Analysis of the Classics

HB Fall lineup

We'll be reading:

• Libation Bearers (Choephori) & Eumenides to complete Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy
• Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams
• The Madwoman of Chaillot, Jean Giraudoux

The Zen of Hamlet

For a series of talks on Hamlet from a Zen perspective, listen to Norman Fischer's discussions in a series of audio files available from the Everyday Zen center:

4 Lectures on Hamlet

Folio & Quarto editions of Hamlet

Folio and Quarto editions of Hamlet:

Folio text of Hamlet, which will allow you to see the particular use of capitalization and punctuation we discussed: Hamlet in the First Folio

Fascimilie of Hamlet in the First Folio, where you see an image of the actual pages as printed

Guardian article on the "Bad Quarto"

Download comparison of "To be or not to be" speech Bad Quarto from Mary Adams

Hamlet: Quarto 1

Hamlet: Quarto 2

An Enemy of the People

Our next play at HB Studio will be Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. In choosing your translation, here are some versions to consider with links:

Brooklyn born Rolf Fjelde was one of the preeminent Ibsen translators. His NYTimes obit discusses his translation and the challenges of translating Ibsen. An Enemy of the People is included in Four Major Plays, Vol. 2 (Signet Classics/Penguin).

Another standard translation is by Michael Meyer: Ibsen: Plays, Vol. 2 (A&C Black).

An acting oriented translation by Rick Davis & Brian Johnston is available in Ibsen: Four Major Plays, Vol. I (Smith & Kraus).

James McFarlane's translation for Oxford World Classics is reliable. Amazon link: An Enemy of the People; The Wild Duck; Rosmersholm (Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press).)

Christopher Hampton's version was performed by the Royal National Theatre in 1997. You can preview it on Google Books.

Arthur Miller adapted it for an American version in 1950. Also available to preview on Google Books.

Here is a free online version by Robert Farquharson at Project Gutenberg.

On Moliere's Misanthrope

The New York Theatre Workshop is still running their production of The Misanthrope through November 11th. While critical opinions are divergent, take note that the translation is by Tony Harrison, one of the most talented and insightful poets and translators of drama at work.

The French version courtesy of Wikisource France.

A film about Moliere opened this July.

Fall 2006 - Readings

1. Aeschylus, Persians
2. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I
3. Pinter, Betrayal

Breathing Beckett

". . . the later works get shorter and shorter, and the form toward which they aspire is now the rhythm of breathing, something that was as close as one could get, on the page, to a representation of being."

--Tim Parks,  "Beckett: Still Stirring," New York Review of Books, 13 July 2006, 26.