To Be or Not To Be

My friend, John, and I went to see the opera Don Giavanni. This was written by Mozart and is based on the tale of Don Juan. It was a very long opera but was well done. Mozart has a clever way of telling a story.

The charactor of Don Giavanni is one of those who on the one hand is all charm and on the other a worthless philanderer. You love him and "hate" him at the same time. Mozart doesn't really portray Don's evil side as darkly as he could so hate is too strong a word to represent any ill feelings you may have for the guy. Maybe reproach would be more appropriate a description.

On our way back from the opera we were discussing this delimma, this love 'em hate em' character. He had one named Trent in his musical Deep in the Heart. Trent was an abusive asshole but he was so incredibly sexy and charming that it wasn't difficult to see how a woman could be seduced into his lair. I brought up a movie that came out in 1995 called Richard III and asked John if he had seen this movie. This was a really good example of a guy you liked and loathed at once.

He asked me if this movie had Kenneth Branagh in it. Kenneth had played many Shakespearian roles and John started telling me of the one he played in Hamlet. He went on to tell me that Robin Williams was in this movie, too. So then the conversation goes as follows:

"Really, Robin Williams was in it? Who played Brutus, then?"

"Brutus?"

"Yeah, you know, 'et tu brute?'"

"No, that line was from Julius Caesar"

"Oh. Then who played Hamlet's girlfriend. What was her name, Sophoclese or something?"

"That was Ophelia"

"Ah, yes, Ophelia. I remember. She gets killed because she is standing behind a curtain and Hamlet stabs her"

"No, no, her father was standing behind the curtain and Hamlet, thinking he was someone else, stabs him. As a matter of fact, Ophelia goes crazy from the fact that Hamlet murders her father and she frantically runs into the woods and dies."

"Oh yeah, Hamlet dies, too. He commits suicide, right? Poison I believe."

"Hamlet dies and there is poison involved but he doesn't commit suicide."

"This is the play with the witches, right?"

"Witches? That's MacBeth"

"Doesn't Hamlet start with 'There is something rotten in the state of Denmark?'"

"Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with witches."

Hmmm, I think I need to go back and re-read some Shakespeare.