March 5, 2004
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Songs for Shakespeare
from Willie and Waylon
by Ben Brantley
….”Dost thou know me, fellow?” thunders Christopher
Plummer, who is giving the performance of a lifetime in the title role
of “King Lear”….Throughout Jonathan Miller’s engrossing production of Shakespeare’s
bleakest tragedy, which opened last night, Mr. Plummer bestrides the
boundary between being and nothingness….
The Line,
by S.H. CullinaneLEAR:
Now you better do some thinkin’
then you’ll find
You got the only daddy
that’ll walk the line.FOOL:
I’ve always been different
with one foot over the line….
I’ve always been crazy
but it’s kept me from going insane.FOOL:
174. …. Now thou art an 0 without
175. a figure. I am better than thou art, now. I am a fool;
176. thou art nothing….“…. in the last mystery of all
the single figure of what is called the World goes joyously dancing in
a state beyond moon and sun, and the number of the Trumps is
done. Save only for that which has no number and is called the
Fool, because mankind finds it folly till it is known. It is
sovereign or it is nothing, and if it is nothing then man was born
dead.”— The Greater Trumps,
by Charles Williams, Ch. 14Follow-up of Friday, March 5
From Arts & Letters Daily,
Weekend Edition, March 6-7, 2004 –Some readers crave awe more than understanding, and lurid pop science is always there to feed their addiction to junk ideas… more»
Does Shakespeare’s Lear have a spiritual dimension? “No,” insists Jonathan Miller. “That’s modern, New Age drivel….” more»
The “more” link of the item at left above leads to an American Scientist article titled
The Importance of
Being Nothingness.The appearance of these two items side-by-side at Arts
& Letters Daily, together with Brantley’s remark above, is an
example of Jungian synchronicity — a concept that the American
Scientist author and Jonathan Miller probably both sneer at.
Sneer away.
