coriolanus

AI Art of Shakespeare’s Greatest Mother Characters

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Since Mothers’ Day is this weekend, I wanted to pay homage to the greatest mother characters in the Shakespearean cannon. I know I already made a list in a previous post, but I wanted to create some art to show some of the aspects of these women that I find inspiring:

Cleopatra

AI art I created via Night Cafe of Cleopatra and her son Cesareon.

Most art depicting Cleopatra emphasizes her beauty, power, or love of Marc Antony. I wanted to create an art piece that emphasizes how hard it must have been to be an Egyptian queen and a mother. Cleopatra’s family were infamous for their backstabbing in fact, Cleopatra murdered two of her own sisters to stave off threats to her throne. Even worse, her son (as his name implies), was the son of Julius Caesar, making him a direct threat to Octavian, who claimed to be Caesar’s heir. One thing many people forget about this play is that Cleopatra spends most of the play trying to protect her son.

I chose to portray Cleopatra not sitting aloof on her throne, but crouched down with her hand on her son. In front of them are some swords that he was playing with. Her pose is tender but shows great concern. Perhaps the boy grabbed the sword when she wasn’t looking and she’s gently explaining how dangerous they are and how he can hurt himself. At this moment, she is also thinking about the many swords in Rome that are unsheathed and ready to hurt her son.

Queen Elizabeth from “Richard III”

This is another mother who is trying to protect her son from danger. Again we have a queen with a son who is a threat to a violent man who wants power- the treacherous Richard of Gloucester. In the play, Elizabeth takes her son into a church to seek sanctuary after the death of their father the king. She does this because Richard is not Lord Protector of England, and Elizabeth doesn’t trust him with her children. To emphasize her fear and the danger following them, I chose to portray the scene with three deformed gargoyles behind Elizabeth and her sons.

Volumnia from “Coriolanus”

At this point in the play, Coriolanus is fighting against the Volskies, a barbarian tribe that is threatening Rome. He’s probably been away from his wife and son for a long tour of duty and it must take a toll on his family. I made this image to show how Coriolanus’ wife Virgilia must rely on her mother-in-law Volumnia for support. Meanwhile Volumnia, Coriolanus’ mother, pities Virgilia, but refuses to show any weakness towards her. I have her looking in the doorway, sneaking a peak to see if her son has returned yet. She refuses to show any fear or concern for Coriolanus, but she must worry about him deep inside.

Hermione From “The Winter’s Tale”

Hermione is another woman who, due to the painful and heartbreaking scenario she is thrust into, must suppress her emotions for the sake of her children. She has just been accused of adultery, and delivered her new baby shortly after being thrown into prison. I feel Hermione must be suppressing a huge amount of rage, fear, sadness, and confusion that she cannot express. She must be as calm as the statue she eventually becomes later on in the play.

I thought about this concept of Hermione suppressing rage and being still and strong like a statue and I thought about Medusa from Greek mythology, who was unjustly punished with ugliness and the power of petrification. Books such as Philosophy For Girls depict Medusa as a symbol of how female rage and female sexuality is punished and tabooed in our society and women like Hermione know that if they cannot express the rage they feel at injustice, their only recourse is repression, which is like metaphorically turning to stone.

With these concepts in mind, I portray Hermione holding her baby with the statue of Medusa looking down at her. The statue looks a lot like Hermione and its closeness emphasizes how Hermione is almost two people- the person she presents to the world, and the angry, hurt person she is inside.

So, what do you think? Do you like my interpretations? Let me know in the comments!

Works Cited:

https://academic.oup.com/book/33477/chapter-abstract/287767086?redirectedFrom=fulltext

My Top 10 Favorite Shakespeare/ Harry Potter Actors

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This list is not about skill or the talent of the actor. This is to honor the contributions of Shakespearean actors who also appeared in one of my favorite film and book franchises of all time: Harry Potter. Accordingly, some of the actors who weren’t essential to either Harry Potter or Shakespeare or both are placed lower on the list even if I personally love the actor or the character they portrayed.

#10: Richard Harris- Albus Dumbledore

The Irish-born actor has been a veteran of stage and screen for decades before his death in 2002, after the second Harry Potter film. Here is him on Johnny Carson, telling a funny story about a production of Macbeth he did early in his career:

#9: Kenneth Branaugh- Gilderoy Lockheart

If you visit this website regularly, you know I’m a fan of Kenneth Branaugh– I’ve reviewed three of his Shakespeare movies and he’s my all-time favorite Hamlet. I’m also aware that he has a reputation of being a bit of an egotist and a womanizer, (since he had affairs with two women on this list), so even though he was a bit too old to play the part, it was nice to see him have a laugh at his own expense as the attention-hogging Gilderoy Lockheart. The humbug professor’s name actually Gilderoy (as in a man painted with false gold), gives away the twist that he takes credit for other witches and wizards’ work and Branaugh shamelessly mugs to the camera whenever he’s on screen. My favorite scene of his though, is the one serious scene where he teaches dueling with the help of the much more competent Professor Snape:

Kenneth Branaugh and Alan Rickman in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, (2002).

If you saw my post on the duel at the end of Hamlet, you can see that the way wizards duel is directly inspired by the way fencers fought in Hamlet, right down to the flashy salute and bow beforehand, and it’s neat to see two legendary Hamlets fight in it.

#8: Jim Broadbent (Horace Slughorn) / Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew [aka ‘Wormtail’]

I couldn’t decide between these fabulous actors, so I grouped them together. After seeing Timothy Spall as the cowardly, foolish incompetent spy and traitor Rosencrantz in Hamlet, I knew that the only Harry Potter role for him would be as Lord Voldemort’s toady and pathetic rat, Peter Pettigrew, aka Wormtail.

Broadbent on the other hand, is completely different and unrecognizable during his excellent portrayal of Lord Buckingham in Ian McKellen’s 1995 film version of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Unlike the meek and easily broken Horace Slughorn, Broadbent as Buckingham is an oily politician who very nearly sells his soul to McKellen’s diabolical Richard:

What unites these two portrayals is that both characters are corrupted by a figure of pure evil, but both have a breaking point- Buckingham, (as you see in the clip above), refuses to be a party to child murder, while Slughorn eventually helps Harry Potter destroy Voldemort. In a way, they’re two sides of a very flawed coin.

#7 Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore 2)

Like Richard Harris, Michael Gambon, (who passed away in September of 2023) was an accomplished stage and screen actor, famous for playing King Lear multiple times, including a famous performance with Antony Sher at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Here are some highlights of his stage work:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2015/feb/09/michael-gambon-on-stage-from-king-lear-to-krapp-in-pictures

#6: Fiona Shaw (Petunia Dursley)

I feel I have to give Fiona Shaw a good spot on this list, though I think her talent was wasted in the role of Petunia Dursley. She is an icon of British theater and her work in Shakespeare is superb. She famously played Richard II back in 1995, and in the short film below, she talks about her amazing interpretation of Measure For Measure, with fellow Harry Potter alumn, David Tennant.

I’d also like to include the best-deleted scene from Deathly Hallows with Shaw in it, where she admits to Harry for the first time that she misses her sister Lilly.

#5: Ralph Fiennes (Lord Voldemort)

In a way, Lord Voldemort was a role that Fiennes had trained for all his life. He has played smarmy, serpentine characters before in films like Red Dragon and Schindler’s List. But Fiennes’ Shakespeare training allowed him to tap into the evil megalomaniac at the heart of Voldemort when he played roles like Richard III, (another deformed autocrat), and Coriolanus, the Roman general who is himself compared to a dragon. In the video above, YouTube critic Kyle Kalgren analyzes how Fiennes’ past roles and experience with Shakespeare translated well in his performance and his direction of the 2011 film Coriolanus.

#4 Imelda Stanton (Delores Umbridge)

By contrast, I give more credit to Imelda Stanton, who mainly plays sweet mom-like characters (or nurse-like in the case of Shakespeare In Love), for embodying the utterly loathsome Delores Umbridge. Reportedly, the role made Stanton feel physically ill and unlike Richard III, people hate her character with a passion. By contrast, look at her sweet and charming portrayal of Maria in the 1996 film Twelfth Night, (which also starred Helena Bonham Carter):

#3 Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange)/ Emma Thompson (Sybyl Trelawney)

Again, I had to give credit to both of these women for the startling transformations they did for their Harry Potter characters, as well as their stellar work in Shakespeare. Helena Bonham Carter mainly plays apealing aristocratic characters such as Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Ophelia in Hamlet:

Seeing Ms. Carter as the demented Bellatrix Lestrange was quite a shock for me, yet the performance was no less impressive. I especially love this scene in Deathly Hallows where she has to act like a 17 year old girl, TRYING TO BE BELLATRIX LESTRANGE

#2: Alan Rickman (Severus Snape)

I already wrote a tribute to Alan Rickman after his death in 2016, so I don’t wish to repeat myself. Suffice it to say that Mr. Rickman was always a consummate professional, and his iconic portrayal of Severus Snape was the performance of a lifetime.

    Alan Rickman as Achilles in Troilus and Cressida, Royal Shakespeare Company.

    Honorable Mention: David Tennent (Barty Crouch)

    To be honest, I thought Tennant was miscast in Harry Potter- he can play villains, (as Good Omens fans know well), but he just isn’t great at being maniacal and evil. That said, Tennant is a rising Shakespearean star and has created many memorable performances from Richard II, to Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, to Hamlet.

    #1: Dame  Maggie Smith (Professor McGonigal)

    Say it with me… you probably saw this coming. No one can deny that Dame Maggie’s contributions to Shakespeare, as well as her ubiquitous portrayal of Hogwarts’ current Headmistress Minerva McGonigal, stand the test of time as strongly as the animated chess pieces she placed in the school basement. Let’s look at some of her greatest Shakespearean moments.

    Plug for my Acting Class

    If you enjoyed this list, you might want to sign up for my Intro to Acting class or my extended acting course, where I delve into Shakespearean acting techniques, and answer the big question, “WHY DO SHAKESPEAREAN ACTORS KEEP GETTING CAST AS WITCHES AND WIZARDS?” To sign up, click the link below: https://outschool.com/classes/609658d1-3f9f-4371-8af2-4fe81ad13d8c

    Cover art for my Outschool Beginning Acting Class.

    Thanks for reading!

    Shakespeare: The Animated Tales- “Macbeth”

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    This is a 30 minute cartoon version of Macbeth originally produced for the BBC in 1992. It features Brian Cox  as the voice of Macbeth (before he was the voice of McDonald’s), and Zoë Wanamaker as Lady Macbeth (before she was a witch who teaches at Hogwarts).

    I like the way it portrays the horror imagery of the play in sort of a European-manga animation hybrid. Admittedly, there are better ones in the series, but this one is still pretty neat.

    DVD box art for “Shakespeare the Animated Tales.”

    To check out other episodes in the series, view this playlist:

    What is a Soldiers Due?

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    On this Memorial Day, I’m inspired by a quote to ponder what it really means to “Support Our Troops,” living and dead. The quote comes from an epilogue written for a 1778 performance of Shakespeare’s obscure Roman Tragedy, “Coriolanus:”

    The most interesting thing about the play is how modern it is. One of his few plays that deals directly with the drama of democracy. And more than that, it deals with the seemingly modern phenomenon of officials undone by public opinion. So many of Shakespeare’s characters have to answer to their God or their king, or (as Coriolanus does), his family. Only rarely, do they answer to the people.

    Kyle Kallgren: “Coriolanus- Universal Soldier” (2016)
    Sizing Up Trump In the Age of “All About Me” With Help From Shakespeare and the Marx Brothers

    https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/nt-at-home-coriolanus

    Play Summary

    Coriolanus

    Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s strangest and most controversial plays. Its principal figure is a warrior, exemplary in his courage and single-minded dedication, who finds it difficult to adjust to life away from the battlefield. Refusing to compromise and contemptuous of anyone who does not live up to his exacting standards, Coriolanus, not long after being nominated for the high political office of consul, is cast into exile, accused of treason and ends up leading an army to invade and destroy Rome.

    Warren Chernaik, Emeritus Professor of English in the University of London

    What do we not owe soldiers?

    Throughout the play, Coriolanus shows nothing but contempt for popular rule. This certainly suggests that he is aristocratic in his political views, but arguably he is much more militaristic. Remember that to be a Consul or any kind of high ranking position in the Senate, the senators all served in the army for a set term. Coriolanus respects the Senate more than the Assembly because the former is full of his fellow comrades in arms.

    Coriolanus is first and last a soldier, and he represents a society run by the war machine. For centuries, authoritarians who rule through a cult of personality have propped up Caius Martius as an ideal of a military society. After all, it was Mussoluini who organized his fascist dictatorship around the Roman Empire, and the play Coriolanus was taught in literature classes during the Third Reich. They probably looked like Starship Troopers.

    https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/mar/05/coriolanus-shakespeare-laurence-olivier-ralph-fiennes-ian-mckellan

    So to recap, though we owe soldiers a lot for their courage and sacrifice, nobody owes them Blind obedience, because that is the root of fascism. Look at this actual excerpt from a literary textbook about Coriolanus that was given to children in Nazi Germany.

    The poet deals with the problem of the peaople and its leader, he depicts the ture nature of the leader in contrast to the aimless masses; he shows a people led in a false manner, a false democracy, whose exponents yield to the wishes of the people for egotistical reasons. Above these weaklings towers the figure of the true hero and leader, Coriolanus, who would like ot guide the deceived people to its health in the same way as, in our days, Adolf Hitler would do with our beloved German Fatherland.

    Martin Brunkhorst, “Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in Deutscher Bearbeitung. Quoted from Weida

    So now that I’ve established what we don’t owe our soldiers, what do we owe them?

    What do we owe our soldiers?

    [  ] Honesty- why are you fighting? Is dying for one’s country worth it? Unlike Henry V, in which Shakespeare makes it very clear why the king is trying to conquer France, we don’t really understand why Rome wants to destroy the Volskies, and it seems somewhat arbitrary. I think one of the ways we sympathize with Coriolanus is that he never “asks the reason why; his is but to do and die,” as Tennyson puts it. He has one speech where he rallies the troops, but it just seems flat and hollow without a clear reason why the soldiers should risk their lives.


    [  ] A chance to heal When he comes home to run for Consul, Coriolanus is required to show his battle scars to the people and refuses to stay in the room when the patricians talk about them. This could be interpreted as more arrogance where he is disgusted to be in the same room as common men, but I think there’s another aspect. I think Coriolanus has PTSD, and every time he sees or hears about his scars, his repressed memories bubble up to the surface and drown him in fear. His story is partially a story of how all soldiers need help to deal with the trauma they endure on a regular basis.


    [  ] Love for their courage and sacrifice. Whether the conflict is right or wrong men and women risked their lives for it, and that is worth compassion.
    [  ] Good leaders. Coriolanus is a play where arguably nobody cares about the people. Coriolanus and the Patricians look down on them, and the tribunes see them as a means to gain power. With all this political in fighting who is really trying to make life better? Better for the starving Romans? Better for soldiers like Coriolanus? In a republican society like Rome, we owe it to our soldiers to participate in politics so men like Coriolanus aren’t sent to die on a whim. If we don’t use our voices, we are the common cry of curs that Coriolanus characterizes us as:

    Compassion– in John Osborne’s version the title character goes mad from his trauma and of course, in Shakespeare’s version, he’s driven out of Rome and then killed by Aufidius. Even today, many soldiers suffer from poverty, sickness, life-altering injuries, and of course, PTSD. This Memorial Day, let’s all try to help ease the lives of the men and women who have suffered for us.

    Sources:

    SHAKESPEARE AND BRITISH OCCUPATION POLICY IN GERMANY, 1945-1949 by Katherine Elizabeth Weida B.A. (Washington College) 2011

    https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/an-introduction-to-coriolanus

    Steve Bannon’s Rap Musical Version of Coriolanus is Just as Messed-Up As It Sounds

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    Steve Bannon, the man I’ve described in the past as Buckingham to Trump’s Richard III, is once again in the news. He’s been charged with criminal contempt for refusing to cooperate with the Senate with the January 6th commission.

    Bannon, the former head of Breitbart news, and Former President Trump’s former chief strategist, has long been a controversial figure with his extreme right wing views on immigration, race, and politics in general.

    One thing many people might not know about Bannon though, is that before he was a publisher and a politician, he was an aspiring writer in Hollywood, and in the late 1990s, Bannon wrote, “The Thing I Am,” a rap-musical version of Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy “Coriolanus.”

    What Is Coriolanus?

    Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s most obscure tragedies, but arguably, one of his most fascinating ones. It’s the only play set in republican Rome, so it’s the only Shakespeare play that deals with issues of democracy. The play starts with a riot where poor Romans are complaining about grain shortages, loudly condemning rich landowners who are hoarding grain while they starve. Ironically, Shakespeare wrote this at the same time when he himself was guilty of hoarding grain during a shortage, and tensions were so high that some farmers called for people like him to be “hanged on their own gibbit.”

    The play has been called fascist, communist, democratic, republican, and monarchist. It’s main character is a Roman general who wants to be consul, (a high governmental position in the Senate), despite the fact that he hates the common people. Like Julius Caesar, it raises interesting questions about who should be in charge of our society, without prescribing an answer, (which would have been impossible for Shakespeare living in Jacobean England). In the play’s most famous scene, Coriolanus finally bursts out and rails against the commoners for their ignorance and their distrust of other would-be millitary dictators:

    A review of Bannon’s Show:

    Bannon updated the text and set it in Los Angelos during the riots of 1992, which if you remember, were protests to the earlier police brutality trial over the death of Rodney King.

    The show was never produced, though a staged reading of the text was held in 2016. I was unable to find it on Youtube, but I did find a link to a video on Facebook under Now This Politics. The full reading is here:

    https://nowthisnews.com/steve-bannon-hip-hop-rap-musical

    https://nowthisnews.com/steve-bannon-hip-hop-rap-musical?fbclid=IwAR1PAvOo4q-xZTw1SemDEz33fRM44kvJuw0Mabw7rLaI6MVEspfSVi8z1U4

    Quotes:

    They say! F#$% they! They hang out shooting pool and think they know what’s going down – who’s up, who’s out, who bounds, and if there’s crack enough. If I had my way, I’d make a quarry of these slaves.”

    Whoever deserves greatness, wants their hate. Peep game, boy. To count on them for favors is to swim with fins of lead.”

    “So f#$% you! Trust you? Ha! With each passing minute, you change your common mind. You call him noble that was once your enemy, then dis your king. You cry against the “other” – crackers, Blood, Crip, popo, Pol, the rich – it don’t matter, n!@$; awe keeps you feeding each another.”

    I never knew the ‘racist Steve’ that’s being reported now,” Jones told The Daily Beast last year. “I never heard him make any racist jokes, and his best friend was an African-American who went to [college] with him… I never saw even a hint of racism.

    “But I did see this elitism… He would always look down on poor people of any color. At one point, he told me that only people who own property should vote. -Julia Jones (Bannon’s Co writer)

    The Cast included Rob Corddrey, Kate Berlant, Jordan Black, and Cedric Yarborough.

    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1542279242470227&id=908009612563863&_rdr

    My Thoughts:

    The subject matter is poorly handled and the way it treats the LA riots is at best, a historically inaccurate attempt for Bannon to play ‘white savior’ to a group he considers inferior, and at worst, a call to action for racists to imprison and oppress the black residents of LA.

    The riots were not a war, they were a result of a protest. Instead of addressing the Rodney King trial which was the cause of the riots, Bannon focuses on the ‘war’ between the Crips and the Bloods, saying the riot was a result of this war.

    If you read Breitbarts article about the riot, (and I don’t recommend it), it is described like a war. It’s the same war conservative pundits are continually trying to convince us is coming- a race war between ‘gangs’, ‘immigrants,’ and the politicians who enable them, who don’t want you to defend yourself.

    The opinion piece I read found it ironic that Bannon makes Coriolanus the leader of the Crips, but if you look at his politics, It’s clear why- Bannon is attracted to masculine violence and his base of violent, predominantly white males see modern life as a culture war between them and the rest of the world. His Coriolanus is a BAMF who defends himself with his gun . A politician or a policeman ‍♂️ would have someone to answer to (more like Shakespeare’s Coriolanus,) but Bannon’s Martus has no restaint and can indulge his violent tendencies in the lawless hellscape of LA.

    It should be noted that Bannon is clearly not speaking from experience or research, merely his ugly stereotypes of black gang members that he got from reading his biased Brietbart articles. Though the hero is black, the dog whistle racism is still there- these people are out to get you, and even though they have guts, they are a threat to “civilization.”

    References/ Other Reviews:

    1. New York Times Steve Bannon’s Hip Hop Shakespeare: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/opinion/sunday/steve-bannon-hip-hop-shakespeare-rewrite-coriolanus.html
    2. Refinery 29: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/05/152427/steve-bannon-rap-musical-the-thing-i-am
    3. Rolling Stone: He Approaches the Baby Gangster. Steve Bannon’s Rap Musical: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/he-approaches-the-baby-gangsta-watch-steve-bannons-rap-musical-115694/
    4. Hooton, Christopher. Watch a script read of Steve Bannon’s rap musical: ‘If I had my way, I’d make a quarry of these slaves.’ The Independent. Retrieved online from: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/steve-bannon-musical-rap-film-script-screenwriter-shakespeare-coriolanus-compton-table-script-read-a7712736.html%3famp