First Folio Is More Than Just A Book. Shakespeare Exhibit at the Tweed Stirs Generations.

During the month of May the Tweed Museum of Art has played host to a traveling exhibit from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. called First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare. Numerous activities have been organized around this touring exhibit, including projects for youth, special speakers and more.

Yesterday afternoon the art gallery was abuzz with art projects related to Shakespeare. Alison Aune and crew had set up stations where kids could work on themed projects. One room featured materials for assembling miniature books. Another room featured materials for making theater masks. In a third area I saw young people making crowns All of it was designed to inspire to renewed interest in the life and work of William Shakespeare on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his death.

The centerpiece of the traveling exhibit is a book, one of an estimated 750 copies of the first published collection of the works of William Shakespeare. There are an estimated 233 remain in existence, and though rare I am guessing that if this were the only one it would not be on the road as it has been. In point of fact the Folger Shakespeare Library owns 82 of these 233 copies of the folio, and what makes this book exciting to people is that many of Shakespeare's plays would have been lost in the abyss of history had this book not been published.

In addition to this First Folio exhibit you will discover a Costumes & Stagecraft For Shakespeare display in several halls of the gallery, on loan from the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis displaying elements that reveal the world of theater that Shakespeare's plays fostered. You'll enjoy the elaborate costumes and miniature sets that were invented and constructed to help directors and characters envision the stories they would tell on the stage.

"All the world's a stage..."

Years ago I heard a five minute radio clip by Dan Rather of CBS in which he recited sayings and phrases that have become permanently embedded in our language today that originated with Mr. Shakespeare. "All's Well That Ends Well" is the title of a play. When we talk about a comedy of errors, this too was taken from the title of another play, "Comedy of Errors." There's something in the wind, we often say. The notion of killing with kindness can be found in another play of his. And the phrase "star-crossed lovers" was popularized in Romeo and Juliet. I'm just whetting your appetite here.

Elaborate costume from Midsummer Night's Dream.

His themes were the themes of life: love, longing, fear and death, expectation, greed, villainy and mercy. Just as Dylan mined the American folk and blues traditions, Shakespeare summoned inspiration from all the previous ages of literature while incorporating the latest discoveries of the emerging modern world.

This traveling exhibition will be folding up its curtains on October 26, so you have ten days to get up to the campus to take it in.

There are several other noteworthy exhibitions on display right now, as well. The balcony annex has a challenging showcase of the thought-provoking works of Juan Logan titled Whose Song Shall I Sing? It's relevance is inescapable in our current climate of racial discord and stereotyping.

A whimsical photo exhibition titled Head in the Clouds is also enjoyable and effective.

If you've not been to the Tweed before, you really must make the effort. This is a first class art museum, a real treasure for the community. You'll find it on the UMD campus.

"All the world ‘s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." ~As You Like It

And if you can't remember your lines, well... just do the best you can. You only live once.

An Invitation to Experience William Shakespeare's First Folio, Now On Display In Duluth

"Some are born great; others achieve greatness." ~Twelfth Night

First Folio is in town. Throughout the month of October Duluth is celebrating the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's passing with the traveling exhibition titled First Folio, the first published collection of Shakespeare's work.

Here's the announcement I received late last month regarding this event. (I removed a few of the exclamation points to keep it from sounding winded and panting.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TWEED MUSEUM OF ART OFFERS ENGAGING NEW EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS THIS FALL

Duluth, MN - Tweed Museum of Art is pleased to announce its Fall 2016 exhibitions and events news.

The big buzz around campus is all about the Shakespeare's First Folio. The Tweed Museum of Art and the University of Minnesota Duluth are proud to host the original First Folio of Shakespeare, during the month of October (4-26), as part of a national touring exhibition celebrating 400 years of the bard. We are the ONLY site in the state of Minnesota to host it. 

Although this is the main attraction, we are also offering a range of must-see exhibitions in the other galleries, some to supplement the Folio exhibition. For instance, the Guthrie Theater from Minneapolis loaned us a selection of Elizabethan period costumes that will beautifully complement the Folio. Then, in November, you will get acquainted with a significant installation curated by Mexican-American artist Maria Cristina Tavera, who took the traditional "casta" and translated it into her own concept of mixed ethno-racial identity. Dr. Jaime Ratliff, art historian in the School of Fine Arts at UMD, co-curated the exhibition and will join us next year to give us her interpretation as an expert scholar. As always, we take great pride in featuring marvelous artworks from the permanent collection, displayed in exhibitions organized thematically. We invite you to visit the Tweed to wander through the galleries to discover and learn. See you at the museum!

If you missed the October 6 opening reception, don't worry. Here's a link to an outline of related events during First Folio's brief stay in Duluth.

That William Shakespeare was one of literary history's bright stars is generally accepted as a given. This passage outlines the magnitude of his brightness.

Shakespeare certainly knew how to combine intellect with entertainment, literariness with popular appeal. He became a star, famous for a tone of voice and dramatic focus that challenged genres, broke moulds, and questioned who had the right to rule. He got under the skin of imagined rulers, as well as real ones. The courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I made much of Shakespeare whose companies performed before their monarch 170 times during his lifetime, and continued to do so long after his death for King Charles I, another Shakespeare enthusiast, who had grown up enjoying the plays. Shakespeare inspired his contemporaries who often alluded to his work. His friend and collaborator, John Fletcher, even wrote a sequel to The Taming of the Shrew which he called The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. Shakespeare has continued to be life-giving for successive generations of readers and theatre-goers. Today his popularity and significance are greater than ever.*

Here's more from the same blog:

His work can shock, amuse, move, comfort, inform, entertain, and appall. Shakespeare stares life in the face and shows us what life might be like if we hoped and imagined enough (‘Prove true, imagination, O, prove true’ says Viola in Twelfth Night, or What You Will, 3.4.367). Or, he warns us what might happen if we were to behave cruelly. The whole of King Lear seems like a timeless prophecy about the collapse of civilization. Human beings can all too soon become ‘like monsters of the deep’ and prey upon one another (The History of King Lear, 4.2.49). Shakespeare is open about human desires, whether they are sexual, political, religious, pioneering, ambitious, compassionate, or controlling. He presents emotions that he never felt (the guilt after murdering a monarch, for example), creates space for us to find something of ourselves in them, never preaches and always demands and deserves a complex response.*

Naturally I can't let this passage about Shakespeare go unremarked. He "certainly knew how to combine intellect with entertainment, literariness with popular appeal. He became a star, famous for a tone of voice and dramatic focus that challenged genres, broke moulds, and questioned who had the right to rule. He got under the skin of imagined rulers, as well as real ones." The description fits Bob Dylan like a glove. This passage, too: "His work can shock, amuse, move, comfort, inform, entertain, and appall."

Needless to say, Dylan was born here in Duluth and he was not "born great." He achieved his greatness the hard way. It's nice to see the original bard's handiwork on display here, 400 years after the playwright/poet's passing.

Make an effort to see this First Folio exhibition or attend a few of its events. This is a rare opportunity to gain close proximity to a significant piece of history.

Meantime, life doth go on all around thee. Don't be a maltworm. Embrace it.

* http://bloggingshakespeare.com/why-shakespeare-still-matters

Libations at the Library 2016, Another Wonderful Event

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” 
― Jorge Luis Borges

Last night the Duluth Public Library once again hosted its annual Learning & Libations at the Library, an event that combines fundraising with hobnobbing, wine and entertaining educators. By "entertaining educators" I mean local presenters of information on various themes related to our Northland, from the Locally Laid story to Old & New World Wines to the Gardens of Glensheen to Wandering Through September. I myself attended Phil Fitzpatrick's Bob Dylan presentation and Dr. Krista Sue-Lo Twu's Shakespeare presentation related to the First Folio exhibition that is coming to UMD in October.

A table of contents for the event would go something like this: a preface, intro, 2 chapters of your choosing and an epilogue. The preface consisted of drinks, hors d'oeuvres and the commencement of a silent auction. At 6:45 library foundation president Dan D'Allard welcomed us (the introduction) and with a few brief remarks, including acknowledgements, ushered us off to our first presentations in various locations about the library. After two chapters of one hour "lectures" we re-convened around more delights as an epilogue.

I proceeded to the Gold Room for Phil Fitzpatrick's "A Dylan Hour" which proved to be a thoroughly engaging tour through the foggy trail of time regarding one of the mysteries of our Native Son. Mr. Fitzpatrick opined that his efforts to "solve the mystery" failed miserably. Everyone who attended would likely say the antithesis, he succeeded in shining a light on Dylan's not all-that-obscure connections to his roots.

The second presentation I attended dealt with Shakespeare's First Folio which will be on display here during the month of October. Ms. Twu, whose accolades and achievements include studying Shakespeare at Cambridge (one item on a list as long as your arm), was introduced as "smarter than you are." The traveling exhibit First Folio is on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Throughout the month there are daily activities scheduled to make this a truly rewarding opportunity for the community. The Grand Opening is slated for October 6, in the event this is not yet on your event horizon.

2016, for what it's worth, is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's passing. Christa Twu devoted her time to sharing with us the significance of the historical period in which Shakespeare lived and moved, a transitional time from the Early Modern to Renaissance era. Her insights helped but a context on the life of Shakespeare and will

Here are a few items of note that I gleaned from the presentation. Of the 36 plays in this 1623 volume, 18 had never been printed before, including MacBeth and The Tempest. Approximately 750 copies were printed, but we only know the whereabouts of 233 today.

The reason folio sized books were the size they were was because they were proportional to the lambskin parchment that preceded printed paper books. The sheath of paper is about the size of a skinned lamb. Folding the paper in half and half again produces proportionally smaller sized volumes. Just as language has ancient roots that we're unaware of, so books have their own forgotten histories.

William Shakespeare was born during the reign of Elizabeth I, and later lived during the reign of King James VI. This was a significant time in the history of ideas. In the realm of religion the Protestant Reformation showed people they could have an unmediated relationship with God through the Bible. In order to read the Bible people had to know how to read, so this was a period of increased literacy. People can only be readers as long as they have time to read.

It was during this time that men like Galileo (1564-1642) and Kepler (1571-1630)  showed that the earth was not center of the universe. This was also a time of global exploration and the world was being mapped as it was, not as it was imagined. We learned about the what was taking place in Japan and China, the Middle East and Americas, and how all this was reflected in various ways in the plays of William S.

First Folio cost 20 shillings if you wished to own the works of Shakespeare when it was first produced. That would translate to $200 today.

For four Fridays in October you can see First Folio! the book that gave us Shakespeare at the Duluth Public Library. Look for announcements regarding other events, times and places, taking place throughout that month.

As regards the Phil Fitzpatrick presentation... that deserves a blog post all its own, if not three.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Embrace it.