When Words Fail

"That's always seemed to me the worst kind of hardship: not to have words to name the world with ... to shape yourself to ...."

That wonderful quote, from Richard Greenberg's ode to baseball play Take Me Out, struck a chord with me the moment it was uttered.

How horrifying -- not to be able to describe, in detail, the experiences life has handed you, and the dreams you dream.

I've been fortunate. For most of my life, words have come easily to me. I'm not bragging. I'm not saying that the words have always been the most apt, or that the stories they tell the most scintillating. What I'm saying is that I could find words to describe life in a way that I found facile and that, from time to time, had an impact on someone else.

Last night, though, I spent nearly half an hour trying to review a movie that I was watching and enjoying. I struggled for something more witty, clever, and telling than simply, "It's much better than I thought it would be." Granted, part of my problem was avoiding saying, "It's quite good despite Billie Piper being in it," since I was writing in an area where Billie Piper fans were numerous (and where some actually know where I live).

But I sputtered. I stuttered (or the visual equivalent). I found myself without the words, and it threw me. It's a gift I've taken for granted, and I really shouldn't. It may not always be with me.
And, for the record, the first installment of BBC America's ShakespeaRe-Told (pronounced Shakespeare Retold), Much Ado About Nothing, was much better than I had expected. Yes, they modernized it completely (thereby offending my Shakespearean purist sensibilities). But they managed to stay true to the story up to all but the last five minutes. While the Shakespearean dialogue was missing, and much of the true wittiness of the banter between Benedick and Beatrice was lost, you still had that fiery charisma of the older couple, and the naive simplicity of the younger couple.

My biggest gripe is that Hero is supposed to forgive Claude (and maybe the final scene was meant to be a double wedding, but they certainly didn't make that clear). I will avoid the catty Billie Piper comment here, and simply state that, as an actress, she does the melodrama very, very well. I've seen nothing that suggests that she can do the consistent human inconsistency that marks most of humanity (and brands one a truly great actor) at all well. Hero's forgiveness falls into that second camp. So instead of forgiveness, they gave her the melodramatic scene by the ocean telling poor Claude that she can never forgive him. (Interestingly, Shakespeare's Hero -- who does nothing to earn the stamp of adulteress -- forgives the man who slandered her. In this version, Hero has done most of what he accuses her of doing, and was stupid enough to lie about it as well, but can't find it in her heart to forgive him.)

*sigh*

Well, I went from too few words, to too many. But they're back, and I'm grateful.