Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

In honor of St. Patrick's day:

Sailing to Byzantium

Audio Performance by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Text on The Literature Network


About W. B. Yeats:

Poets.org
Wikipedia

Sonnet 146 by William Shakespeare "Poor Soul, The Centre of My Sinful Earth"

Sonnet 146

by William Shakespeare

Performed by Bob Gonzalez

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Feeding these rebel pow’rs that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servants’ loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more: So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, And death once dead, there's no more dying then.

Beware the Ides of March

A Selection of Speeches from Julius Caesar performed by me in the
Rhapsodize Audio rhapsody, A Shakespeare Gallimaufry

I am including images from the 1953 film version because this was my first exposure to the play and it still holds a warm place in my heart. Above you see the legendary John Gielgud as Cassius (left) and the formidable James Mason as Brutus (right). I learned much from listening to both these men handle the language. One could listen to Gielgud for years on end and still have more to learn from him. He was phenomenal. I actually performed a mini one-man version of the whole play within my We Are Such Stuff solo Shakespeare show in 2000. It included all of the speeches contained in the audio recording.

Brando is amazing when you consider he had never done Shakespeare before. I loved him when I saw the movie and when I was first listening to the audio highlights in the 1970s. Now I think he is just shouting and rushing through the verse, and Gielgud thinks he was doing a bad Olivier impression, but it's really quite good for the time and for a look at what a phenomenal force-of-nature actor like Brando could do with the role.

I'd like to perform in the play sometime, although I believe I may be getting too old for it now. My preferred part would be Cassius, although I would accept Caesar if it was offered me.

Joyful Noise

Joyful Noise

A Rhapsody of Judeo-Christian Scripture

performed live by rhapsode Bob Gonzalez
November, 1989 at Unity Church, Tampa, Florida

featuring Psalms 100, 8, 23 (in both Hebrew and English), 24, 51, 63, 91, and 103.
Also, Genesis, Isaiah, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus's Three Temptations in the Wilderness, and Paul's Ode to Love in I Corinthians 13

Full Collection on the Internet Archive

Sonnet 33 by William Shakespeare

Here's a little experiment with combining some moving visual imagery with my audio performance of Shakespeare's sonnet. Simple, but interesting. At least, I hope you find it so.

Sonnet 33: Full Many a Glorious Morning

A Day With Walt Whitman

This is the third and final chapter I recorded from May Gillington Byron's book, A Day With Great Poets, for LibriVox.

A Day With Walt Whitman     45:20

This performance of Byron's chapter features passages from Whitman's greatest poetry woven with biographical data condensed into an imagined day in his life.

A Day with John Keats

This is a another chapter I recorded for LibriVox from a book by May Gillington Byron titled A Day With Great Poets, which blends selections from Keats' greatest poetry with biographical information condensed into an imaginative "day in the life of" narrative.

A Day with John Keats  46:28

I'll post the chapter I recorded about Walt Whitman tomorrow.

Enjoy your day with Mr. Keats!

A Day With Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Here's a chapter I performed from a wonderful Librivox recording called
A Day With Great Poets by May Gillington Byron:

A Day With Samuel Taylor Coleridge   47:36

It blends selections of his greatest works with biographical information condensed into an imaginative "day in the life of" narrative.

I've also done one on Keats and Whitman, which I'll post another day.

Enjoy a day with Mr. Coleridge!

Calling All Rhapsodes

One of the goals of my tour is to discover and encourage rhapsodes. I do believe that some others are doing this. Benjamin Bagby performs Beowulf. But I want to find the people that are doing it more low-profile. Not poets reading their own works, not slam poets performing their works, but true rhapsodes -- performers of classic poetry. The emphasis is on the performance. Not that the words are subjugated to the performance. No, the great rhapsode, like the great actor, holds the words of the poet as sacred. But the words alone are not going to convey full meanings to an audience. It is the rhapsode's task to discover all the potential power of the words and embody them in performance. Giving a "flat" reading is no more respectful of the text than is a lover who merely assumes that his beloved knows his love.

Maybe rhapsodizing is not so prevalent. Certainly, it is under the radar. When do your ever hear of people performing a show consisting of nothing but classic poetry? Rarely. I'm sure poetry readings happen in libraries, but I'll bet that's mostly original poetry. The tradition of a solo Shakespeare show goes back at least to the early twentieth century, possibly before. John Gielgud's Ages of Man and Ian McKellen's Acting Shakespeare are possibly the most well-known examples.

A Live Rhapsode Tour

I am planning a live rhapsode tour in the spring semester of 2015. It is a part of my sabbatical, for which I had to submit a proposal of activity to be vetted by the Faculty Development Committee at my university. It's quite ambitious, at least for me. I plan to perform 2 to 4 solo rhapsodies each month during January, February, March, April, and May in Florida, Georgia, Connecticut, and Wisconsin. I plan to perform -- or at least offer -- four separate solo shows to the venues I contact: one centering on Shakespeare, one on Whitman, one on Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and one a medley (or rhapsody) of several classic poets. I plan to offer these to theaters, schools, libraries, museums, and virtually any place that can provide me with a performance space and a potential audience. I have not done a full-length live rhapsodic performance since fall 2010 and it's time to go back in front of a live audience.

One of my purposes is to accelerate the Rhapsodize initiative that has stalled a bit because of my involvement in academic matters for at least the past year, if not more. I'm really as or more interested in starting a movement of rhapsodic performance than in just performing myself. But perhaps I can get some momentum going by going on the road, as limited a tour as this may turn out to be.

I know NOTHING about touring and booking tours, so I have purchased a couple books to get me started, but I admit I have been procrastinating because this entire venture really frightens me. I don't like travel at all, so I need to face and overcome this. Additionally, I see the booking process as somewhat tedious, but I need to see it rather as an adventure. I have been researching and getting in contact with others solo touring theatre performers, particularly Tim Mooney and Elaine Bromka, and hope to learn much from them when I meet them in person.

Here's are links to Tim Mooney's Website,  Tim Mooney's Blog and Tim Mooney's YouTube page.

Here is a link to Elaine Bromka's Tea for Three clip and a link to one of her Demo Reels.