The character Jane gets cast in a production of Antony And Cleopatra, so there are several references to that play. The first mention of it is in dialogue: “I want to direct for a change. You’ve never done Shakespeare. Think you can handle Cleopatra?” (p. 163). Judith Davis then writes, “He wanted Harold Channing for Antony” (p. 163). And then: “Shakespeare! And under Gurney’s direction!” (p. 163). She then quotes Cleopatra’s lines at Antony’s death: “Noblest of men, won’t die?/Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide/In this dull world, which in thy absence is/No better than a sty?” (p. 163). A moment later she quotes another of Cleopatra’s speeches: “Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have/Immortal longings in me” (p. 164). That is how the book’s fourth chapter ends. And the fifth chapter begins: “Long before formal rehearsals, a flurry of publicity surrounded the mounting of Antony and Cleopatra” (p. 165). Jane gets nervous, Davis writing, “The audience would rise, en masse, throw vegetables as they had in Shakespeare’s day” (p. 167). Davis then describes Jane’s experience as Cleopatra: “The curtain rose. Demetrius and Philo met, center stage, to express their disgust with Antony. There sounded ‘the flourish within.’ As Philo spoke his next four lines, Harold led Jane forward onstage. The lights blinded her” (p. 167). And then: “As it died away, Jane gazed up at Antony. ‘If it be love, indeed, tell me how much’” (p. 167). A little later, Davis writes, “The demand for tickets to Antony and Cleopatra continued” (p. 169). Cleopatra’s speech is quoted: “His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck/A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted/The little O, the earth” (p. 172). Part of her next speech is then quoted: “His legs bestrid the ocean; his rear’d arm/Crested the world…/Think you there was or might be such a man/As this I dream’d of?” (p 173). There is a reference to Cleopatra’s method of death: “I’ll ‘bring you liberty’…and not in the form of an asp. Though that may be what you deserve” (p. 175). And another of Cleopatra’s speeches is quoted: “Eternity was in our lips and eyes,/Bliss in our brows’ bent; none our parts so poor/But was a race of heaven” (p. 176). And when Jane discovers she’s pregnant, one of the other characters says to her: “You’re really going to enjoy pushing a pram through the park, matinee days? How long will you do Cleopatra with a belly?” (p. 177). Then: “The ads for the last weeks of Antony and Cleopatra brought a groundswell of new demands for tickets” (p. 181). A little later, Davis writes, “She saw, when she returned, that others of her own crowd had arrived – Harold Channing, the cast of Antony and Cleopatra” (p. 192). And there is a reference to a line of Antony’s that I often say when the Los Angeles heat gets to me: “It was Danny’s voice that said, close to her ear: ‘I am dying, Egypt, dying’” (p. 200). Then, when Jane finds herself in the role of defendant, Davis writes, “The lines fighting to gain access to the courtroom resembled, Jane reflected dispassionately, those that had wrangled for tickets at the box office of Antony and Cleopatra” (p. 201). And later, Davis writes, “The excitement reminded her of Antony and Cleopatra” (p. 244). Cleopatra’s speech is again quoted: “‘I have immortal longings in me,’ she heard herself whisper through cracked dry lips” (p. 299). There is another mention of the play: “his reappearance at Antony and Cleopatra” (p. 334). There is one more mention of this play before the end: “Standing on the stage in Antony and Cleopatra” (p. 395), followed by Cleopatra’s speech again: “Give me my robe, put on my crown: I have/Immortal longings in me” (p. 395).
One of the book’s other characters, Nick, is part of a production of Romeo And Juliet, and so there are several references to that play. The first reference comes before that, however: “It was the way she used to throw a key into hopscotch boxes. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow….’ he whispered, and was gone” (p. 276).Then Davis writes: “Nick had acceded to Jane’s insistence that he do Romeo. There hadn’t been a Broadway production for more than twenty years, not since the ill-fated Olivier-Leigh staging. The public, Jane insisted, deserved to see Nick as the archetypal lover” (p. 279). A moment later, Davis writes, “At the Guinea, in Bruton Place, where someone had mentioned they served the best steak, Nick – eating his raw – declared he was afraid, not ready to tackle Shakespeare” (p. 279). And then: “We’ll get Steve Hearn for Mercutio” (p. 279). And then: “Before Romeo and Juliet opened, Kennedy was elected president” (p. 280). And then: “Romeo and Juliet, despite all acclaim – there was a limited audience for Shakespeare – was closing” (p. 281). Just before the book ends, there is another mention of this play: “She walked on to stand before the theater of his final Broadway victory, Romeo and Juliet” (p. 402).
There are still other Shakespeare references. Judith Davis writes, “In the next weeks, Jane had to reprimand Bill for the influx of gifts – flowers, animals of porcelain, a jeweled watch, a gilded anthology of Shakespeare” (p. 180). There is also this Hamlet reference: “The drinks she’d had – both before coming and here – garbled her thoughts. What’s he to Hecuba? flashed through them” (p. 234). Hamlet’s line is “What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba/That he should weep for her?” There is also a reference to The Two Gentlemen Of Verona: “A line throbbed in her head. How wayward is this foolish love… It obsessed her as she ordered Laura to pack Tommy’s things, had Ted Wilcox bear the three of them off to Greenwich” (pages 242-243). In the play, Julia says, “Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love/That like a testy babe will scratch the nurse.” The book then has a mention of Cymbeline: “An argument about Cymbeline turned into a scramble in which they tossed armfuls of leaves at one another” (p. 252). There is also a reference to The Tempest: “Meanwhile, what it was she made of her son – his capacity not merely to tolerate but to embrace diversity – this itself could presage that ‘brave new world,’ that had such people in it: those never ready to cast the first stone” (p. 303). It is interesting that Davis puts quotes only around “brave new world” and not “that had such people in it,” for Miranda’s line is “O brave new world/That has such people in ‘t.” Then, before quoting a speech from Love’s Labour’s Lost, Davis writes: “‘From Shakespeare. But we could keep that secret,’ Nick said” (p. 303). And these are the lines quoted from Love’s Labour’s Lost: “At Christmas I no more desire a rose/Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;/But like of each thing that in season grows” (P. 303). There is another mention of Shakespeare several pages later: “With the Gurneys, she attended the opening of Hair at the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theatre” (p. 316). We then have another Hamlet reference, with Davis writing: “He awoke after even less sleep than usual. ‘Come on, I’m eager to die. “The readiness is all…”’” (p. 327). Hamlet’s line is “If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.” And then there is another mention of Shakespeare: “Nick mounted the Pyramid of the Sun, recited Shakespeare, soon disappeared from the Zona Rosa” (p. 356). That is followed by a reference to the opening lines of Richard The Third: “Jane was preparing for another winter of discontent – new rumblings of trouble in the Middle East, India at war with Pakistan, all charges against the National Guard at Kent State dropped” (p. 356). Richard’s first lines are: “Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York.” That is followed by another mention of Shakespeare: “a leading actor of the Royal Shakespeare Company” (p. 384).
Amazing Grace was published in 1981. The copy I read was a hardcover first printing from April 1981.
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