Jay Harvey Upstage

Among the many ways music can contribute to visually accessible performance media, 'Cirque de la Symphonie' is perhaps the most spectacular. A full symphony orchestra adds so much more to what is already a mesmerizing display of precision acrobatics, graceful and appealing props and costumes, and extraordinary muscular control and balance. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is ending its 2013-14 pops season this weekend with four shows by this international troupe. (Remaining are tonight's 8 o'clock show and Sunday afternoon's "symFUNY Sundays Series" performance at 3.) Tsarkov applies foot dexterity to rings in an appearance with another orchestra. Conducted by Jack Everly, who a couple of days ago extended his contract as ISO pops music director through the 2022-23 season, Friday's performance seemed close to flawless — a couple of well-covered juggling drops being the sole exception. The orchestra was putting its best foot forward, too...

  Whatever we most desire may be no more than what's destined to reveal us to ourselves The Argument: “Desiring this man’s [Prospero’s] art and that man’s [Hamlet’s] scope” [Sonnet 29], the poet-playwright Shakespeare (known familiarly as “Will” and never indifferent to punning) doubts that either of his famous creatures suffices to establish the independence of human action. Browbeating his environment, which comprises the spirits and half-human monster he controls, its tempest-tossed newcomers, and his daughter, Prospero the wizard indulged his will by supernatural means. Hamlet never enjoyed that advantage when it came to testing his will and distinguishing it from the enormity of what he could not overmaster. T.S. Eliot: His Prufrock has unwitting bond with Hamlet. The Prince is a new kind of tragic hero, for he is brought down by no idiosyncratic flaw, but a universal one. That has been acknowledged throughout the culture in allusions usu...

'Pure potentiality'  exhausts itself on Prospero's island The Argument: “Desiring this man’s [Prospero’s] art and that man’s [Hamlet’s] scope” [Sonnet 29], the poet-playwright Shakespeare (known familiarly as “Will” and never indifferent to punning) doubts that either of his famous creatures suffices to establish the independence of human action. "Your tale, sir, would cure deafness."  — Miranda to Prospero, "The Tempest," Act I, Scene 2  [A second epigraph in honor of today's holiday]  "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts." — Ophelia to Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius, "Hamlet," Act IV, Scene 5 The staggered, staggering Hamlet confronts mysteries of action that Prospero, through his “rough magic,” rigorously circumvents. The isolated wizard is abrupt and fierce in command, a nasty boss to the re...

Did Shakespeare have writing problems when addressing the free will/determinism dilemma? The Argument: “Desiring this man’s [Prospero’s] art and that man’s [Hamlet’s] scope” [Sonnet 29], the poet-playwright Shakespeare (known familiarly as “Will” and never indifferent to punning) doubts that either of his famous creatures suffices to establish the independence of human action.   The Emersonian dictum that character, possibly predetermined, instills lessons beyond our conceit of voluntary control damages the high stature that our consciences would give morality. Prince Hamlet's moral sense gradually atrophies as a check upon or guide to his own behavior. Like many intellectuals, Hamlet is cavalier about the feelings and fortunes of others in pursuing his one Big Idea — the possibly ineffectual nature of the will. The pursuit of such an idea is not without a moral dimension, but to enter that dimension requires donning something close to t...

Calisthenics for the will: Keeping 'out of the shot and danger of desire'   The Argument: “Desiring this man’s [Prospero’s] art and that man’s [Hamlet’s] scope” [Sonnet 29], the poet-playwright Shakespeare (known familiarly as “Will” and never indifferent to punning) doubts that either of his famous creatures suffices to establish the independence of human action. "O, you must wear your rue with a difference."                                  -- Ophelia to Queen Gertrude ("Hamlet," Act IV, Scene 5) Early in "Hamlet," the Prince is eager to see whether what may feel like a determined course can be altered by force of will.   Rising to the fore in this scrutiny is an abundance of sexual disgust. Why does sex preoccupy him so? I think Hamlet’s doubts about our command of will explain it.  He is at one with the view of St. Augustine, summari...

Hamlet can never rule from the throne, so he tries to do so from the majesty of his mind The Argument: “Desiring this man’s [Prospero’s] art and that man’s [Hamlet’s] scope” [Sonnet 29], the poet-playwright Shakespeare (known familiarly as “Will” and never indifferent to punning) doubts that either of his famous creatures suffices to establish the independence of human action. Common sense and vanity lie at the bottom of this new, unsatisfying revision of the Cartesian foundation: “I think, therefore I must suppose that I act freely.” It’s a porous basis for the defense of free will.   It’s what troubles Hamlet throughout his play. It’s the situation Prospero circumvents by using magic to extend his conscious mind, his force of will, to direct events from beginning to end on the island he has appropriated. John Stuart Mill put the problem of free will like this: “The metaphysical theory of free will, as held by philosophers…, was in...

Why two great Shakespearean heroes must be the way they are The Argument: “Desiring this man’s [Prospero’s] art and that man’s [Hamlet’s] scope” [Sonnet 29], the poet-playwright Shakespeare (known familiarly as “Will” and never indifferent to punning) doubts that either of his famous creatures suffices to establish the independence of human action. The “desert island” scenario beloved of cartoonists is based on the humor of privation. There are one or two ragged and bereft figures who are otherwise like us. Their back story is absent, but they come from places we can relate to. What they have to do without also applies to the natural environment they find themselves in. The popular misinterpretation of “desert” to mean sandy waste (instead of “deserted” or “uninhabited”) gives us the cartoon cliché of a small patch, maximum elevation 3 feet or so, usually with one tropical tree in the middle. New knowledge amid the lack of just about everything life requires is ...