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Solar Eclipse
Hurricane after Hurricane after Hurricane
Earthquake after Earthquake after Earthquake
Climate change – Earth shifts
There is very little Shakespeare missed.
Shakespeare’s “Midsummer’s Night Dream” takes place before an Athenian wedding in a forest where star crossed lovers and foolish players fall prey to the pranks of the trickster Puck. Oberon, King of the Fairies, and his wife Titania, Queen of the Fairies. fight over possession on an Indian boy. Shakespeare’s writing often reflects Briton’s Celtic roots where the natural and supernatural worlds blend in the powerful spirits of the elements and the secret life of the sea, winds and forests with their fairies, hobgoblins witches and ghosts. Shakespeare appears to believe that human consciousness and activities play a role in natural calamities where nature acts on her will with indifference to the human suffering caused.
In my play two-character play, “Shakespeare On The Rocks,” Alex Don Baron, an aging Shakespearean actor returns to his London flat in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy that flooded his Greenwich Village brownstone. When he finds his scrapbook he reminisces on his life and career.
SHAKESPEARE ON THE ROCKS
(Alex Riffs On His Wife)
(ALEX turns to a picture of his young wife ALISSA dressed as Titania – Queen of the Fairies in “Midsummer’s Night Dream.”)
There she is, my ex-wife Alissa – in the bloom of youth. The first time I met her she was floating naked on my friend’s lake - her red hair spread on the water. I fell in love. I thought, here is a woman who really knows how to enjoy life. She was “preparing” for her role as Titania in “Midsummer’s Night Dream” Queen of the Fairies” to my King – Oberon. I coached her on her monologue - how nature is put out of joint when they fight.
ALEX as TITANIA
“Through this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change.
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.”
(Shakespeare” Midsummer’s Night Dream” - Titania)
Shakespeare was prophetic.
(ALEX turns to a picture of his wife holding his young son Edward. He takes a long sip of water nursing it like Scotch in his mouth and looks at the picture.)
After we broke up, I broke down. Ten years – one son – Edward - she turned him against me. My late nights and it was over. I think it’s the guilty one who feels jealous. I was jealous of her contented mind.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
(Shakespeare” Midsummer’s Night Dream” - Puck)
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