S1 E4: Heresy!

Season One, Episode Four
Heresy!

November 11, 2020

HERESY! Our podcast is on trial for claiming that there are no such things as feminine line endings, iambic pentameter is boring and we'll prove it, and worst of all...Shakespeare doesn't matter.

Content Warning: Frank discussion of gender politics, the use of the word "queer" as an adjective (not a pejorative), mention of sexual assault (in context of Measure for Measure),

glossary

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Verse: Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare (Act II, Scene 4)

ANGELO.
As for you,
Say what you can, my false o’erweighs your true. (Exits.)

ISABELLA.
To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,
That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof;
Bidding the law make court’sy to their will:
Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite,
To follow as it draws!

Verse: The Mother of God Visits Hell by Daniel Guyton (Act I, Scene 2)

(A heavy door opens. MICHAEL and MARY enter SATAN’S lair.)

MARY.
Hello? Is anybody here?

MICHAEL.
Nay, step
Behind me quickly, Lady, for I smell
Beezlebub is near.

SATAN.
(Entering) Well! Speak the devil’s
Name, they say, and soon he shall appear. (Bowing)
M’lady.

MICHAEL.
(Aiming his sword) Stay! Vouchsafe to keep thy distance.

SATAN.
What? And harm the Holy Virgin? Why,
I’d sooner sell my soul.

MARY.
To whom?

SATAN.
Myself,
Of course. Hmm hmm! (He laughs)

MARY.
Why then, I pray thee gets
A bargain. For a soul as venerable
As thine, ‘twould be a shame to cheat thyself.
Don’t go below a dime.

SATAN.
(Honored) Dost find me so
Expensive? I concur. (Aside) In troth, I would
Have bartered for some frankincense and myrrh. (Aloud)
But hold thy sword! I do abate. (Aside) Methinks
He overcompensates. (Aloud) Nay, please re-sheathe,
I mean no harm. ‘Tis just a spot of jest.
Why comest thou so duly armed, unto
My address?

Prose: "You Say You Want a Revolution" by Jim Warren from American Theatre

...Since I have spent the bulk of my career directing Shakespeare, I have been dancing with the issues of gender parity and diversity for a long time. Classical plays have more roles that were originally written for white, male-presenting actors. But in 2020, we should no longer be confined by the patriarchy or whiteness of the playwrights; we have the ability and talent available today to cast any role with actors of any gender and any race.

Shakespeare companies in particular have at their fingertips a cornucopia of classically trained women actors who can often out-fight, out-dance, and out-charisma a multitude of less talented men who get cast ahead of them simply because they are male. These women deserve their shot to play any and every role in Shakespeare without being forced to change pronouns, wear dresses, or re-gender the characters. Re-gendering is an option that has become more common today, but I posit that casting any woman in a character written as a man gives us more bang for the buck if we keep the pronouns as written. As powerful as it may be to see a great female actor play Queen Lear or Lady Hamlet, I think Shakespeare would have written different plays if he were writing these characters as females. And I find it even more of a triumph to watch a great female actor crawl inside the roles of King Henry V, King Richard III, Prospero, Hamlet, Iago, and all the many others—as written.

And yes, actors who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) can play any character. I once heard a director say, “I want Macbeth to wear a kilt, so I can’t cast a Black actor in that role.” What?! Some directors also think that if they cast a character like Macduff with a BIPOC actor, then Lady Macduff and Young Macduff need to be actors of that same race. Poppycock. Homogeneity in family groups onstage is no more necessary than it is in real life.

We must start walking the walk with folks who are BIPOC. Either we believe in the ideas behind the platitudes or we don’t...

Prose: "Introducing Myself" by Ursula K. LeGuin

I am a man. Now, you may think I’ve made some kind of silly mistake about gender, or maybe that I’m trying to tool you, because my first name ends in A, and I own three bras, and I’ve been pregnant five times, and other things like that that you might have noticed, little details. But details don’t matter. If we have anything to learn from politicians it’s that details don’t matter. I am a man, and I want you to believe and accept that as a fact, just as I did for many years.

You see, when I was growing up at the time of the Wars of the Medes and Persians, and when I went out to college just after the Hundred Years War and when I was bringing up my children during the Korean, Cold, and Vietnam Wars, there were no women. Women are a very recent invention. I predate the invention of women by decades. Well, if you insist on pedantic accuracy, women have been invented several times in widely varying localities, but the inventors just didn’t know how to sell the product. Their distribution techniques were rudimentary and their market research was nil, and so of course the concept just didn’t get off the ground. Even with a genius behind it, an invention has to find its market, and it seemed like for a long time the idea of women just didn’t make it to the bottom line…

So when I was born there were actually only men. People were men. They all had one pronoun, his pronoun; so that’s who I am. I am him, as in “If anybody needs to throw up he will have to do it in his hat,” or “A writer know which side his bread is buttered on.” That’s me, the writer, him. I am a man.

Not maybe a first-rate man. I’m perfectly willing to admit that I may be in fact a kind of second-rate or imitation man, a Pretend-a-Him. As a him, I am to a genuine male him as a microwaved fishstick is to a whole grilled Chinook Salmon. I mean, after all, can I inseminate? Can I belong to the Bohemian Club? Can I run General Motors? Theoretically I can, but you know where theory gets us...

Prose: The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis

...It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal...