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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1455  Saturday, 3 September 2005

From: 		Al Magary <al@magary.com>
Date: 		Thursday, 01 Sep 2005 12:08:03 -0700
Subject: 16.1441 Wager
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1441 Wager

Marcus Dahl wrote:

 >I say that at least '1RichII' is clear and has textual precedent,
 >whereas 'Woodstock' is editorially later and rather misleading.
 >Again I re-iterate - which play does Al read? 'Twelfe Night'
 >or 'What You Will'?

What you will, indeed!  Shakespeare *is* a free-for-all and I do not 
mean this ironically.  For authenticity, for truth in the words, perhaps 
we should retreat to a kind of primitivism by taking a liberal view of 
all texts--what you will--and just going ahead and performing them in 
this way and that.  There is so much room for interpretation there--and 
license is taken--that our microscopic discussion can become absurd.  (I 
believe I am not the first to think this of academics and involved 
amateurs like me.)

I am reminded of the title given a set of essays by Beckett and other 
friends of Joyce while he was publicly laboring on Finnegan's Wake: 
_Our Exagmination Round His Factification For Incamination Of Work In 
Progress_ (1929).

As for the title question in question (my, how these things multiply), I 
for one will stick with the conservative majority of editors in the last 
century and use "Woodstock" so as not to assume too much about who wrote 
the play or even its structural relationship to Sh.'s Richard II.
The other title question?  My daughter stage-managed a HS production of 
Twelfth Night last year.  A good time was had by all, as they say, and 
no one worried about the text.  WWSD.

That's "What Would Shakespeare Do?"  I can get a deal on T-shirts and 
bumperstickers...  :)

Cheers,
Al Magary

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