"Don Carlos" by Friedrich Schiller

Schiller was the best-selling author of The Robbers (1781). This play was first performed in 1787. He thus comes towards the end of the romantic Sturm und Drang movement epitomised by his friend  Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and towards the beginning of melodrama. It is also wonderfully Gothic and includes the (albeit fake) ghost of a monk wandering through the palace cellars on the stroke of midnight and the common Gothic trope of demonising Roman Catholicism as later followed by The Monk (Lewis, 1796).

Don Carlos is a historical play written in blank verse and thus with a huge nod to Shakespeare. Schiller includes rather more detailed stage directions that Shakespeare and clearly believes that whenever one has a change of characters this means one should have a new scene (Act 4 has 24 such scenes) but I guess most modern productions would regard many of these scenelets as run-ins to proper scenes.

I saw the LAMDA production of Don Carlos at the matinee on Saturday 9th Feb 2019 in the Carne Studio theatre. This production highlighted the unstable emotional behaviour of Don Carlos, played as a hysterical neurotic by James Esler, who flung himself across the stage in a very physical performance, and his father King Philip, a paranoid gang leader who raged and collapsed and who could trust no one. This was a superb performance by Colm Gleeson. Supporting characters who impressed were Ivan Du Pontavice as a very correct militarist Duke of Alba, Branden Cook as an utterly cynical Domingo, Chloe McClay as etiquette-bound Olivarez and Olivia Le Andersen as the vengeful and regretful Princess Eboli. The adaptation really brought out the family feud at the heart of the story and managed to keep going through the bits in which Schiller expounds his political theories. It also turned Schiller's stop-start scening into a more contemporary flow. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Don Carlos is loosely based on Spanish history. Crown Prince Carlos, heir to Philip II of Spain, was mentally unstable and died after six months imprisonment by his father. But this was 20 years before the Spanish Armada, a historical fact mentioned in Schiller's play.

This play starts with a problem Before Philip II married the current Queen of Spain he had betrothed this French princess to his son Carlos. They had fallen in love. But then Philip was widowed and decided on a young bride and he himself married the Queen. So Carlos is now in the position of being in love with his stepmother. There are potential homages to Hamlet here (Don Carlos has just returned from studying abroad) and the incest based Jacobean tragedies such as 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. 

His best mate Rodrigues, Marquis of Posa, wants to help Don Carlos in his quasi-incestuous pursuit of love but at the same time he wants to protect the Netherlands, currently in revolt against the Spanish Empire, from the scorched earth policy promised by the Duke of Alva whom Philip wants to send to Flanders as the new Governor. Instead Rod Posa wants Don Carlos to become governor so that the two of them can initiate a far-sighted rule guaranteeing individual liberties and freedom of worship. Very German Enlightenment!

However their ambitions are under attack from the sinister Domingo, confessor to Philip, and the Duke (or in one wonderful misprint in my edition, the Dude) of Alva (described by Posa as "bigotry’s relentless tool").

Also the Princess Eboli has the hots for young Don Carlos. She provides a mysterious letter and a key to let him into her apartments whither he goes under the impression that the letter and key come from his step-mum. This leads to an awkward moments when she discovers that he does not in fact love him and she decides to have her revenge by exposing the dreadful secret and potentially incestuous affair to the king.

The King is an interesting study. He has been told his wife is being unfaithful, it is hinted that his latest daughter is a bastard. But he does not know what to believe and this is the problem of being a king: people lie to you for their advantage:

“I thirst for truth. To reach its tranquil spring,
Through the dark heaps of thick surrounding error,
Is not the lot of kings.”

In the end Don Carlos is brought down not so much by the multiplicity of scheming that is going on at the Spanish court as by a plot of fiendish complexity.

There are some wonderfully romantic/ melodramatic/ gothic moments:

“Like hell's grim furies, dreams of dreadful shape
Pursue me still. My better genius strives
With the fell projects of a dark despair.
My wildered subtle spirit crawls through maze
On maze of sophistries, until at length
It gains a yawning precipice's brink.”

There are some beautifully political points. 

When the villainous Princess Eboli looks forward to going to Madrid she is told there will be an auto da fe but she says that's OK because “‘Tis only heretics they burn”.

The Queen points out that a new monarch can do anything he wants:

“make bonfires of the laws
His father left ...
Drag from his tomb, in the Escurial,
The sacred corpse of his departed sire,
Make it a public spectacle, and scatter
Forth to the winds his desecrated dust.
And then, at last, to fill the measure up
...
“End all by wedding with his mother.”

“Terror alone can tie rebellion’s hands:
Humanity were madness.”

“Far easier is the task
To make a monarch than a monarchy.”

“The monarch’s crown is bright with sparkling gems,
But no eye sees the wounds that purchased them.”

“He reverences the people! And is this
A man to be our king?"

“Thou speakest like a dreamer. This high office

Demands a man - and not a stripling’s arm.”

And there are other great quotes:

“Carlos is not one to yield to must
Where he hath power to will! ...
...
I look on naught as lost - except the dead.”

“In future, let this puppet-play of rank
Be banished from our friendship”

“Whose eye is dry was ne’er of woman born!”

“I am not wicked, father; ardent blood
Is all my failing;—all my crime is youth;—
Wicked I am not—no, in truth, not wicked;—
Though many an impulse wild assails my heart,
Yet is it still untainted.”

“Love is the only treasure on the face
Of this wide earth that knows no purchaser
Besides itself—love has no price but love.
It is the costly gem, beyond all price,
Which I must freely give away, or—bury
For ever unenjoyed”


“There are such things as double-edged swords
And untrue friends,—I fear them both.
'Tis hard to judge among mankind, but still more hard
To know them thoroughly.”

“How poor, how beggarly, thou hast become,
Since all thy love has centred in thyself!”


“Naught but the vilest falsehood!
I'll swear 'tis false! Yet what's believed by all,
Groundless and unconfirmed although it be,
Works its effect, as sure as truth itself.”

“A virtuous name
Is, after all, my liege, the only prize
Which queens and peasants' wives contest together.”

“I ne'er could stoop
To be the chisel where I fain would be—
The sculptor's self.”

“You would plant
For all eternity, and yet the seeds
You sow around you are the seeds of death!”

“He who would be of service to mankind
Must first endeavour to resemble them.”

"All virtue

Is spotless till it’s tried.”

"I have created in my Carlos' soul,
A paradise for millions! Oh, my dream
Was lovely!”


“Oh, bid him realize the dream,
The glowing vision which our friendship painted,
Of a new-perfect realm! And let him lay
The first hand on the rude, unshapened stone.
Whether he fail or prosper—all alike—
Let him commence the work. 

...
Tell him, in manhood, he must still revere
The dreams of early youth, nor ope the heart
Of heaven's all-tender flower to canker-worms
Of boasted reason,—nor be led astray
When, by the wisdom of the dust, he hears
Enthusiasm, heavenly-born, blasphemed.”

“Oh! it hath cost thee much; full well I know
How thy kind heart with bitter anguish bled
As thy hands decked the victim for the altar.”

“This fine-toned lyre broke in your iron hand,
And you could do no more than murder him.”

“I'm nothing now
But a forsaken, old, defenceless man!”

There are some surprisingly modern attitudes and some great writing here. Although I am not surprised that the main influence of this work has been in Opera (which loves a good melodrama) there are some astute character portraits and the some excellent lines.

January 2019

Other books by German authors reviewed in this blog.

Other plays that are reviewed in this blog

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Ben-Hur" by Lew Wallace

Until Gone With the Wind, Ben-Hur was the best-selling American novel. It was written by Lew Wallace who was the Governor of the territory of New Mexico who ordered the arrest of Billy the Kid.

It is melodrama. No doubt when it was published in 1880 it was written in the style of a best seller but I found it very difficult to read. There are the appeals to the reader "O! My reader" and there are the capitalisations "IT WAS THE NAZARENE", the stragne sentence structures "Both had hair and eyes black" and the preponderance of Thous and wilts and dosts and the long explanatory descriptions and the stock characters.

The first of the eight books is the story of the wise men coming to Bethlehem at the birth of Jesus and has nothing whatever to do with the main narrative which starts in book 2.

Judah is a rich young lad who lives in a big house in Jerusalem with his mum and his sister and his servants, his merchant dad having died. One of his best friends is the slightly older Roman lad called Messala (usually, for some reason, the Messala) who, perhaps because he is jealous that Judah is so extraordinarily good looking, seizes the pretext of an accident in which Judah nearly kills the Roman governor to have Judah arrested and his mum and sisters tossed into the darkest dungeons and all his property seized. Becoming a galley slave (this first part reminded me very much of The Count of Monte Cristo which is another revenge story but a far better book) kills most people within a year but it just toughens Judah until, three years later, he saves the life of a rich Roman in a shipwreck and becomes an adopted son. Of course the purpose of his life is first to find his mum and sister and second to revenge himself on Massala although he spends a good few years becoming a pampered young Roman first (learning how to become the best fighter and the best chariot racer) and then a few years more, in Jerusalem, training an army of rebels, before really setting his mind to the task.

The plot sets up some good situations and then wastes them. The high point of the film was the chariot race and there is no question that this is an important part of the story but it is over and done with just over half way through; not only that but Ben-Hur's victory isn't exactly fair and square. Sometimes the book sets up interesting conflicts such as the choice facing Judah between the beautiful but mysterious Egyptian, daughter of Wise Man Balthasar, and the humble slave for life Esther but in the end the choice is rather made for him. Similarly there is an interesting conflict facing Simonides, a slave who must embrace slavery if he recognises Judah, but the resolution is rather a damp squib. The potential enmity of Messala is defused too quickly and so is the problem that Judah is actually an escaped galley slave. Towards the end of the book Judah is a rich man with dreams of commanding a rebellion against the Romans. Then he meets Jesus and the conflicts between the two contrasting visions of Power and Glory are acknowledged but never properly explored.

I think my problem with the hero is that Judah shows very little character development of the sort required by modern audiences. As Simonides (whose story reveals true heroism both in his sacrifice for love and in his sacrifice to serve the Hur family) says when Judah waltzes in and demands that this faithful slave give him his inheritance because the fortune was achieved using the capital Simonides saved from the confiscation of Ben-Hur's assets, “The fortune cost him nothing - not an anxiety, not a drop of sweat, not so much as a thought” (B4C11) And this is the same all the way through. OK he has to serve three years as a galley slave but everything before and after that drops into this young man's lap.

And yet there are some areas of grey in the portrait Wallace paints of his hero. Messala's denouncement comes about after Judah drops a roof tile on the Roman governor's head; Judah says it was an accident but he wasn't framed. The victory in the chariot race is obtained by breaking the rules. Judah wants to be a resistance hero (a terrorist in modern terms?) and never really understands the message the Jesus is preaching. Judah's quest for his mum and sister is very easily diverted. There is so much potential nuancing that could be done with this. But I don't think Wallace realised that. I think Wallace was selling an Anerican dream in which you can be rich and powerful and beautiful and still a good Christian. I don't think, for all the cod theology burbled in this book, Wallace had the subtlety and psychological insight to turn this potentially brilliant story into a great work of literature. He was too busy trying to tell the Greatest Story Ever Told.

On the other hand I haven't written a best-seller.

I must be one of the few people in recent years to have read the book before watching the film. I have now watched the Oscar-winning Charlton Heston version. I was pleased to note that the film scrapped the first book (the story of the first Christmas) which underlined the fact that it had little to do with the plot. It also moved the chariot race, for many the peak of the drama, to a later position. Furthermore, it omitted the idea that Judah trains troops with the intention of starting a rebellion against the Romans; the film maximises the good boy potential of Judah. The old housekeeper is scrapped and her role in the leprosy sub-plot is taken by Esther. Esther's love rival (Balthasar's daughter) is removed which takes away this sub-plot but the fact the Esther has been seeing Judah's leper mum and sister without telling Judah provides the opportunity for a lover's tiff. The film (as with the book) climaxes with the crucifixion (which coincides with the healing) but later events have been compressed to get to where we are going in a more economical manner. The film therefore represents a tighter and better-paced plot while losing some nuances of character. However, the film has a serious time problem. It is widely accepted the the ministry of Jesus lasted three years but he is already going when Judah is sent to the galleys and Judah is in them for three years not to mention the extra time he spends as a playboy in Rome and therefore by the time he returns to Jerusalem Jesus sh ould already be dead and buried (and resurrected perhaps).

I enjoyed the following lines:

• “The sunburnt ways of the wilderness.” (Book 1, Chapter 1)
• “It was morning time. Before him was the sun, half curtained in fleecy mist.” (B1C1)
• “the lamp of Hindoo genius was let down a well, where ever since it has lighted narrow walls and bitter waters.” (B1C4)
• “The enemy of man is man, my brother.” (B1C5)
• “In the manner of customs, climate is a lawgiver everywhere.” (B2C3)
• “Youth is but the painted shell within which, continually growing. lives that wondrous thing the spirit of man.” (B2C4)
• “Knowledge leaves no room for chances.” (B3C2)
• “Oh, if, in being forgotten, we could only forget!” (B3C3)
• “The hair of the dancers floated free, and their limbs blushed through the robes of gauze which scarcely draped them. Words may not be used to tell of the voluptuousness of the dance.” (B4C5)
• “How many kings have you heard of who were better than their subjects?” (B4C16)
• “It is neither wise nor honest to detract from beauty as a quality.” (B5C3)
• “When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart.” (B5C8)
• “It made me restless by keeping always present a feeling that I, who have so much to do, was dropping into idle habits, and tying myself with silken chains, and after a while - and not a long while either - would end with nothing done.” (B5C9)
• “Time is in the green yet; let to-morrow answer.” (B8C2)

May 2018; 436 words

"The Invention of Murder" by Judith Flanders

A thoroughly enjoyable book.

Flanders trawls through the famous and not-so-famous murders of the 1800s and shows how they provided fodder for the broadsheet and newspaper business, and for the writers of melodramas and novels. We discover that the hunger for a story led journalists then as well as now to downright lies, inventions and deceit. The Times especially never let truth stand in the way of a good story.

She shows how playwrights and novelists embroidered real details of sordid crimes into their work. She introduced me to a vast array of melodramas I had never heard of before. She shows how Dracula, written two years after Jack the Ripper, incorporates many elements of the Ripper crimes into the text. She traces the antecedents of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White and The Moonstone and of Inspector Bucket in Dickens' Bleak House. This aspect of the book reminded me of James Shapiro's 1599 which similarly showed how events surrounding Shakespeare in 1599 provided the material for the plays he wrote in that year. What impressed me was how thin a line there is between cheap sensationalist fiction and works of art. Dickens (who loved a good murder) frequently crosses the border into melodrama. Perhaps the difference is simply in the quality of his prose, as revealed to me in The Haunted House where the stories contributed by Dickens, Collins and Mrs Gaskell are simply better written than those contributed by the other, now less well-known, writers. Quality tells in the end.

She is also remorseless in her evidence that the lower classes received a much lower standard of justice than the upper classes: judges were biased against the poor, they could not afford counsel (and in many trials they only ever got to speak in their own defence because there were not defence witnesses), and all-male, all-bourgeois jurors equated respectable prosperity with honesty. Most killers were desperate. "Helen Blackwood, a Glasgow prostitute, shared a room measuring eight feet by six feet four inches with her lover, two other prostitutes who stayed there intermittently and two homeless boys, aged nine and eleven, whom she let sleep under her bed. This was reality."

There are moments when laws were changed. She shows how the mass spectacle of public execution became abhorrent to many (especially since so many murderers were pathetic rather than evil and especially since so many hangmen were incompetent) and changed to 'private' executions inside the prison (which then hoisted a black flag). And there is the wonderful moment when Thornton, having been acquitted of murdering the woman he had sex with and having the charge of rape dropped (because the complainant is dead) is rearrested for 'appeal of murder' which was a type of private prosecution brought by the bereaved family. "When called upon to answer, whether guilty or not guilty, Thornton .... took a pair of gauntlets, put one on, throwing the other on the floor" thus challenging the complainant [who was only a boy] to Trial by Battle. He got off the third trial and emigrated to America, leading a blameless life thereafter.

There are moments of humour. One murderer called Palmer was known as the 'Rugeley Poisoner'. The good people of Rugeley applied to the Prime Minister to change the name of their town; he agreed on condition that they named it after himself, Palmerston.

It is a rollicking good read but it is made even more special by her deliciously dry sense of humour shown in numerous asides of which these are but a few:

• "Wills had a knack for turning theatrical fiction into untheatrical theatre: his adaptation of Jane Eyre drops the novel's dramatically interrupted wedding scene; instead, Jane is informed of Rochester's previous marriage in a letter."
• "... a plot so confusing there is no real resolution  because, I strongly suspect, the author could not quite work out what had happened and understandably did not want to read it over again."
• "... a notorious Secret Intelligence Office .... is so secret that the office has a brass plaque on the door: 'Secret Agent' it reads."
• A story has a swallowed suicide note discovered at post-mortem: "This may trump Paul Ferroll's confession left in his wife's grace for 'least likely place to leave a confession'."
• In another melodrama a female detective indulges "in that passion of all stage detectives, disguise, appearing as a nurse, a man and an Irish lad, as well as changing her frock (which fools everyone)."
• "The Daily News merely reported Martha Tabram's death as a 'supposed murder in Whitechapel' - which since the woman had been stabbed more than three dozen times seems to stretch the meaning of the word 'supposed' past breaking point."
• "The Times solemnly reported that the police were taking 'extra precautions': if they heard 'any cry of distress, such as 'Help', 'Murder' or 'Police', they are to hasten to the spot at once'. "What, one wonders, had their instructions been before?)

A fantastic book.

February 2012; 466 pages