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One year ago: Romeo & MOOliet, Al Pacino, and Victor Hugo's skull poetry.
Featured link: How can it not be Romeo and MOOliet?2
Quick Links
Behind the Scenes: The Making of the Dogs in Ruffs Calendar 2026.
So does King Hamlet, a documentary about Oscar Isaac’s 2017 process.
The New York Times’ Ben Brantley, in a review published July 13, 2017, called the production “gloriously involving,” noting that the actors were attired in contemporary street clothes – or less. “I totally bought Hamlet’s running around in his underpants for his ‘antic disposition’ scenes,” he wrote. He described the cast as “top-flight,” singling out Isaac’s Hamlet as “majestically impudent.”
I asked Isaac if he found Brantley’s characterization just. “When you’re in your underwear running around stabbing lasagnas, that’s quite ‘majestically impudent,’ I guess,” he laughed. “Reciting, ‘Oh, what a rogue!’ while you’re in your tighty whities.”
Riz Ahmed’s Hamlet is having a rougher time. (more)
Here, Elsinore is a corporation and the murder of Hamlet’s father by his uncle Claudius (Art Malik) and hasty marriage to his mother Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha) is all part of a hostile takeover that doesn’t feel nearly dastardly enough to justify the tragic bloodbath that ensues. Shot on badly lit digital video — which smooths faces and distorts scenery — the film’s handheld look recalls Michael Almereyda’s relatively stylish, if similarly ill-conceived Y2K version, starring Ethan Hawke.
An “add-rap-tation” of Caesar and one with a rubber eagle head.
The boys were told sternly that they could only go back in if they vowed not to look at any bare naked ladies.
Michael Urie will play Richard II, one of his dream roles.
Joseph Papp vs. Robert Moses: The saga of Shakespeare in the Park.
That time Joe Papp asked Meryl Streep to run the Public. (full documentary)
"I thought how much he loved me and how much he didn't know me"
Shakespeare in the Park memories:
Many years ago, I was there at the Delacorte to see Kevin Kline in Richard III. The woman sitting in front of me leaned over to her friend and said, "I don't care what they do to him. They can make him limp, they can give him a hump, he's still sexy as hell."
I struggle with it every night. We all struggled with it so much. I think in the beginning we were like, "What if he doesn't get tortured? Okay. What if he gets tortured a little less?" It's just like, "No, he gets tortured. That's just it. It's a comedy, and he gets tortured." I think that life's just like that. You go from laughing and having fun and joy to getting terrible news or having something terrible happen to you, and you're like, "Why me?"
As you assemble the kit, you'll uncover a charming scene filled with hints of Shakespeare's masterpieces. From the iconic balcony of Romeo and Juliet to the mystical forest of A Midsummer Night's Dream…
While we’re being grumpy and pedantic, please remove the chap from that skull.4
“I remember watching Paxton Whitehead [as Richard III] and not understanding a single thing that was being said, but fully aware that I was in the presence of something special and magical that I wanted to know more about.”
“‘For his generation’ Burbage did not simply act Richard, he ‘was Richard III’.”
The central poster in John Parry's The Poster Man is for an Otello. via
Londonist5
Godspeed to anyone who attempts to sell 3,200 hundred pages of Oxfordian bs.6
An Ad For The New McDonald’s Sandwich: “The Macbeth” / An Ad For A New Burger King Sandwich: “The King Lear” via Dropout
Vintage Links
Adam Walker on The Winter’s Tale. via
Oxford World Classics conversations on The Tempest and Titus and Caesar.
Quoting Much Ado for sexism purposes is a *choice.* (Do show us where the bachelors sit, though)
The banner hung from Gonville and Caius reads "Get you to Girton Beatrice, Get you to Newnham, there's no place for you maids" – a reference to the two all female colleges at the time.
Recommendations
“do your thing whale hive.” via
The Taco Bell 50k Ultramarathon is a thing that exists in the world.
Buphonia or, the ancient ritual of killing an ox and sprinting away in shame.
“…you can see the swoop shape of the ancient inland sea in county-level election results from 2008.” via
Like this one.
The full video is no longer available but this local news segment gets the idea across.
*lower jaw. As in “quite chapfallen.”
Also featuring a poster for my favorite pyrodrama, the utterly insane Last Days of Pompeii. The Cincinnati production featured collapsible sets, seating for approximately 10,000 viewers, and so much fire.
that 2017 HAMLET at the Public was the best production of that play I've seen. My favorite Hamlet entrance was a pantless Oscar Isaac's and wearing a toilet seat. Magnifique!
FUN FACT: Ross Bryant, the actor/comedian in the fake fast food sandwich ads, is an original member of the Improvised Shakespeare Company, which has weekly performances in Chicago and LA, and will tour the country this fall.