無名氏托里」創作於1776年,是為了呼應1776年大陸議會要求所有殖民地居民在抵 制英貨的文件上簽字。文章開頭是「簽還是不簽?這是問題。」全書最後一篇是《網》(Nets) ,這是詩人和視覺藝術家詹·波文(Jen Bervin)的作品,從莎士比亞的十四行詩中選出詞語,為它們賦予令人意想不到的涵義和組合方式。
全書中有許多發現和驚喜,比如洛德·巴克利(Lord Buckley)在垮掉派時期寫的《潮人、冒失鬼和打響指的老傢伙》(Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger-Poppin』 Daddies)就是莎士比亞最著名的演說(「我今天是來埋葬凱撒,不是來讚美他」)的延伸樂段;還有《1922年的莎士比亞們》 (Shakespeares of 1922),是洛倫茲·哈特(Lorenz Hart)和莫里·里斯金德(Morrie Ryskind)創作的歌舞雜耍劇本草稿。但對於許多讀者來說,最令人大開眼界的還是夏皮羅教授記載的大量對莎士比亞的熾熱愛意,從普通美國人到最有名的英語作家應有盡有。 
從殖民時代,美國人就將莎士比亞當成自己的了。
從殖民時代,美國人就將莎士比亞當成自己的了。
Associated Press
「南北戰爭時期的25年間是最特別的,」他在接受採訪時說,「約 翰·昆西·亞當斯(John Quincy Adams)寫過苔絲特蒙娜與奧賽羅發生性關係,林肯也讀《麥克白》(Macbeth),還有格蘭特總統,他曾經在軍營里綵排過苔絲特蒙娜這個角色。這些 都不是能編出來的。那個時候人們對莎士比亞的迷戀就到這個地步。」
夏皮羅教授在全書前言一開始就描述了格蘭特短暫的登場,他說得很正確:「這是莎士比亞在美國傳播史上最值得紀念的時刻之一。」那一年是1846年,地點是得克薩斯的科珀斯克里斯蒂。
為了給軍人們提供消遣,一座劇院迅速建成了,將要上演《奧賽羅》 (Othello)。苔絲特蒙娜一角本來要由未來的南部聯盟將軍詹姆斯·郎斯特里特(James Longstreet)出演,但人們覺得他個頭太高。個頭矮一些的格蘭特就接替了他的位子。「他真的在綵排中出演了苔絲特蒙娜,但他沒多少感情,」朗斯特 里特後來回憶。最後,在飾演奧賽羅的軍官要求下,一位職業女演員又取代了格蘭特,朗斯特里特寫道,那個飾演奧賽羅的軍官「看到格蘭特穿成苔絲特蒙娜的樣 子,根本沒法入戲」。
普通士兵可以欣賞莎士比亞戲劇,這並不是什麼新奇的事。19世紀, 美國人從孩提時代就開始全心全意地欣賞莎士比亞。「幾乎所有拓荒者的小屋裡都會擺上幾卷莎士比亞,」亞里克斯·德·托克維爾(Alexis de Tocqueville)在19世紀30年代寫道。「我記得自己是在一座小木屋裡第一次讀到《亨利五世》(Henry V)這部歷史劇。」
多虧了美國的教育系統,莎士比亞的語句被播撒在肥沃的土壤上,美國教育視公共演說為民主政治的必要才能,並把莎士比亞的作品當做政治與道德片段的金礦。
《哥倫比亞演說家》(The Columbian Orator)、《國家演說家》中都有顯著的莎士比亞選段,高等麥克格雷(McGuffey)教材讀本中也有。「男孩和女孩們都會朗誦和表演劇本選段,」聖母大學的英語教授桑德拉·M·古斯塔夫森(Sandra M. Gustafson)在接受採訪時說,「這是教育中不可缺少的一部分。」
女人們把莎士比亞當做一種家庭版本的大學課堂。在19世紀後半葉,為女人建立的莎士比亞俱樂部在美國遍地開花,在1880年到1940年這段巔峰時期,從馬薩諸塞州的伍斯特到得克薩斯州的沃克西哈奇,共有500多個這樣的俱樂部。
「她們一個月聚會一兩次,」明尼蘇達州的英語教授與最近出版的《她在閱讀:美國的女人與莎士比亞俱樂部》(She Hath Been Reading: Women and Shakespeare Clubs in America)作者凱瑟琳娜·韋斯特·謝爾(Katherine West Scheil)說。「她們進行很認真緊張的學習,有關於情節和人物的測驗,還有默記練習。她們點名,每個被點到的人都要背上一段莎士比亞的作品。」有些俱樂部連備忘錄都是用素體詩寫的。
美國人聲稱莎士比亞也是他們的,部分是因為他提出的那些大問題也是 這個國家所關注的。「現實中無法直接處理的移民和種族之類題材,可以通過莎士比亞的作品去面對,」夏皮羅教授說,「關於這些令人困擾的問題,我們卻沒有一 種語言可以用來表達我們的感情。在大西洋兩岸,或許沒有另一位作家能像莎士比亞那樣,可以令讀者去深思這些問題與分歧。」
隨着美國文學日益興盛,盎格魯-薩克森族裔以外的移民大量湧入,其 他形式的大眾娛樂開始普及,莎士比亞也漸漸失去了對普通讀者的吸引力。夏皮羅教授的選集中有一篇毛里斯·伊文思(Maurice Evans)為刪節版的《哈姆雷特》寫的序言,1944年,他曾為太平洋戰場上的大兵們演出了這個版本,他覺得他們當中大多數人都應該沒有看過莎士比亞戲 劇。「我們不應當指望他們對這出悲劇有任何了解,或者熟悉與它有關的任何傳統,」伊文思寫道。格蘭特將軍有知,想必在墳墓里會非常不安吧。
本文最初發表於2014年月20日。
翻譯:董楠