tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5241063190450464888.post5502387261093213104..comments2024-01-06T18:34:30.188-08:00Comments on I Witness: Shakespeare in the AtticIWitnessEdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18312808828448124509noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5241063190450464888.post-36167043709326822842011-01-15T11:01:18.606-08:002011-01-15T11:01:18.606-08:00Horwitz researched and wrote among Southern reenac...Horwitz researched and wrote among Southern reenactors only. I think Yankees do it for a lark--to dress up, shoot guns, feel a part of history. Many Rebels have a different agenda; truly there are a host of Southerners who continue to feel betrayed. The one-two punch of the loss/surrender and the subsequent occupation (Reconstruction) by Yankee carpetbaggers and new-citizen black people put in positions of power over the defeated white folks(and much corruption resulted) left a deep wound that has never healed--thus the birth of the Klan, institutionalized racism, mythologising about Jackson, Lee, Stuart, the "Lost Cause" and Southern gentility (all gone with the wind). <br /><br />So Rebel reenactors proceed from a very different perspective; they dream of winning the battles, not just recreating them. Of course, not all are crazy or racist, and maybe I was unfair to South Carolina (but the current governor and most of the state's congressmen don't inspire much beyond disgust), but the Horwitz book's cover photo is contemporary, and Tony spent many days with that deadly-serious, fanatical gent. Black people are safer in Atlanta than the surrounding country, Montgomery's whites tout the birth of the Confederacy and reluctantly acknowledge MLK Jr., Texas has crazy people in office and carrying guns in the streets, and Miss'ippi's still the most backward state even with writers like Faulkner, Welty, Morris, and Grisham reporting in. <br /><br />From the fife and drums of the Hill Country to the fiery end of Lynyrd Skynyrd, from can't-kill-'im-off Jerry Lee to the megahits of Brooks and Dunn, the Rebel flag flies high. Dig out your Confederate money, Alan--the South is rising again.IWitnessEdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18312808828448124509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5241063190450464888.post-4808881976483612762011-01-15T00:30:14.713-08:002011-01-15T00:30:14.713-08:00Fascinating subject. I get why scholars and theate...Fascinating subject. I get why scholars and theater people (not that those categories are mutually exclusive) obsess over Shakespeare 400 years after his death. I cannot, however, understand the appeal to reenactors of the Civil War 150 years after its end.<br /><br />You lived in the South. What's up with that? I mean, once committed to reenactment, it makes sense to strive for accuracy even down to the smallest detail. But why reenact? And why that war? You mention Ku Klux Klan rallies and support of the Confederate flag "in that continuing bastion of racism and stupidity, South Carolina." But are reenactors generally racists and stupid?<br /><br />I imagine that if Shakespeare could write about American Civil War reenactors it would be a comedy, not a tragedy, yet contain characters as complex as his always are. The problem is that Civil War reenactments are not penned by Shakespeare; they're staged by otherwise seemingly ordinary people. To me, it's a puzzlement. Do you reckon that 150 years from now Americans will spend their summer days reenacting the war in Vietnam? "The horror …"Alan Kurtzhttp://www.amazon.com/Stereotypes-Black-Music-African-American-Compromise/dp/1453853669/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291054567&sr=1-1noreply@blogger.com