I have been caught up recently in the addressing of characters within this play.
For the Duke, I have not yet come across a point where he refers to Proteus as "Sir", like Speed or others do. The Duke shares such respectful addresses to Valentine and others so far in our rehearsing of the play. I'm not sure exactly why yet but I'm interested in what conclusions i can form as our rehearsals progress. Anyone find anything similar?
When it comes to thee vs. you, I hit a cool little discovery today while rehearsing with Prof. Kelly and Bobby. When the Duke knows of Valentine's plot to steal Rapunzel from her tower, he strings him along to verify the discovery and delay the plan. According to John Basil and many others, the use of thee vs. you denotes stage directions and degree of formality. Ignoring the stage directions side of the word choice, I looked at the Duke's using of thee and thou towards Valentine in this scene and read not only a lack of formality, but saw that he was trying to make him feel extremely comfortable and casual, eventually leading Valentine's guard coming down for the sweet Temple of Doom move of ripping his live heart out of his chest while he stands.
Fun stuff eh?
...Um...Jarom...I don't think that last thing happens in our show...
ReplyDeleteWow. Your Duke is totally badass.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's an intriguing application of the second person distinction to that scene!
ReplyDeleteIt makes me smile to think of how different - judging from what you said, at least - our cast's Duke/Valentine 3.1 scene is. Dan is definitely supposed to make me as uncomfortable as possible in that scene.
Also, one thing that always struck me as conspicuous is that Valentine sometimes uses "thee/thou" with Proteus and sometimes "you." He's not always informal with his friend...
I notice that in 3.2 Thurio and the Duke refer to Proteus as you, up until the very end. The Duke uses thou to address Proteus at the end of the scene. Then Thurio says, "And thy advice this night I'll put in practice." In the next line, he calls him "Sweet Proteus." I think that as Proteus gains the trust of Thurio and the Duke, they begin to address him more familiarly.
ReplyDeleteBut by Thurio's next scene he's back to saying calling Proteus you. So it seem dependent on that moment.
AJ: The Rapunzel comment was just a joke based on what I was thinking of while rehearsing the "she's in a tower" dialogue
ReplyDeleteAngelina: Thanks. Still lacking some specificity in character which might change those motives a bit but I hope he's bad ass.
Jonathan: That is interesting. You have me interested in checking your connection a little further. Thou vs. You and how one may derive character motive from such addresses might be a worthwhile thesis...I may just look at such possibilities.
Monica: Yep, I started to pick some of that in deeper detail after I posted the comment. It still is cool to see how the addresses fit the moments and how they, in turn, connect to fit the play and overall relationships within it.