Season One, Episode One
Defining Verse Drama

October 7, 2020
Soooo...what is "verse drama" anyway?  Just a bunch of poetry?  Skulls and doublets and hose, oh my?  Or something else?
Season One kicks off with definitions of verse vs. prose drama, examining Hamlet, Hamilton...and our first mystery playwright!

Transcript

h2h_s1_e1_transcript.pdf
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Texts

s1e1_texts_and_resources.pdf
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Prose: Hamlet by Shakespeare (Act I, Scene 2)

HAMLET.               
I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my  disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Verse: Hamlet, Shakespeare (Act II, Scene 2)

HAMLET.               
Seems, madam! Nay it is; I know not ‘seems.’
‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected ‘havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Prose: The Tragedy of the Election of the Citrus King by Deb Victoroff

TRUMPIST.           
Stay, sir.  If you brother be, stay your vocal ‘plaint.  You say, “I know,” yet know not, else, why say this result was an error of judgment or bad luck, and not the choice of a free people who spoke and loudly, against oppressions of their own?
 
CITIZEN.                
If oppressions pressed their hand, then these oppressions they loved dearly and embraced.  Why else these fellows now reward themselves by raising upon a pedestal the thing that enslaves them; the living form and embodiment of each listed ‘plaint that ‘ere they uttered. Prayed they for salvation and thereby did manifest one who prayed not, but happily, did prey, upon them. Praying thus, did then bring forth the predator, to rend their flesh and dreams.

Verse: The Tragedy of the Election of the Citrus King by Deb Victoroff

TRUMPIST.           
Stay, sir.  If you brother be,
Stay your vocal ‘plaint. 
You say, “I know,” yet know not,
Else, why say this result was an error
Of judgment or bad luck,
And not the choice of a free people who spoke
And loudly,
Against oppressions of their own?
 
CITIZEN.                
If oppressions pressed their hand,
Then these oppressions they loved dearly and embraced.
Why else these fellows now reward themselves
By raising upon a pedestal the thing that enslaves them;
The living form and embodiment of each listed ‘plaint
That ‘ere they uttered.
Prayed they for salvation and thereby did manifest
One who prayed not, but happily, did prey, upon them.
Praying thus, did then bring forth the predator,
To rend their flesh and dreams.

Verse: "Alexander Hamilton;" Lyrics from Hamilton the Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a
Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten
Spot in the Caribbean by providence, impoverished, in squalor,
Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
 
The ten-dollar Founding Father without a father
Got a lot farther by working a lot harder
By being a lot smarter
By being a self-starter
By fourteen, they placed him in charge of a trading charter.
 
And every day while slaves were being slaughtered and carted
Away across the waves, he struggled and kept his guard up.
Inside, he was longing for something to be a part of,
The brother was ready to beg, steal, borrow, or barter.
 
Then a hurricane came, and devastation reigned,
Our man saw his future drip, dripping down the drain,
Put a pencil to his temple, connected it to his brain,
And he wrote his first refrain, a testament to his pain.
 
Well the word got around, they said, “This kid is insane, man”
Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland.
“Get your education, don't forget from whence you came, and
The world’s gonna know your name.  What's your name, man?”
 
Alexander Hamilton.
My name is Alexander Hamilton.
And there's a million things I haven't done
But just you wait, just you wait…

Resources

Peter Brook
 
Lin-Manuel Miranda

William Shakespeare


 
Deb Victoroff

Joss Whedon