Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence:
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I’ll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;
Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
     For thee, against my self I’ll vow debate,
     For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate.

Analysis

In Sonnet 89, the poet takes a scorched-earth approach to a breakup, for his beloved’s sake.

Willy picks up where the previous sonnet left off, telling the youth that should he tell people he picked up and left because of some fault of Will’s, our boy will play along. If rumor has it he’s lame, and he will start limping immediately, without a defense. If it helps Willy’s lover finding a reason to justify leaving, it will be no disgrace half as bad as the one he will do to himself, once the lover prescribes it. Act like a stranger? Sure. Avoid places where they might bump into each other? Definitely. And he won’t mention their sweet name anymore in case it would be soiled by their former acquaintance. For his lover’s sake, Will vows to be his own enemy, because he must not love someone his lover hates.

Will’s Wordplay

This is part of a string of sonnets in which the speaker toys with masochism and self-harm for the benefit of his lover. Getting kinky on us, Billy? This one, of course, is much more emotional than physical.

Manhattan Bridge Arch, DUMBO, Brooklyn

The Manhattan Bridge was the last of the three suspension bridges built across the lower East River, following the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges. It has four vehicle lanes on the upper level, split between two roadways. The lower level has three lanes, four subway tracks, a walkway and a bikeway. The upper level, originally used for streetcars, has two lanes in each direction, and the lower level is one-way and has three lanes in peak direction. The bridge once carried New York State Route 27 and later was planned to carry Interstate 478.

The original pedestrian walkway on the south side of the bridge was reopened after forty years in June 2001.[1] It was also used by bicycles until late summer 2004, when a dedicated bicycle path was opened on the north side of the bridge, again in 2007 while the bike lane was used for truck access during repairs to the lower motor roadway, and for a third time in 2011, when ongoing construction on the north side of the bridge necessitated narrow shelters, narrowing the path to make it unsafe for cycling.
To celebrate the bridge’s centennial anniversary, a series of events and exhibits were organized by the New York City Bridge Centennial Commission in October 2009. These included a ceremonial parade across the Manhattan Bridge on the morning of October 4 and a fireworks display in the evening.[2] In 2009, the bridge was also designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.[3]

Arch and Colonnade

In 1910, a year after the bridge opened, the architectural firm Carrère and Hastings drew up preliminary plans for an elaborate grand entry to the bridge on the Manhattan side, as part of the “City Beautiful” movement. Construction began that year, and plans were finalized in 1912. The arch and colonnade were completed in 1915. The decoration includes pylons which were sculpted by Carl A. Heber and a frieze called “Buffalo Hunt” by Charles Rumsey.[4]

The arch and colonnade were designated a New York City landmark on November 25, 1975. After many years of neglect, and attempts by traffic engineers to remove the structure, the arch and colonnade were repaired and restored in 2000.

References

1. Newman, Andy (June 26, 2001). “Cyclists and Walkers Regain a Bridge”. The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
2. “Manhattan Bridge Centennial Celebration Events and Exhibits”. NYC Bridge Centennial Commission. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
3. “Manhattan Bridge”. ASCE Metropolitan Section. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
4. New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; Postal, Matthew A. (ed. and text); Dolkart, Andrew S. (text). (2009) Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.) New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1, pp. 45-46

ACTOR – Carman Lacivita

Carman Lacivita is currently starring as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, produced by The New Book Press Inc. available in Ibooks on Itunes. You will also find his portrayal of Malcolm in Macbeth and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for The New Book Press Inc. He served as the Fight Director on all three projects, marking his 3rd collaboration with Director Jessica Bauman. Recently, Carman Guest Starred on CBS’ Golden Boy and on the NBC hit children’s show, The Chica Show. Other credits include The Understudy with Amphibian Stage Productions, The Witch of Edmonton, Lorenzaccio, The Tempest, all with Red Bull Theater, George is Dead (w/Marlo Thomas) written and directed by Elaine May at The George St. Playhouse. He played Valvert in Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway opposite Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner directed by David Leveaux. Off Broadway; Henry 6th in Rose Rage; Henry the 6th Pts. 1, 2, 3 (Bayfield Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Shakespeare in NYC, Jeff Award, Drama League Nomination), dir. by Edward Hall. Carman has played at The Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab, The Public Theater, The Pearl, Theater for a New Audience, Primary Stages, The Mint, The Drama League, and Ars Nova. International and Regional productions include Bermuda Arts Festival, Arizona Theater Company, George St. Playhouse, Chicago Shakespeare, Long Wharf, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Crossroads, Stage West, Ft. Worth, Dallas, and Kentucky Shakespeare Festivals. Other TV and Film credits include work on Advent (short), Golden Boy (CBS), Royal Pains (USA), The Chica Show (NBC) Modern Love (pilot), Marino’s (pilot), and Cyrano de Bergerac (PBS Great Performances). Carman has an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and a BFA from Texas Christian University and is a founding member and Artistic Associate of Amphibian Stage Productions, where he has performed in numerous productions. In addition to performing, Carman is a Teaching Artist with The Broadway Experience and is an Acting Coach, Fight Director & Tennis Pro.

DIRECTOR – Jessica Bauman

As a theater director, Jessica Bauman’s work on Shakespeare has been seen in a National Shakespeare Company national tour, and in the NYC area at Juilliard, the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey and Walkerspace. She is the founder and Artistic Director of New Feet Productions, for which she directed Into the Hazard (Henry 5), her own critically acclaimed six-actor adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V. Her work on new plays has been seen in NYC at New Georges, HERE, Soho Rep and many others, and regionally at the Huntington Theatre, Amphibian Stage Productions, The Spoleto Festival and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.

She has been collaborating with e-book publisher The New Book Press to create WordPlay Shakespeare, a revolutionary new way of reading Shakespeare, blending video and text in electronic books for the iPad. For that project, she directed video versions of the complete texts of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet (all available on iTunes). Other video projects include satirical student-written Alcohol Education videos for a web-based program for incoming freshman and informational videos about sexual misconduct grievance procedures, both at Yale University.