Elvish To English

Richard III: The crown sits uneasy on King Kev

Spectacle assails you at every turn in the Old Vic’s strikingly theatrical Richard III.

Director Sam Mendes throws everything at it: battle drums, cloudscapes, video screens, Alice in Wonderland doors, more drums, surtitles, cross-dressing, a Mussolini hanging and yet more blasted Lambeg-style drums.
All this on the Old Vic’s enormous stage. The sheer showmanship is remarkable. Stunts, we got ’em.

Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey is the hunchbacked horror. But here’s the unexpected thing: Mr Spacey, normally so good, does not quite nail the part. He goes close, but is ultimately undone by a surfeit of sarcasm and campness.

All the appurtenances of physical disability are there. Richard has a bulbous mound for shoulders. One leg is strapped and shrivelled. His lopsidedness is there for all to see, but maybe not to feel.

Mr Spacey gives him a lot of wise-guy Americanisms. He deploys his hands like a cartoon Latino talking about his sisters. He is the sort of man who mocks his mother by raising his eyes to the ceiling while chewing on a toothpick.

He is one of those sneerers who, when challenged, says ‘so?’ and almost kisses the air with pouting conceit.

Being Mr Spacey, this is all done with aplomb. He is, as ever, a splendid performer. But where does the unique, flinty madness of Richard fit in with these off-the-peg mannerisms?

This may be unfair, but I found myself wondering if Mr Spacey’s self-esteem was an obstruction.

Director Mendes compounds the problem by introducing a big-screen close-up of Mr Spacey’s face when Richard is about to clinch the crown.

He is completely off-stage at that point. There’s just a big screen full of Spacey. Too much. His gurning wins him lots of laughs. There were even guffaws when Richard condemns the young princes to death in the Tower of London by saying: ‘I wish the bastards dead.’

It should be a line to chill us to the kidneys. But it won laughs!

This production is a transatlantic effort, with both American and English accents.

There may be something to be gained by making it international — the programme tries to argue that Shakespeare’s play is relevant to the despotism of the recent Arab world — but there is also a price.

CLYDE'S INTRO TO LANGUAGE: Elvish, then Old English, then Middle ...

I remember when the semester began, some people thought that they spoke "Old English" over in England/Britain. I knew that wasn't "Old English." I thought to myself they must mean the usage of "Thou" and "Thee" and phrases like "Thou art astonishing young sir!" You know, that sort of talk. I actually thought to myself was "Old English" during the Shakespearean era. I was wrong. Completely wrong. A few weeks ago in my Anthropology class I heard real "Old English" for the first time ever. It was indeed "astonishing." It sounds absolutely nothing like the modern English we speak today. Maybe a few words here and there but very very very few. I believe the word "father" was one of the few words to not have changed throughout the centuries. If you watch the video above it is the prologue from the poem Beowulf spoken in Old English. Listening to it, if you have a sharp ear - it kind of sounds like a Scandinavian language or Germanic. Well, I found out that English language was jump started by the invasions of the Anglo, Saxon and Jute tribes that were invading what we know today as the United Kingdom. During that time they spoke the Celtic language in the United Kingdom. So over one thousand years ago those three Germanic tribes kept invading. Their language was mixing, blending, morphing and borrowing from each other. That happened for a few hundred years. So even after that it still sounded nothing like the language we speak today. And with that in mind, how long will it take for our current English language to drastically change to the point we don't understand it. Will we even be speaking to each other in words in the future? Will we be speaking in acronyms? Will we even have crazy telepathic powers that will allow us to just use our minds? Or maybe Spanglish plus the dominance of the Chinese economy will all have us speaking Chiespanglish. Who knows. Oh yes, what does this all have to do with Elvish? If you've ever seen Lord of The Rings, you'll know about the famous Elves. The tall, powerful, magical elves. Well, if you didn't know - their language isn't just "made up" but it was actually created by J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the books. He was a lover of language and a philologist (one who studies language in old, ancient literature). He considered his native language and origin to be of Middle English from the West Mid-lands. So anyways, Tolkien graduated with a specialty in Old Norse.

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