There's a Tempest in my Teapot (again)

-or-
Prospero's Technicolor Scheme Cloak,
Take II
Ahh!! Early February! The grey Ghost of Christmas Malingering. The snow, the mud, the damp, the heating bills. I did hope to get back to dissecting The Tempest before my weekly Wednesday post, but I was too busy shivering. Our new house I mentioned in an earlier post is actually a pretty old house (1920s), with old, tall radiators like your grandmother might have had, and an ANCIENT oil boiler (referred to affectionately as 'The Dragon') which sort of looks like what would happen if Robby the Robot mated with a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. While I'm sure you find these details fascinating, the point is that we ran out of oil last week after I published my most recent blog posting. I woke up and it was 52 degrees in the warmest nooks of the house; I called the oil company. They informed me that it looked like I was about out of oil according to their records. I relayed our thermostatic data and politely agreed with this assessment. I opted not to demand why they hadn't brought more oil, if they knew we were 'about out'; instead I serenely enquired as to how quickly they could bring one of their delightful vehicles over to replenish the belly of The Dragon. We have a '24/7 contract' with the oil company, so I figured I wouldn't have to wait all that long; heat by suppertime, I reckoned. The oil company cheerfully informed me that none of their trucks were out that day, so sometime the next day would have to do. Oh- and was I interested in upgrading to their Platinum Elite Supreme Max Service? This is when our oil company ceased to be our oil company and became The Man in my mind.

The day wore on, the thermostat dropped and I added and a third, then a fourth, sweater to my long underwear, fleece-lined jeans, thermal socks, winter coat, hat, and wool gloves. The next morning the needle of the thermostat was buried as low as it could go; it was probably digging in for warmth. I could see my breathe after every gulp of hot tea, and I lost contact with my toes and fingertips. I entertained myself by composing powerful and indignant speeches to spew at The Man when our pipes froze. At 5pm, The Man rolled by and hooked us up with our overdue oil. When He brought the bill to the door, I intercepted it personally so He could see my poor, freezing bundled self.

Appeals for pity never work with The Man.

He glanced at me, 'Hey, this happens again, just go to the gas station and get some diesel. That's all it is, anyway.' He shrugged. He left. I got on the phone with The Man to give him a piece of my freezer-burned mind. Naturally, I was put on hold. Now, it might be amusing to guess what sort of entertainment The Man's oil company cues up for his holding customers. Here, take our not-about Shakespeare quiz-

Is it:
a) 'Hot, Hot, Hot' by Buster Poindexter'?
b) 'Keep it Warm' by Black Sabath?
c) A selection from Midnight Oil's greatest hits of the 70s and 80s?

Haha! None of the above! No, The Man's oil customers are instead serenaded by a 'public service announcement' which runs like this: 'To insure the proper functioning of all your heating equipment, it is important to remember to keep your thermostat set to a minimum of 70 degrees both day and night.' I kid you not. After about five minutes of listening to this message over and over again, I had to hang up. ANYWAY, the point is I tried typing an entry, but it was hard to type in wool gloves. By the time the heat was back on, I was a little insane and not in a suitable frame of mind to grapple coherently with the Bard or anything else. I spent the rest of the time doing my taxes til body and soul defrosted.

So I kept the fidgety public waiting an entire extra week to find out all about The Tempest (assuming they have settled on my blog as the one and only source for feeding their Shakespeare habit), and I am Really Sorry About It, for more than one reason. I know, I know, you thought about just going out and reading the thing yourself- or maybe seeing if you could rent the Hollywood-ization. But you stopped yourself. 'That poor person goes to all that trouble to enlighten me; I shouldn't peek ahead and spoil all the fun,' you chided yourself. That was very noble of you. Besides, I haven't heard of any good Tempest: The Movie versions in wide release, and you probably should be deciding whom to vote for in a primary or something, like the good citizen you are, instead of getting ahead of me in the quest to read all the works that Will wrote.

Well, your long wait is over. I've read The Tempest and I'm going to tell you all about it. First off, though, as I mentioned last week, I want to read the plays in the order Shakespeare conceived them. For reasons that seemed clear at the time but are now hazy to me, I assumed that when our buddies John Heminge and Henry Condell slapped together this here compilation back in 1623, they catalogued them in the order written. The Tempest is the first in the book, so it must be THE first, right? I started The Tempest all alert and curious about what might be Shakespeare's maiden voyage into the art form he would later master. But as I read, the whole thing felt wrong. It didn't really seem like a comedy, it didn't really seem like a tragedy. Some of the dialogue was extremely sophisticated, at least as far as I could tell, but not much seemed to happen. And what did happen was so obvious, for the most part. Each scene felt to me like a caricature of a Shakespearean device. All these different issues and themes swirled around under the surface, but after all, as that Danish prince guy who's name escapes me for the moment so aptly put it, "The play's the thing," and the actual moving parts of the play seemed so trite and silly (without in anyway being amusing) despite what seemed like a sophisticated underbelly. Was this the work of a wunderkind who lacked the subtly and depth of a mature craftsman? Did Will churn this one out at the age of 5-and-a-half, spelling it out in his play-pen with Elizabethan Tinker Tots? Something was awry.

So I did some research. Well, 'research' may be a bit strong. I poked around a bit on the web. And it turns out that those wacky guys, John and Henry, grouped all the "comedies" together first, followed by all the "tragedies". Not only that, but they didn't list the comedies in any sort of order that I could tell, either. Not only that, but they put The Tempest FIRST even though it was very nearly one of Shakespeare's LAST plays, to the extent anybody is sure of anything about William Shakespeare. Instead of fighting through a nasty sea squall, it turns out I should have been living it up with (The First Part of) King Henry VI .

Nothing with this Shakespeare stuff seems to be easy and straightforward. But, if I do say so myself, big pat on the back to yours truly for figuring something seemed rotten in the state of, uh, well, you know....


I'm resolved to start using a proper chronology for my next play. That means I shall have to look forward to this King Henry VI fellow next instead of the Two Gentlemen of Verona; don't know any of the three personally, but anonymous Italian gents tend to be more reliable fun than a big, fat, wife-decapitating Defender/Abolisher/Reinventor of the Faith. Oh wait, that was Henry VIII, not-so doting dad of the Shakespeare's reigning monarch. He's the LAST play I'll be reading, I think. Well, Henry VI must be something special, because the first THREE Shakespeare plays ever performed were ALL about him. I know about Henry II, who was married to Katharine Hepburn in A Lion in Winter and had Edward the Lionheart and John-of-Robin-hood-and-magna-carta-fame. I know of Henry V, who got angry and ran about France during the Hundred Years War and is solely responsible for any average person knowing anything about Saint Crispin's Day (well, maybe not solely responsible; big assists from our Bard and Kenneth Branagh, who I wish would make more movies because I don't think I've ever seen a bad one he'd had a major hand in, which is saying something, although I didn't see The Gingerbread Man. And a film like the Wild Wild West might happen to anyone. Oh- and I'm afraid I didn't enjoy The Theory of Flight at all, but that could just be me. But how about Conspiracy, Dead Again, A Month in the Country, Fortunes of War, not to mention all the Shakespeare he's guided to the silver screen? Not too shabby, I say.). ANYWAY, I also know something of Henry VIII. But Henry VI is an unknown to me; I can approach him with a refreshing objectivity.

Oh wait- I still haven't let you in on the world that is The Tempest yet. How amusing would you or I find it if I put off telling you all about it yet again? A little bit of "what's past is prologue" for the Bardblog. Will I get insight into Samuel Beckett's bemused feelings as he watched his audience watch the unfolding of Waiting For Godot at the Grand Premiere Gala Opening? I fear I'm sinning above my station here, but hey, only one way to find out. But let me assure you, now that I have this entire chronology thing straightened out, it should be smooth sailing from here on it. Well, smooth sailing after I finish/start telling you about The Tempest. Which I PROMISE to do in my next....