Life, Death and Judi Dench
Life, Death and Judi Dench
And CVS underpants
I’m in a very weird and chatty mood, which I usually take over to my Patreon, where I do somewhat more experimental work, like photography or a freewrite or an episode of my patrons-only podcast, The Audio Letter. But today, I’m bringing the weirdness to SARATONIN. Will it work? Who can say? Anyway, let’s begin.
It’s a gorgeous beach day outside, but I rarely participate in that culture. However, I am enjoying watching folks on the shore of Lake Michigan across the street from my home. Not with binoculars or anything creepy like that - it’s just nice to see a gathering of tiny people and their colorful tents, presumably having a good time.
I could go out to the beach, OR I could stay indoors clad only in a woefully unsupportive sports bra, CVS underpants, and an Always sanitary napkin. I leave it to you to discern which option I’ve chosen.
I’ve been listening to “Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent,” which is an audiobook version of a volume of interviews by Brendan O’Hea and Dame Judi Dench. I’ve never had a particular boner for Shakespeare - no Shakesboner for this nerd! - but I’m learning so much more about his plays thanks to this book.
It helps that it’s full of anecdotes by Dench like the one where she thought she recognized an old coworker in the audience, so when she entered the scene near his seat, she dropped a note on this elderly man that read, “I suppose a fuck’s out of the question” and it turned out IT WAS NOT HIM AT ALL.
The book is mostly not actually narrated by Dench. She narrates a brief introduction to the book and to the actress voicing her part, Barbara Flynn. Dench also pops up throughout the book with a few recitations from Shakespeare. But in the main, you’re hearing Barbara Flynn and Brendan O’Hea reading from a transcript of conversations O’Hea conducted with Dench at her home.
It might sound disappointing to not hear Dench throughout, but it’s very well-done. O’Hea provides the context that Dench’s eyesight is quite poor now, and that she found it sometimes excruciating to go over these old stories - but in certain moments, it sounds as if she had a fabulous time regaling an old friend with tales of past productions.
There’s an interesting part where Flynn-as-Dench discusses her lifelong fear of death. She has, it seems, even resisted making her will. And death happens so much in Shakespeare, of course, so the topic comes up here again and again.
I just watched this clip, and I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about or where the fuck it’s from, but I was moved to tears by seeing this legendary actress, who was 88 at the time, compose herself and then recite this sonnet from memory. You can tell the audience and cast are moved, as well.
It’s just so lovely, isn’t it?
I started to go down a YouTube rabbit hole, and it led me to these wonderful remarks by Emma Thompson about Alan Rickman. There’s no real connection to the Judi Dench video other than “English people who are or were very good at acting and are or were alive” but it’s very tender, and I suppose it made me think about death, and life, and how I might memorialize some of my own friends, and, though I didn’t linger on this part, how they might memorialize me.
I had the chance to get up and say a few words about my friend Neil Mahoney at his memorial, but I didn’t. I listened to all the others instead. I had helped our friend Jonah Ray Rodrigues write Neil’s obituary, and I felt I’d said what I needed to in it, and in a few Instagram posts about that great weird wonderful guy. It was an honor to sit with his mom and watch everyone celebrate her son’s legacy.
This was a memorial with corn dogs and donuts, which really adds to the atmosphere. If you get a chance to attend a funeral where Paul F. Tompkins leads a band of indie rockers in an Irish punk tribute to the deceased, I do suggest it.
I don’t think I’m afraid of death, exactly, but I am afraid of the pain that could precede it. When I consider it, I think that no matter how early or late it comes, if I’ve still got any of my wits about me, I may be surprised that it’s finally arrived - this thing that we hear about forever and ever but only meet once.
Maybe it’s like meeting a celebrity, the only one everybody in the entire world ever meets, the only one we can all agree has the final word on everything.
I admire Dench for being honest in the book and saying she’s afraid of death and doesn’t like to talk about it. She could’ve easily tried to play the part of some sage elder den grandmother of Theatuh (TM) and quoted Shakespeare or some other famed dead person of the Western canon, but instead she said it scared her.
One more thing about Dench. The top photo is from her first job out of drama school, as Ophelia in Michael Benthall’s “Hamlet” at the Old Vic. It was highly unusual for somebody to be hired straight out of conservatory for such a prominent gig. She got shitty reviews - one in particular was so nasty and personal that its author, who had a conscience or at least some common sense, felt the need to apologize to her in person and in print several years later. I don’t know if the apology was sincere, but it was probably warranted.
There was, in short, no indication at the time that she could or would become THEE Dame Judi Dench. But she must’ve believed in herself enough to keep going, or at least to believe in her love for her chosen craft. Maybe she would’ve persisted in her efforts even if she somehow knew beyond all doubt that she’d never get great reviews, or a pile of awards, or bunch of money, or a beloved husband she’d meet at work and stay with for thirty years until his death, or a daughter she’d take with him on camping holidays while he read ghost stories to them by firelight.
In the book, Dench tells O’Hea she saw a ghost once in the theatre, plain as day, as human-looking as anything you can imagine. Like my father, himself also fairly sensible and occasionally cantankerous, Dench doesn’t see anything crazy or odd about the idea of ghosts. Her fear of death does not seem to extend to spooktacular apparitions.
As I said above, O’Hea had mentioned in the book that Dench’s eyesight was poor. But he wasn’t specific, and I didn’t know the reason until I did a bit of Googling. I discovered that she can no longer read or drive due to age-related macular degeneration. She retains a good memory, though she allows it isn’t as great as it once was, and she learns her lines now through repetition and the coaching of friends.
Age-related macular degeneration is the most common cause of irreversible vision loss in elderly adults. I carry a genetic variation in the CFH gene called Y402H, which means that I am “not likely” at increased risk of developing AMD compared to the general population. But when combined with some of my family history, it does point to a need to take special interest in regular eye exams, wearing protective sunglasses, avoiding smoking, and maintaining a healthy diet.
All of this - the book, the videos, Judi Dench, Alan Rickman, the Memorial Day Weekend (itself a death-themed holiday that occasions great sales on mattresses and cars) - all of it has me thinking about dying and living and what we do with the time we’ve got. Who we spend it with. How we talk to them. What we say and what we mean. What we try and what we avoid. What we plan for and what we take as it comes.
Fuck it. I’m going to the beach.
This was very much needed for reasons I won't bore anyone else with. But thank you, Sara.
This finally got me to subscribe (I was already subscribed to your Patreon).
My paternal grandparents had macular degeneration--one dry, one wet, though I don't remember which one had which. My dad succumbed to kidney cancer at age 65, so his vision never deteriorated to that point--he only needed reading glasses on occasion. I am fortunate enough to have inherited his good vision, but being in my early 40s, I fully expect that I'll need readers within the next decade. I just hope that's the worst my vision will get.
Both my husband's and my sides of the family have had a lot of loss in the last 7-plus years. Relatedly, Chidi's monologue from The Good Place series finale really moved me, especially in light of all that. It moved me so much, last year, I got a tattoo of an ocean wave on my upper back below my neck with the words "The wave returns to the ocean" around it. As a cradle Catholic-turned-atheist who doesn't believe in an afterlife, that explanation for what happens after you die made the most sense to me out of anything I'd ever heard.