Just nine days till the Ides of March

March 6, 2023 8:55 AM

Actor Jake Phillips does Mark Antony's "Brutus is an honorable man" eulogy from Julius Caesar in a US Southern accent and people from the South comment on what that lends the monologue. And: several Tumblr users collaborate to translate the eulogy: "Friends, mutuals, countrymen, do not scroll past; I come to cancel Caesar, not to stan him..... But Brutus says he was problematic; And Brutus is an honourable man." (via hobo-rg)
posted by brainwane (26 comments total)

I come to cancel Caesar, not to stan him

Get thee to a nunnery.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:56 AM on March 6, 2023 [8 favorites]

This is good, and interesting.

Not to knock this guy at all, but because you can never have too much Shakespeare, there is a really, really good reading of this by Damian Lewis. More than any production I've seen (and I've seen a few) Lewis emotes in a way that you truly understand Antony's thought process as he gives this speech.
posted by nushustu at 10:02 AM on March 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

Tumblr has brought much joy to my life since I started looking at it. Both of these pieces are familiar to me, thank you for bringing them here - I am not actually a registered user of the site so am not free to reblog or comment on them there.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:14 AM on March 6, 2023

Shakespeare via Tennessee Williams sounds like a good thing.
posted by kjs3 at 10:16 AM on March 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

I broke my foot immediately after being cast in a production of Julius Caesar; I expected to be let go, but instead they just shuffled me around to parts with no stage combat. Thus, I was the only person onstage not involved with the stabby-stab-stab. It was my job to stand back and look horrified. Kind of like a laugh track, I wanted my performance to let the audience know it was OK for them to feel horrified, too. The trouble was, I knew how to register horror as a female character but not as a male one. I asked the director for some guidance, and she suggested basing it on Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest, in the scene where the Thermian dies in his arms. So that's what I ended up with.

The funniest story from that production is the night some old man in the audience stood up and said," This never would have happened when Reagan was in office!" and stormed out. We were never quite sure exactly what he meant.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:23 AM on March 6, 2023 [34 favorites]

This never would have happened when Reagan was in office!

four wenches, where I stood, cried 'Alas, good
soul!' and forgave him with all their hearts: but
there's no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had
stabbed their mothers, they would have done no less.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:30 AM on March 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

that's an exceptional performance of that exceptional speech. well done
posted by chavenet at 11:09 AM on March 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

This never would have happened when Reagan was in office!

That reminds me of the bumper sticker, "If Jesus had a gun, he'd still be alive today", which takes missing the point to new heights.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:16 AM on March 6, 2023 [13 favorites]

To be hyperbolic I have always thought the American Tragedy of Shakespeare, (chauvinistically meaning by 'American' the USA,) was that it was treated as some kind of class reproduction component and wasn't taught until way to late and for the majority of people it seems like something that only exists to tell you how dumb and unsophisticated you are. When really to me it seems like it is the opposite. If that makes sense.
posted by Pembquist at 11:34 AM on March 6, 2023 [7 favorites]

Shakespeare via Tennessee Williams sounds like a good thing.

It is, it is! A few years ago American Players Theatre managed to wring some sense out of Pericles, Prince of Tyre (which is an absolute mess of a play) by giving each major location its own setting. Tarsus (the place with the famine) was Southern Gothic, and it was glorious.

Review, if anyone's interested.
posted by humbug at 1:04 PM on March 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Man, this is excellent. I've seen it twice and may well see it again a couple of times. It's so difficult to read an ancient text and make it sound contemporary and relevant, but there he does it.
posted by mumimor at 1:05 PM on March 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

I wish I could travel back in time and show that Tumblr link to the amateur company back in London around 2012 or so that was doing Henry VI. The first question they asked me after my audition was "Can you do any other accents?". I didn't get cast. :P

While we're on the subject, here's Ray Fearon as Marc Antony in the 2012 RSC production. It's one of the best renditions of that speech I've ever seen.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:41 PM on March 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

Forgot to add--there's also this version in reconstructed Original Pronunciation, which feels a bit West-Country-ish. The video's a little overproduced, but you get a feel for the speech, at least.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:47 PM on March 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Phillips does a terrific job on the first part of the funeral oration.
I'd love to hear more!
posted by doctornemo at 1:49 PM on March 6, 2023

(And this reminds me: when teaching at a liberal arts college in the deep south, I met with a group of high school English teachers and asked them, "Why teach Julius Caesar, of all of Shakespeare? It's a tough play, needing a lot of context, etc."

Their answer: "It's one of the few Shakespeare plays without sex." Sigh.)
posted by doctornemo at 1:51 PM on March 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

I broke my foot immediately after being cast

Usually it's the other way around...
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:14 PM on March 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

Did he burn furniture?
posted by clavdivs at 2:26 PM on March 6, 2023

oh, I LOVE that Ray Fearon one -- both he and the company are making Antony's puppet-stringing of his audience so very, very clear. If I can't tell that Antony is one manipulative sonofagun, that speech isn't being done right.

Which is why Damian Lewis's didn't work for me. Bit too sincere.

Phillips definitely understands this. There is all KINDS of "bless Brutus's honourable li'l heart" coming off him.
posted by humbug at 4:04 PM on March 6, 2023 [9 favorites]

Kind of hard to do this to Hamlet:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The shitposts of outrageous fortune,
Or to respond to a sea of notifs
And by opposing crush them. To be unalive—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The drama and the thousand natural microagressions
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
that I am here for. To be unalive, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of d**th what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil -
#makesUthink
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:34 PM on March 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

the tag is *chef's kiss*
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:49 PM on March 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

I love this and it works SO well.
posted by jameaterblues at 4:55 PM on March 6, 2023

I like the concept, and he does a great job, but unfortunately for Mr. Phillips I'm in the middle of a Justified rewatch and can't help thinking of Boyd Crowder's church speech and how Walton Goggins could crush this.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:26 PM on March 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I highly recommend checking out the rest of Phillips's videos. I especially liked his Poe readings.

...wasn't taught until way to late and for the majority of people it seems like something that only exists to tell you how dumb and unsophisticated you are.

I was raised on a steady diet of the King James Bible from an early age, so Shakespeare never seemed inaccessible to me.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:05 PM on March 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

This is the one bit of Shakespeare I could recite. I had to learn it my senior year of high school for a class project. It's just there--the neurons in my brain have thankfully made some strong connections so that I can recite it from memory now, over 30 years later. The one acting monologue I can brag about.
posted by zardoz at 3:27 AM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is the one bit of Shakespeare I could recite. I had to learn it my senior year of high school for a class project.

We were excused from memorizing a monologue in Grade 11 in favor of a few American poems, but in the other three years we had to memorize "Two households, both alike in dignity," "Friends, Romans, countrymen," and "To be or not to be."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:55 AM on March 7, 2023

A few years ago American Players Theatre managed to wring some sense out of Pericles, Prince of Tyre (which is an absolute mess of a play)

Ages ago, I saw a Kennedy Center production of Pericles that set it in an insane asylum, which worked quite well.
posted by tavella at 10:09 AM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]