Litro133 teaser

short stories Featuring Ben Crystal David McGrath Jenn Ashworth Andrew Pidoux Pauline Kiernan Marina Fiorato

133

Mystery Issue, March 2013 | 44

CONTENTS Events

04

Ben Crystal

07

YEAR OF THE PRINCE

David McGrath

17

Jenn Ashworth

20

Andrew Pidoux

27

Pauline Kiernan

29

SOHO

DOTED

SHAKESPEARE’S WORDS

GETTING RID OF OVID

Marina Fiorato AUTHOR Q&A

35

COVER ARTIST Cecília S. Unirio taken in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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Litro Magazine

Shakespeare

EDITORIAL Dear Reader, As someone who’s rapidly approaching forty, I know a little about milestone birthdays. They come with peer pressure, and reminiscence—and ziggurats of cake. But none of us come close to the 450 years Shakespeare is celebrating this April. What do you buy someone who’s already Britain’s greatest cultural hero? Maybe a little celebrity love. Benedict Cumberbatch just announced that he’ll be playing Hamlet this summer, and over the last few years everyone from James MacEvoy to Jude Law has been breathing life into the Bard’s words.

But perhaps all this celebrity glamour is blinding us to the real issue: does Shakespeare speak to our minorities? Is Othello all he has to offer for Britain’s new multicultural landscape? Should we pay attention to the celebrities flocking to play his great heroes—or the men and women who take on the smaller roles, who toil behind the scenes to keep Shakespeare’s words alive for today’s audiences?

We’ve put together Litro #133, an issue devoted to The Bard, as a special gift for his 450th birthday—and to shine the spotlight into some dimly lit corners. Our curtain rises on Ben Crystal—renowned Shakespeare producer, actor and author—as he shares Year of the Prince, a contemplation of what it means to play the greatest stage role of all time: Hamlet. Just like every great actor, Ben makes us laugh, and cry, and keeps us rooted to our seats until they bring the curtain down. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to stand in the spotlight and read those immortal words—“To be or not to be”—this is the answer.

Ben’s Hamlet is a tough act to follow, but England’s writers are up to the task. David McGrath uses Hamlet’s “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as an inspirational springboard, applying them to one of London’s most notorious neighborhoods: Soho.

Then Jenn Ashworth brings King Lear up to date with Doted,

a short story that proves (if there was ever any doubt) that Shakespeare’s themes are just as relevant now as they were four centuries ago.

No celebration of The Bard’s work would be complete without a few lines of verse, so Andrew Pidoux does the honours with Shakespeare’s Words, a poetic rumination on the legacy he left behind—not in the bricks of Stratford, or the over-familiar portraits, but in the words he etched into our cultural foundations. That’s followed by Pauline Kiernan’s Getting Rid of Ovid, a colourful exploration of Shakespeare’s own inspirations, and the debt he owed to the great Roman poet. Finally, we talk to Marina Fiorato about her latest novel, Beatrice and Benedick, and the changes in attitudes towards ethnic minorities that the last four centuries have brought.

It’s hard to measure the effect that any single writer, or artist, has on our culture as a whole. There is no formula to quantify artistic influence, no iPhone app to weigh the complex interactions of art and artists through the ages. But one thing is clear: 450 years after Shakespeare’s birth, it’s hard to imagine British literature—or theatre, or cinema—without that distinctive bald-headed silhouette whispering prompts from the wings.

Dan Coxon Editor April 2014

EVENTS THIS MONTH THEATRE Titus Andronicus Shakespeare’s Globe, 21 New Globe Walk, Bankside, SE1 9DT From April 24, 2014, £5-£42 Starting the day after Shakespeare’s birthday, it’s only right that the Globe should be revisiting one of his most overlooked triumphs—and one of the best stage adaptations in recent years.

If you missed this first time around in 2006, now’s the time to put right your mistake.

King Lear National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1 9PX Until July 2, 2014, £12-£50 Is Sam Mendes’ take on Shakespeare’s tragedy a work of genius? Or overblown and wilfully perverse? Could it possibly be both? At least it has everyone talking about The Bard again on his 450th birthday. Watch out for the live cinema broadcast on 1 May (ntlive.com).

A Taste of Honey National Theatre (Lyttelton), South Bank, London SE1 9PX Until May 11, 2014, £15-£50 Morrissey has admitted to stealing lyrics from Shelagh Delaney’s 1958 play, so you know what you’re in for: kitchen sink drama, working class heroes, and more than a little grit. This is a littleknown classic, and deserves revisiting. But heaven knows it’s miserable now.

A View From the Bridge Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London SE1 8LZ April 4 – June 7, 2014, £10-£35 Arthur Miller’s classic tragedy, featuring two high-profile leads in Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Sherlock Holmes) and Nicola Walker (Last Tango in Halifax, Spooks). This new production brings a dark, disturbing edge to Miller’s tale of mistrust and betrayal.

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ART Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014 The Photographers’ Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies Street, W1F 7LW Until June 22, 2014, Free This spring’s most talked about photography collection. Alberto García-Alix, Jochen Lempert, Richard Mosse and Lorna Simpson have been shortlisted for this highly sought after prize. Check out a selection of their work, and decide for yourself who should be awarded the £30,000 cash prize.

Ruin Lust Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG Until May 18, 2014, £9.50-£11 Examining the use of ruins in art, from the seventeenth century until the modern day, the exhibition features artists from J.M.W. Turner and John Constable to Tacita Dean and Graham Sutherland. Expect striking images of decay and decrepitude.

MUSIC City of London Sinfonia: Gwilym Simcock Trio Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace, Belgravia, London, SW1X 9DQ 1 May, 2014, £12-£32 The City of London Sinfonia plays 'Cumbrian Thaw', a new work by Mercury prize nominated jazz pianist Gwilym Simcock.

According to the FT, Simcock’s composition "paints an atmospheric landscape of the Lake District in winter". Our advice: bring an umbrella.

StreetFest 2014 Formans Fish Island, Hackney Wick, E3 2NT 4 May, 2014, £18 The first festival of its kind (at least as far as we know), StreetFest celebrates street culture with live music, art, urban sport, dance and fashion. Headliners include Goldie and Ms. Dynamite, sports include skateboarding and parkour.

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YEAR OF THE PRINCE Ben Crystal shares exclusive fragments from his rehearsal diaries on playing Hamlet, and considers where Shakespeare might be headed next…

by Ben Crystal It is the most shattering experience of a young man's life when he awakes and quite reasonably says to himself: [He puts his hand on his heart] I will never play The Dane. When that moment comes, one’s ambition ceases. Don't you agree?

Withnail and I (1987) Back from watching a piece of new writing in the London Fringe, but all I can think about is I've been asked to play Hamlet.

Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet.

I remember watching Mel Gibson’s cut-to-shreds Hamlet, with Dad. I must have been 14 or 15, studying Macbeth in school and finding Shakespeare dull. I really hated studying King Lear at 17.

Then after playing Ariel in The Tempest, my first experience of acting Shakespeare, it was like light shone down, and I have never had a problem understanding Shakespeare since.

Branagh’s Hamlet came out while I was in university, and I yearned, burned to be in it. It was beautiful, and he’d used the text in its entirety, every word, all four hours of it.

Then watching my first fringe production—in a dark basement in King’s X, produced by the lead, and it all seeming very formal, egotistical, and cack-handed—an ego-project, the kind of thing that now makes my stomach churn.

Then Sam West’s Hamlet, the first professional production I'd seen, full of clapping and moving security cameras on the proscenium arch, the over-seeing of the court played strong.

And Jude Law’s a couple of years ago, which looked stunning but I remember thinking “They’re saying all these beautiful words, but some of the actors don't seem to know what any of them mean...”

And then the great ones I missed: Daniel Day Lewis so in character he walked off stage never to return, having hallucinated the ghost of his own dead father. Or Mark Rylance in pyjamas at the RSC, and then his second go at the Globe which I did catch, so beautifully simple, playful, wonderful.

This can’t be an ego project. I can’t be a big fish in a small pool, with every word dropping from my lips taken as gold because of my other work in Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Issue, April 2014 | 07

Hamlet, University of Nevada, Reno

Ben is an actor, writer and producer. He played Hamlet in the world contemporary premiere of the play in Original Pronunciation, and in 2012 was the creative director of the first CD of extracts of Shakespeare in OP for the British Library. He gives workshops on performing Shakespeare around the world, and some of his ensemble’s work can be viewed at www.passioninpractice.com. This April he will be touring his work around the USA, and in July co-ordinating a series of OP events at the new indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe. He lives in London and online at www.bencrystal.com and Tweets from @bencrystal.

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SOHO Hamlet’s “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” are cast at London

by David McGrath She was born bow in hand, slinging her very first arrow through her mother’s skull, slaying the malignant cunt dead where she lay, then one more just after, swift through the bitch mid-wife’s throat who was holding a dagger high and ready. Her father had long since fled, knowing full well the thing he was and the thing his daughter would be. He had only asked that she be named after her birth-cry, a cry he had heard on conception, a cry so trill that when she was born it carried for miles and drew blood from every eardrum north of the river, a cry she cried long after her banishment, both a lament for the dead and the dead to come, and a warning for all time that she was born bloodthirsty and in chase, a cry and a name to stay a reminder that even if it meant death, even if it meant every death, she would never stop her hunt—a cry and a name to mark a ferocious fucking juggernaut to which respect must be given and caution shown.

The thing was, out in the wilds, abandoned and alone, chasing and crying, she began to burn, a trickle at first from the embers of a countryside campfire but as she grew, the fire raged terrific in the window of a gin shop, then glowed brilliant and furious like a trillion tellies and singed the air around. And when her ironstone skin burnt molten white and beautiful, and it didn’t quench or even cool, it became quite clear that she would never age, that she would always be young, feckless and desired. And so, despite the warning of both her name and her cry, the masses flocked to her. They trampled Messiahs and rules and whole villages in the stampede, all wanting, all craving her eternity. They washed her warmth on their faces—gulped down her phosphorescence and liquid crystal diodes, inhaled her rays of curling, spiralling beams, her LED’s, her twinkling flashes—all dazzled and itchy, numbed and light-stoned.

They began to run at full sprint beside her in the chase, calling her name, wanting her in their lives so much that they completely lost the fucking run of themselves, forgetting the warning, hollering for her, reaching for her, craving and yearning to join in her hunt until their breath shortened and the cartilage in their knees ground down, until their hamstrings snapped and muscle tore from bone, and when they finally slowed she was unmerciful, letting loose an arrow that pierced their chests and exploded their hearts, and as they died in her wake, gurgling and spitting blood, they wondered why them because their crave made them mad and deluded and clueless.

And still she chased and cried, chewing up life with grinding teeth, guzzling up months and years, a never-ending canter, beginning all over again, teaching new children through mistakes of the dead in fleeting moments of clarity with a raw and stone-sweet voice, showing them the leaflet touts, the charity muggers, the panhandlers, the addicts, the street sketchers, the human signs, the event promoters and made them take tactic from it all. She showed them the bike thieves slithering around dark corners Shakespeare Issue, April 2014 | 17

DOTED

Echoes of King Lear in modern-day Lancashire

by Jenn Ashworth Doted is a strange word, isn’t it? On the one hand it means a fondness or an uncritical affection; the feeling an adult might have for a small child or a pet dog. A couple newly in love might dote on each other too. When our hypothetical couple get to know each other better this doting wears off because the honeymoon stage is just a stage and once it passes there’s a tendency for the cold light of day to get into things. The relationship is never the same again; scientists on the internet say you get two years: tops. That first doting is immaturity and foolishness. A kind of infirmity; a lack of sound judgement: caused by love. The word is related to dotage; an archaic expression denoting madness, senility, dementia. When Lear curses Goneril, first with sterility and then, if she must have a child, with an ungrateful one, she dismisses his ranting as merely a product of his dotage. Her father’s cursing doesn’t count because he’s too fond and too old. *** When I was little I was close to Mum’s parents and never met Dad’s.

It came as a surprise to me that they were dead. When I found out, I asked him when and how his Mum went. I’d never known anyone who had died before.

“It happened some time previously and from a lack of breath,” he said.

Then he slapped at his leg and forced out a laugh. It was long and loud; a machine gun rattle.

When I was really little, I used to join in the laughing. He had a reputation, amongst people who didn’t know him, for being a good fun kind of guy. Life and soul. Something like that. When I was a little older, I noticed something. This laugh, be it ever so loud and out of control, was something he performed with his eyes open. He kept his eye on you because he wanted to make sure, perhaps, that you got the joke. That there would be no more questions. He fed himself his own punch-lines too, well prepared and wedged into the conversation whether they made sense, or not.

“Did you go to her funeral? Where was it? In a church?”

I’m like a dog with a bone sometimes. That’s what people say about me.

I didn’t drop it. I never do.

“The only thing you need to know is this,” he said, “the good Lord said, ‘come forth’ but she came fifth, and only won a bag of nuts,” he bent over laughing, yelping with it. It sounded hard. Like work, like pain.

I asked him what his favourite subject at school was.

“Noughts and crosses,” he said, then the laugh. This time, it sounded more like what it was: pleasure at my frustration.

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SHAKESPEARE’S WORDS A legacy left in ink

by Andrew Pidoux Do my fingerprints still linger in the acting recesses and forgotten pockets of the places I touched with words?

If you go to Stratford and see the pubs and walking tours and monuments to the idea of me, you’ll find I am not there.

I’m not in the foundations of the house that birthed me, the ruins of its hips sunk into the grass for all to stare at, nor in the faithful Globe Theatre, a product of your need for material ghosts who can mouth my best words without melting into solid boards.

And as for the critics who try to breathe on my bones, dressing me in half a dozen alleged facts or hedged bets and matching me like a criminal to my portrait, they should know that I never inhabited that portrait, any more than my mind was confined to that house.

So to all those who would take me and shrink me to a life, I say this: measure me by the space inside my words, not my tiny face.

Andrew Pidoux is the author of a book of poetry, Year of the Lion (Salt Publishing, 2010), and the winner of an Eric Gregory Award from the UK’s Society of Authors (1999). Recent poems of his have appeared in Magma, Poetry Review and Poetry Salzburg Review and stories in Brittle Star, Orbis and Stand. He lives in London on the Isle of Dogs.

Shakespeare Issue, April 2014 | 27

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'Beneath III (detail)' by Colin Robson

GETTING RID OF OVID Young Shakespeare tracks down an ancient poet

by Pauline Kiernan I saw him last night. I could smell almonds and spices and something rank that pulsed the air. I looked up and he was there.

Cock raised, spit-white flying in a perfect arc so high it kissed the moon, he emerged from the pool like a Titan. Flesh and muscle shuddering, each giant foot sending the earth quaking, the moon’s cold light shrouding the colossus in a strange, primal blue. He shook his head, and the spray turned into a mighty shower of hailstones that swept the sky. Lowering clouds suddenly appeared and shed their load onto the land beneath.

I stood, spell-stopped, as the giant became a blaze of colours dissolving seamlessly into shapes of many humans trapped by some invisible force, madly trying to flee, and the more they fought the more their bonds tightened. One woman, rooted to the spot, looked for her toes, and screamed as her feet, her legs, her breasts and shoulders turned to wood. A massive scorpion reared up his tail. From it poured black poison that spelt out perque omnia saecula fama, vivam across the heavens: Through all the ages shall I live in fame.

The Titan resumed his human shape and from his mouth emerged demented, savage women, floating towards me, their heads alive with black writhing snakes, their shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth. I tried to flee, but the earth rose up and turned to stone around my legs. My hands were stripping rotting flesh off dead sheep that came alive, squealing in pain.

Their flesh metamorphosed into monstrous embryos wrapped in birth skins, choking on black blood. The little kicking limbs burst through the leprous crusts and I saw my hand steeped in overgorged, livid dyes. Sulphurous fumes blinded me as a mighty crack and a pain too great for words told me my arm had been ripped from my shoulder. I heard a laugh that issued from some hell resounding deep inside my head. I think I howled at the loss of my writing hand before I lost consciousness. *** “You’re going to commune with a centuries-old ghost, take him by his poet’s balls and castrate him?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re mad,” he says, throwing the covers aside, his arm stretching above my face to reach for the cup.

Why does his armpit sweat smell of blossom buds and mine of rank weeds? His breath, heavenly air of grace, brushes my cheek and every part about me quivers. I watch his ruby lips—two succulent cherries—close over the rim.

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AUTHOR Q&A Following in Shakespeare’s footsteps with the author of Beatrice and Benedick

with Marina Fiorato Litro: What appealed to you about revisiting Much Ado About Nothing, and specifically the characters of Beatrice and Benedick?

Marina: I've always loved the play ever since it was my set text at 'A' level.

Beatrice and Benedick were so fresh and funny and modern, they just leapt off the page. I was particularly impressed by Beatrice's freedom of speech and her wit—she takes on the men at their own game. I've read in various critiques that she was an anomaly for her times, but we must remember that this was the era of Elizabeth I, an extremely feisty and witty woman who never let a man best her. I bet Elizabeth enjoyed Much Ado. Litro: Have you seen any of the screen adaptations of Much Ado (including Joss Whedon's recent version)? How did they compare with your own reading of the play?

Marina: Yes. I loved the Branagh/Thompson version—I don't think it's perfect by any means, but it is such a sunny, happy interpretation that it is irresistible. There is an undeniable (and unsurprising!) chemistry between the two leads, and I am, of course, a sucker for an Italian setting.

I also saw the Joss Whedon interpretation, and although I enjoyed it I think that the modern setting presents certain problems for the text. It is harder to sustain misunderstandings if everybody has a mobile phone, and CCTV cameras are everywhere. And it is not quite as sinful, these days, to have a chat with a man who is not your fiancée the night before your wedding. You might have some explaining to do, but you would not be shunned from society, as you would have been in the 16th century when a woman's chastity was everything. The most interesting thing about it for me was that the film begins with a love scene between a younger Beatrice and Benedick, clearly referencing an earlier relationship, which is what my book is all about.

Litro: Is it right that you studied Shakespeare in some depth at University?

How did that affect the way you approached this book?

Marina: Yes, I wrote my dissertation on the value of Shakespeare as an historical source, concentrating on courtship and the making of marriage in the plays.

When I began this novel I was glad I had all the academic background, but then I had to throw it all away, and just let the characters speak. The characters are not aware of their larger historical context. No one lives as if they are on a timeline and no one thinks they are old-fashioned. Beatrice and Benedick think they are desperately modern, and I try to remember that.

Litro: How conscious were you of following in Shakespeare's footsteps, especially in terms of the language he used and the themes he presented?

Marina: To begin with the weight of his genius absolutely crippled me. I had what I thought was this terrific idea that all the characters would speak as if they 38 | Litro Magazine

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LITRO 133

Hamlet, Hamlet, Hamlet. The thing about Hamlet, about all of Shakespeare’s parts, is he gives you the most beautiful, ornate frame, and a blank canvas. You can paint whatever picture you want of the character. It is half Shakespeare, half you. Shakespeare drops the golden bread-crumbs, leading you towards the truth, but it’s still you walking the walk.

From Year of the Prince

by Ben Crystal www.litro.co.uk

ISBN 978-0-9554245-5-7

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