Where Only Brainworm Was Any Fun

Every Man in His Humour by Ben Jonson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was the hardest slog I've ever had reading old plays. Wow.

I'll admit, I just didn't get it. Broadly, sure--different people represent different "humours," or personality types, like those prone to anger or jealousy, and we see how that works out for them. But scene by scene? I didn't know what anybody was on about. I googled it and could hardly believe everything that had gone whoosh past me... So much cultural subtext that I thought reading Shakespeare had prepared me for. It didn't.

It was like I was watching a Monty Python sketch where everybody is talking gibberish but then start fighting. With swords. Or sticks. What is happening? Is this Punch and Judy? What are they even talking about?

The very last scene with the justice sorting out what was going on with everybody, especially what Brainworm had been up to with a whole bunch of disguises, was sort of okay. A tiny little payoff for a deep slog of a play.

I would have said much worse about the play, a full-on rant, except I looked to find a version of the play on youtube and found a couple very nice old gentlemen discussing the play with such deep interest and pleasure--for like 90 minutes--that I couldn't bring myself to hate it as much as I had to that point. I guess it makes sense to some folks. Bless 'em.

Anyway, unless I find some highly annotated version of this play, I'm never gonna give it another look. I wish there was a "No Fear Ben Jonson" series like there is one for Shakespeare...

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