Burbage Brook

Burbage Brook, Padley Gorge, Grindleford, Peak District, Derbyshire, England

by Joe Daniel Price

But more actors succeed as Lear than not and, rather than itemise them, I have picked out those who have enriched our understanding of the play: acting, at best, is a form of practical criticism and teaches you more than the textbooks ever could. The stock image of Lear when I started going to the theatre was of some Blakeian Ancient of Days tottering around a Stonehenge-like set but that was forever banished by Paul Scofield’s performance in Peter Brook’s 1962 production. For a start Scofield was only 40 when he played Lear: roughly the same age as Richard Burbage in the first known performance in 1606.

More importantly, Scofield gave us a testy crew-cut autocrat who never demanded our sympathy even if he ultimately gained it. It was Brook’s idea to present the play with a moral neutrality so that Goneril and Regan reasonably objected to the presence of Lear’s obstreperous knights. But it was Scofield, with that voice that could cut through metal, who showed us that Lear was driven by a desire to punish his daughters: “I shall go mad!”, as Tynan noted, became a threat rather than a pathetic prediction.

Burbage Brook

Burbage Brook in Padley Gorge on a foggy morning #Sky #Branch #Tree #Tranquility #TranquilScene #Nature #Outdoors #autumn #ScenicsNature #woodland #photo #photographer #photography #photooftheday #image #imageoftheday #canonuk #tamronuk #3lt #peak_district_national_park #derbyshire #fog #foggy #sunlight #TreeTrunk #Autumn #Waterfall #Motion #Green #growth (at Padley Gorge, Peak District) https://www.instagram.com/p/CluFSfOD49s/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I know I must be the one of the most shameless R&J shipper on this site and probably on the Internet, but I still maintain that nobody, and I mean nobody, will ever ship R&J more than the play itself ships R&J.

The Cauldron - Fire Water by phosgrapheuk

Stanley Royle 

Burbage Brook 1919

Footbridge over Burbage Brook by Andrew Kearton Via Flickr: Well known little bridge above Padley Gorge in the Peak District.

PERSONALITY TYPES AND NAME MEANINGS.

first name: charity

meaning: voluntary giving of help

hogwarts house: gryffindor

traits: daring, nerve, chivalry

archetype out of the 49: the catalyst

traits: out-of-the-box, social, energizing

zodiac sign: leo

traits: passionate, generous, arrogant

alignment: chaotic good

traits: unpredictable, kind, carefree

mbti: enfj

traits: reliable, charismatic, altruistic

patronus: dolphin

traits: lovable, active, adaptable

last name: burbage

meaning: lived at the brook of the burg

Burbage Brook in Padley Gorge

Lots of peat-stained water flowing down Burbage Brook through Padley Gorge yesterday after a night of heavy rain. #burbagebrook #padleygorge #peakdistrict #peakdistrictnationalpark #peakdistrictwalks #peakdistrictphotography #canonm50 (at Padley Gorge) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVu4GGeD25u/?utm_medium=tumblr

Yellow Oak leaves on a moss covered old Oak bough with twisty branches leading into the distance. Taken at Burbage brook in the Peak District, Derbyshire.

Things seen between 6 and 9am //

A stopped-me-in-my-tracks paragraph in my reading on nature connectedness has been the negative impact of often / always seeing the negative in nature. If i’m always grumbling about parking, or pointing a camera at a pile of rubbish, or spending my days clearing chemical waste from a brook then slowly but (psychologists suggest) surely my own brain will come to associate going outside and in to nature as not ‘connecting’ with nature, but ‘connecting’ with things in an environment that cause me stress and angst. Therein lies the conundrum that to connect with nature one needs to remove distractions and notice, see, observe, and take interest in more, but in doing that isn’t one more liable to see the issues around parking, litter, fires etc. more .... ? //

On a much lighter note i did actually see an Ouzel this morning. I wasn’t fast enough with the lens, but i saw it fly over to Burbage West and sat and watched it for a while. Conversations with other twitchers suggest there may be as many as 5 in the valley now. Here’s hoping ....

Higger Tor from Burbage Brook

Sometimes, when I deign to trawl through the R&J tag and then almost instantly regretting it, I like to imagine what the first Elizabethean fandom for Romeo and Juliet was like in its heyday. We know that the play was popular, especially with the youths (“I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow / Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo”) and in the Parnassus play written by Oxford college students, a character Gullio, who is meant to be the stereotypical ultimate Shakespeare fanboy, enters and another character complains “we shall have naught but Romeo and Juliet now.” Sure enough, Gullio almost instantly quotes from R&J.

So now I’m imagining a fandom of collectively flailing Elizabethean young adult grammar students, apprentices, and law students utterly destroyed from seeing the play at the Curtain (“Er, farest thou well?” “No, I do not fare well, fellows, I am unDONE, look not for me, I am returned to earth as dust” “I knew t’was a tragedy but I did not know I. would. CARE”) and they talk and joke and make memes and inside jokes until even the mention of “a full half of an hour” (the time it takes Juliet to wake up after Romeo dies) makes them automatically start wailing and becomes a meme shorthand for the time it takes for any tragedy to occur. There would have been fans who stan the actors hard, especially Burbage who made such a great Romeo people would still remember it years later as one of his best roles. There would finally have been a fandom for Shakespeare himself when they finally realize he wrote the play and also for his portrayal of the Chorus and the Friar, and the early fans of Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare’s narrative poem, would have been “fINALLY, the people hath appreciated our sweet word wizard, come ye to the dark side, we have lusty goddesses and horses galore.” (And then proceed to gatekeep, of course). There would have been almost exclusively Mercutio stans, including the actor (I headcanon John Heminges, Shakespeare’s real-life BFF). There would have been Elizabethean fuckboys using R&J lines to pick up girls (yes, this actually happened).

And oh, and the wank! Imagine the fans of Shakespeare’s R&J versus the OG fans of Arthur Brooks’ version AND the hipster fans of the original Italian sources fighting constantly and gatekeeping so hard, with the latter insisting that Shakespeare’s play ruined and dumbed down the original’s message about the consequences of teenage lust and disobeying your parents and the Shakespeare fans basically replying “yes we know ‘tis canon but since t’was the most asinine decision yet set upon calfskin, our lord and master of our earthly souls Will Shakespeare declined to accept it, and I know not what you may think on it, but methought t’was truly the fairest thing” and “the Theater play was BETTER, that is flat, therefore hie you all hence home, you stink with drink.” I wouldn’t even be surprised if there were a tiny faction of Romeo/Rosaline shippers who are also hardcore Petrarchan stans and those fans would have been just. universally hated by the greater fandom. No matter the receipts you pull out, no matter the argument, they just won’t accept the Romilet endgame and uphold Rosaline as Romeo’s True Love. Things are made worse by the fact that the only source for the play text is a bootlegged quarto with some deleted BTS material but otherwise very low quality and inaccurate text. The fans are especially furious at the botched marriage scene with an OOC R&J.

Then finally in ‘97 or thereabouts a quarto with the whole complete and accurate text comes out and the fandom goes wild. They have memorized the play, naturally, but the naked page provides many possibilities for other interpretations and the fans can finally, visibly see that Romeo and Juliet’s first interaction makes a perfect sonnet (something that most diehard fans picked up but seeing it so clearly on the page is...something else. “THIS SHIP SAILETH ITSELF” is the common response). It is a deathblow to Romaline, thankfully, but it also incurs a general robust backlash re: the whiny OG fans of Arthur Brooks who are and forever will be salty at Shakespeare’s changes (“they did not speak so long in the Brooks, they kissed almost presently which is how it should be for that ‘tis a ~love~ based on nothing less than mere LUXURY” “hold thy tongue, knave, or I shall cut it out of thee”).

So while the grammar kids are supposed to analyze their Ovid and Seneca, they are reading the quarto version of Romeo and Juliet on the sly, whispering favorite lines and headcanons, leading their scandalized grammar profs to decry the death of learning!!!1!! and the Puritans harangue the Theater and Curtain playhouses for their gross irresponsibility in portraying unhallowed teenage lust as love in front of impressionable teen boys and once again the inherent lewdness of such an erotically-charged story conveyed by all-male actors (“The beast is among us and lo, she is hight the Theater!!1!!!”).

At last the Middle Temple issues a kind but strongly worded reminder to all law students that no, you can’t petition a writ of distringas [restraining order] against a play poet on the basis of “his Romeo causing great emotional damage for that I must lie down and weep every #full half of an hour” because it will be dismissed by the Star Court and most any court in the realm. It also feels the need to write to inform Master William Shakespeare of the phenomenon, politely inquiring, um, what the hell. All this for a stage play you penned???? Shakespeare just smiles wryly.