Today is Sibling’s Day, and I’m pleased to send a shout out to my sister Susan, as well as the honorary brothers and sisters I’ve been lucky to accumulate over the years.

I lost such an adopted brother four years ago today. Larry Cohen and I grew up together throughout childhood and our teenage years. My earliest memories of him are from the second grade play — I was the Scarecrow and he played the Tin Man — though our association must have gone back longer than that since our mothers were best friends. Case in point, I first learned about my mother’s cancer from Larry. She had told Anne Cohen before she told me. A lot of information went through that loop over the years, but none for some time, since I’m the only surviving member of the quartet.

Larry had a sister Lauren, who was Susan’s age, also part of our extended elective family. So when Lauren posted a Facebook request for stories about her brother so her nephew Forest could read about his father, I decided to bring it here, where I could have the space to be as long-winded and self-indulgent as the moment would allow. If that doesn’t interest you today, you can come back on Thursday for the riddle. There won’t be any anagrams or Shakespeare references here. (Well, maybe just one Shakespeare reference towards the end, but that’s it.)

My friendship with Larry spanned well over forty years and through many stages of life, but if I’m being honest, I think of him as my middle-school friend, because that’s about as important as it gets. When you’re as vulnerable as we are at that age, it matters a lot who you choose to trust. Sharing secrets nobody else can know. Co-navigating the social jungle of adolescence. Discovering who you are and who you can help each other become. That’s who Larry and I were to each other. We started out as little boys and we became men together, and we were better men for having done it together. That’s a bond that, once formed, can never be broken, not even now. Not even in death. Because the man I am now came out of that time, and the people who were a part of that will always be a part of me. Period.

We were also part of the same synagogue, and a lot of our social world revolved around events and organizations in the Jewish community. We were observant, but not particularly religious, and services were something we did out of obligation, not devotion. There was one prayer that Larry and I made a little game around. Most Jewish people are very familiar with the commonly recited prayer “Aleinu” (literally “it is upon us”) and its familiar opening line:

The prayer ends with the words u’shemo echad (his name will be one), and in the services I’ve attended, it is sung to a particular tune so that the word u’shemo is repeated three times. Larry and I, as middle-school children, thought it would be funny to point to each other and sing “You schmo” while everyone else was singing u’shemo. So we did, and it was even funnier than we had hoped! What’s more, it got funnier and funnier each time we did it, over the many years we attended services together. I don’t know how two school children in the early 1980’s were able to develop such a sophisticated and wry sense of humor, but you’ll have to trust me — it was comedy gold.

Fast forward through high school and beyond. There are a lot more stories I could tell. Larry and I founded a Students Against Driving Drunk chapter our freshman year of high school, and by our junior year, it had over 100 members. But, for now, I want to push forward to October 2005. My father passed away that month after a year-long battle with cancer. Friends and family — including Larry, Lauren, and Anne — gathered at my mother’s house for the Jewish custom of sitting shiva. For those who haven’t done it, it involves a lot of food, stories about the deceased, and intense community bonding.

At one point, we gathered in the foyer to do prayers, and one of the prayers was the Mourner’s Kaddish. I hadn’t cried for my father’s death before then, but something about saying the Mourner’s Kaddish as an actual mourner brought me to the breaking point. All of the stress that had been building up in my body erupted, and I found myself crying and shaking and pushing my way through a prayer that was overly familiar and yet an entirely new experience for me. Saying the Mourner’s Kaddish for my father may have been one of the worst moments of my life. And then, just like that, it was over, and we were ready to move on to the next prayer in the book.

From across the crowded room, Larry and I made eye contact with each other. Now, obviously, we weren’t going to do it. But that didn’t mean that we couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to make the other guy laugh at an inappropriate time. Each of us steeled ourselves, prepared for the inevitable moment to come.

Our eyes locked. Neither of us smiled. Neither of us gave a knowing nod. Just a dead stare.

He’s going to break, each of us thought. He’s weak.

The moment had passed without scandal. Each of us turned back to our prayer books. We never spoke of this moment, and I’ve never told this story until now.

But I think it’s worth telling now, because it speaks to a special type of friendship. Saying the Mourner’s Kaddish for my father may have been one of the worst moments of my life. But then, because my middle-school friend was there, I was able to be transported out of that moment and immerse myself into a juvenile game filled with childish nostalgia. That’s a piece of magic. And while I may have a few other friends that I have that kind of a special relationship with, I will never, ever make another one, and so the loss of one of the few I had was immeasurable.

I hope Forest will read this, today or someday, and to him, I offer some words from the poet Shakespeare:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.

Sometimes Shakespeare’s lines can be hard to understand, but these aren’t. The friends you make in middle school won’t be your best friends in life. When you’re an adult, you may go years without talking with them. But they hold a special place in your life and should be cherished. You might as well start appreciating them now. And saying the Mourner’s Kaddish for my father was plenty hard for me; I can’t imagine what it will be like for you tomorrow. When you’re older, we’ll get together, and I’ll tell you the real stories.

And one last thing: be respectful during services. Other people around you are trying to pray. Don’t be a knucklehead like your dad was.

From Hamlet:

There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

When his father lectures hence, my Laertes-type might respond with a tetchy “OK, Boomer.”

This week brought in an avalanche of impeachment evidence, and I’m no longer sure what’s supposed to be a distraction from what.

Should I be focused on the emoluments violation of him hosting the G7 conference in Doral? Or should I be keeping my eye on the fact that Trump businesses kept two sets of books so they could commit tax fraud? Is this week’s top story Mick Mulvaney’s “Get over it” press conference? Or is that just cover to keep me away from the newest Giuliani story? Or is all of it to keep our minds off of the Gordon Sondland testimony? I only have one anagram in me; it’s hard to know where to start.

Fortunately, the English teacher in me is not at all conflicted about this week’s most pressing evidence that the Republican president is not fit for office. It recently came out that President Trump sent President Erdogan of Turkey a letter so unhinged that it prompted a near-universal response of “Is This Real?” (click the letter below for a larger image):

Upon receiving this letter, President Erdogan reportedly threw it in the trash.

From Hamlet:

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

This smugness unto Erdogan came not wanted.

It’s hard to meet people these days. You may have even seen some online lists of pick-up lines, quick conversation starters for approaching women in bars.

But what if the object of your affection is a Shakespeare fan? Below you will find a list of sure-fire Shakespeare-themed pick-up lines that are guaranteed to breed love’s settled passions in her heart.

Note: This is a parody. Always treat others with respect, and never actually use any of these rude pick-up lines on a real woman in a bar*.

• Excuse me, but are you Joan of Arc? Because you are smoking hot.
• Hi, you can call me King Lear. Because I’m mad about you.
• Do I remind you of Richard III? Because I have a good hunch about us.
• Are you the Dauphin? Because thou hast turned my balls to gunstones.
• Are you Nick Bottom? Because you are the finest piece of ass I’ve ever seen.
• Right now, I feel like young Arthur from King John. Because I just fell for you.
• If I told you I was Hamlet, would you let me Ophelia?
• Are you Shylock? Because I want to give you a pound of flesh.
• You and I are like Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. Because at the end, I bet I can get you to come.

Good luck, and have fun!

—

*I have actually used all of these lines on a real woman in a bar.

Happy 455th Birthday to Shakespeare!

In honor of the occasion, I present… Shakespeare Memes!

It’s hard to do Hamlet.

Not only is the text expansive and emotionally complex, but the title’s iconic place in the culture carries with it unreasonable expectations, overbearing precedent, and insidious overfamiliarity. Fortunately, in the Titan Theatre Company’s current production, director Lenny Banovez doesn’t try to “do Hamlet.” Instead, he delves into the well-known script to discover the play hiding beneath, and works with a top-notch cast to create something both faithful to the text and freshly original at the same time. It was the best production of Hamlet I have ever seen.

The title character was played by Laura Frye. Her Hamlet’s melancholy was mixed with a healthy dose of choler as well. The result was a passionate intensity that heightened the conflict of each scene and created a riveting experience in the theatre. One of the remarkable features of Hamlet is how each scene is a mini-masterpiece in itself. But this production understood how all of the pieces fit together, and I never felt like I was watching a cliché. Frye’s earnest and energetic performance contributed to that a great deal.

I should disclose at this point that I had friends in the cast. I’ve known Annalisa Loeffler (Gertrude) for many years, and I met Michael Selkirk (Claudius) when the two of them performed in The Winter’s Tale a few years ago. So when I tell you they were both electrifying in their roles, you are free to factor in my bias. But like many New Yorkers with theatrical connections, I frequently see friends in all kinds of productions, and they don’t all get that from me, so I’ll just leave it there. I’ll also add that the cast was phenomenal across the board. Hamlet carries the show, but can’t do it alone, and the scene work is what elevated the play from a just another great performance to something truly sublime.

I hadn’t expected any of this when I sat down. I knew the production would be good, and I looked forward to hearing some talented actors perform Shakespeare. As I’ve discussed before, this has a physical effect on my brain, and actually leads to a kind of a high. And indeed, when the court filed in and Selkirk took over the stage with his opening Claudius speech, I was drawn in immediately. The theatre was a small black box, and I was in the front row, so it was an immersive experience from the start. And during the first stretch of the play, through intermission, and well into Act III, I enjoyed the production as I would any well done performance of Shakespeare.

It was somewhere around the closet scene that my world started to tilt. Frye and Loeffler painted each moment with all of the colors in the scene’s palette: rage, disgust, shame, regret. And I found myself feeling the fear and pity that Aristotle associated with the dramatic tragedy.

It just kept getting worse from there. Andrew Garrett played Laertes in his return to Denmark with a strong desire for vengeance, but left himself room for what happens next. Laura Menzie enters as Ophelia, and her mad scene almost had me in tears. Not only was her performance of a difficult scene powerfully empathetic and believable, but Garrett’s reactions built the horror of the scene without drawing focus away from her. By raising the stakes, they keep the momentum of the dramatic action. Menzie and Garrett had been so charming and likeable in their earlier scene together (along with the brilliantly comic Robert Meksin as Polonious, who stole every scene he was in) that when we see the unravelling of their family, we feel the full tragic force of their downfall. And when Gertrude delivers the news that Ophelia has died (Loeffler’s finest moment), Garrett’s reaction makes us understand in our bones that Hamlet is now in serious danger. I was shaking.

And then out comes T. Stacy Hicks in an inspired turn as the Gravedigger, and we have permission to laugh again. Shakespeare sure did know his craft.

I apologize to the cast and crew for using shorthand like “the closet scene” and “the mad scene,” because their performances felt like they were the first time anyone had ever acted these roles, and they don’t deserve to be reduced to a deck of playing cards. But at the same time, Shakespeare purists will have no problems with this production, as even the most creative choices are textually supported. The biggest adaptation was that a lot of the minor characters were conflated into a single character named Osric (portrayed chillingly by Anuj Parik). This Osric was no fop, but rather a stoic bodyguard/lieutenant type of character with a gun who carries out orders from Claudius with ruthless efficiency. But even this choice is well supported by the text, because it’s consistent with the character of Claudius. This is a man who killed his own brother and usurped his nephew to become king; of course, he’d keep a guy like this around.

Titan’s Hamlet is running one more weekend (April 11-14), which is good news for you, and probably for me as well. I’m likely to return to see it again, as well as any production Titan does in the future. Watch this space.

In Macbeth, King Duncan receives a report on the execution of the Thane of Cawdor, who had betrayed him in the war against Norway. Duncan notes his own surprise at the deception:

There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.

No art to find the mind’s construction in the face? Is it really possible that nobody in Shakespeare’s time (or even Macbeth’s time) had thought to study this? And if not, where is Shakespeare getting the idea from? My Arden Macbeth (Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason, eds.) says that it is proverbial, but that only raises more questions about what is meant by it. In all honesty, I think it’s time to bring back the Shakespeare Follow-Up.

First of all, the idea that different emotions would register in an observable way has always been as plain as the smile on your face. If anyone wants to doubt that, they need only look at the types of masks used in ancient Greek theatre to represent comedy and tragedy and see if they can tell which is which.

Wait, wait, don’t tell me…

So the idea of finding the mind’s construction in the face was well known in Macbeth’s time. But what about someone who intends to deceive? How could Duncan have uncovered Cawdor’s treachery?

As long as there have been liars, there have been techniques attempting to reveal them, which have had various degrees of accuracy. In ancient China, they used to put dried rice in a suspect’s mouth and ask them to spit it out. If they were lying, their mouths would be too dry to spit out the rice. At least, that’s what they said on The Unit (see 5:30 to 7:10 below):

In the clip, Jonas mentions the witch trials, and indeed, the trial by ordeal was a common method of uncovering deceivers throughout medieval Europe, whether by water, combat, fire, or hot iron. As Europe approached the Renaissance, these beliefs began to slowly evolve, marking a significant gap between the worldviews of Macbeth’s time and Shakespeare’s.

Shakespeare himself seemed intrigued with the idea that one could alter one’s own face to conceal evil intentions. Hamlet has an epiphany that “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” And in Henry VI, Part Three, the future King Richard III actually brags about being such a villain:

Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry ‘Content’ to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.

Could Shakespeare have been influenced by the writings of French philosopher Michel de Montaigne? In his late 16th-century essay Of Physiognomy, Montaigne muses on this very question, ascribing moral implications to a false aspect:

The face is a weak guarantee; yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows; I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance. It seems as if some faces are lucky, others unlucky. And I think there is some art to distinguishing the kindly faces from the simple, the severe from the rough, the malicious from the gloomy, the disdainful from the melancholy, and other such adjacent qualities. There are beauties not only proud but bitter; others are sweet, and even beyond that, insipid. As for prognosticating future events from them, those are matters that I leave undecided.

Sorry, Duncan.

The 18th-century actor David Garrick turned this vice into a virtue, developing great fame for his repertoire of facial expressions that could be used to convey a wide range of emotions on stage. Charles Darwin, in his 1872 work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, identified a specific set of facial expressions that he believed to be universal to humans as a product of evolution. Today, we know that, while many facial expressions are generally universal, they can be profoundly influenced by culture.

In the 20th century, the rise of the polygraph machine added an extra level of science to lie detection. The machine registers physiological responses the subject exhibits while answering questions. It’s not infallible, and it’s not unbeatable, but it just might have been able to reveal the Thane of Cawdor’s treachery, had it been available to apply.

But as far as finding the mind’s construction in the face, we should turn to the poker community, which has made a small science of identifying expressions, statements, and actions that reveal the strength or weakness of a players hand. When there’s money on the table, every advantage matters. These “tells” are catalogued, studied, observed, and – of course – faked when the opportunity arises. Some poker players, to defend against being read in this way, will conceal their faces with visors, hoodies, or even sunglasses. Interestingly enough, sunglasses were first invented in 12th century China, where they were originally worn by judges to assist them in concealing their emotions during a trial.

But the master of the art of finding the mind’s construction in the face would have to be Dr. Paul Ekman. Ekman is mostly famous for discovering the “micro expression,” a facial tell that sweeps across the face for a fraction of a second, betraying the subject’s true emotional state. They cannot be hidden. They cannot be faked. They also cannot be read without deep training, which Ekman provides.

Ekman and his research became the inspiration for the Fox crime drama Lie to me*. On the show, Tim Roth plays Dr. Cal Lightman, a fictionalized version of Ekman.  Each episode shows Lightman and his team using micro expressions and other scientific tells to find out the truth for desperate clients. If you’ve read this essay this far, you might enjoy the show:

So, with all of these clues available, how well does Duncan learn from his experience with the traitorous Thane of Cawdor? He grants the now-available title to Macbeth, and then Macbeth kills him. If there was an art to find the mind’s construction in the face, Duncan was very, very bad at it.

In this October 2016 TED talk, Shakespearean actor and educator Rob Crisell makes a passionate argument for Shakespeare, for teaching Shakespeare, and for teaching Shakespeare through performance. Whether you’re already with him on these three points or not, it’s well worth checking out:

If you are one of the passengers from the Celebrity Shakespeare & Scandinavia Cruise, welcome! As promised, I am posting digital copies of the handouts from my talks, so if you missed one or didn’t get a handout, you can find everything here.

My first talk was on Hamlet. You can download the handout here. You can also read more of my posts about Hamlet at the category link here.

My second talk was on Shakespeare’s Use of Language. You can download the handout here. You can also read more of my posts about poetry at the category link here.

My third talk was on Shakespeare’s History. During the talk, I referred to a series of eight family trees that I compiled to go along with Shakespeare’s history plays. I used the first and the eighth of these as a handout for the talk. You can find all eight family trees here.

My talk today will be on Shakespeare’s Science. You can download the handout here. You can also read more of my posts following up on references from Shakespeare’s plays at the category link for the Shakespeare Follow-Up here.

Enjoy!

Today I went to Kronborg Castle in Helsingor, the real-life inspiration for Shakespeare’s Elsinore.

Now, the castle itself, in all honesty, has very little to do with Shakespeare. First of all, Hamlet is fictional, so there’s no sense of this is where this happened or anything of the like. Also, Shakespeare never visited Denmark, so you can’t even say that this is the room where Shakespeare envisioned a certain scene or other. What’s more, the castle itself was based on a stronghold built in the 1420’s, and renovated into a Renaissance castle in the late 16th century. So, it wouldn’t even have existed during Hamlet’s time.

None of this matters, of course, when you visit the castle. Hamlet is real and this is where the events took place. You can see the bedchambers, the banquet tables, and the giant tapestries hanging in the hallways. This most excellent canopy hangs in my lady’s chamber, and you can breathe in the history, even if it never actually happened.

Shakespeare is celebrated in the castle quite a bit. There are performances of Hamlet given regularly at the castle, and there is even an exhibition of all of the various actors who have played Hamlet over the years. There is also an excellent gift shop where you can get the standard Shakespeare merchandise, but with an extra note of authenticity. Yes, it’s a mock-quill pen, but it’s from Elsinore. I say this without irony; I picked up an excellent coffee mug.

No doubt, when I look back on this trip, it will be the castle that stands out as the centerpiece of the experience. Next, we shall be welcomed back to Denmark as we visit Copenhagen.