Roblox Macbeth, Chalamet Hamlet, and Henry VI's Soccer Miracle
Plus: What did you expect to happen when you added a horse to "Richard II"?
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A deep-dive on the Barter Theater3 in rural Virginia and why NEA funding is so @%#$ing important.
Because of this partnership, almost every kid who’s grown up here has seen Shakespeare…
Maryland’s Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) had a $50,000 grant for its mobile outdoor performance unit cancelled. Ian Gallanar, CSC founder and artistic director, explained that each mounting of the mobile It’s the Comedy of Errors, Hon!, which reaches underserved communities throughout Maryland, costs about $20,000. He currently has 24 such performances scheduled; if he has to cut back on stops, he will, but that is a last resort.
Add The Acting Company and St Louis Shakespeare Festival to to the list of Shakespeare companies that have lost NEA funding.
All shows produced by The Conspirators are performed in a mode they call The Style, which blends the Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte with some German expressionism, then adds a touch of Looney Tunes.
One of the miracles attributed to King Henry VI after his death was healing a soccer injury.6 In 1485, one of William Bartram’s mates accidentally kicked him instead of the ball, causing young Will "long and scarce endurable pain.”7 He healed after seeing the king in a dream and “made a vow, in King Henry's honor, to observe abstinence on all Tuesdays”8 ever after.
I was so struck that the actor playing Bolingbroke in this production [Jonathan Bailey] and the actor playing Bolingbroke in the production back in 2013 both asked the same excellent first question, which is so hard for a historian to answer, which is at what point does Bolingbroke decide that he's coming back to claim the crown, not just the Duchy of Lancaster?
Also:
…there is a wonderful account of a production of Richard II on stage in the West End in 1901, with the Australian actor Oscar Asche in it, playing Bolingbroke. The duel scene, he had full armour and a horse, opening night. It was a different horse from the one he rehearsed with. He gives an account in his autobiography of this horse rearing and him somersaulting heroically off the horse.
Also: Henry IV was anointed with oil that the Virgin Mary gave Thomas Becket? And it made all his hair fall out?
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“I, Peaseblossom” is one in his series of Shakespearean minor character plays; there’s also “I, Malvolio,” “I, Caliban,” “I, Cinna,” and “I, Banquo.” What seem to be radical or aslant applications of post-dramatic techniques help to imaginatively situate the audience in the play’s world, working to peel back layers of familiarity or unfamiliarity with Shakespeare’s stories alike. Peel back to what? In I, Peaseblossom, to the vulnerability of being very, very small in a world gone mad with love.
Which SNL cast member has Leo-as-Romeo carpet in their dressing room?
We locate our “Twelfth Night” in the now, in this moment of crumpling empire, where so much of what we thought our reality was is being challenged daily. Not in a pretty garden, but in a brutalist concrete underground space that’s been underwater like military batteries, and also like the secret clubs where intricacies of desire cross all boundaries, stirring up hidden fantasies and possibilities.
Daniel Swift on “Shakespeare’s First Playhouse” aka “The Dream Factory” aka “The Theatre.”
“We instantly bonded over our hatred of normalcy and our love of a good d*ck joke.”
What exactly are the witches putting into their cauldron? (Plants. Lots of ‘em.)
Scholars believe that toe of frog is simply a nickname for a particular kind of buttercup, notable for having a bulbous green base or toe at the bottom of its stem. Meanwhile, wool of bats is thought to be a reference to holly leaves.
Recommendations
Early drafts of The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire.10
Let’s all admire Kevin Kline catching silent matches single-handedly.
Boat books! The Erebus carried A kind caution to profane sweaters into the arctic and the Beagle had a bunch of biology books + Paradise Lost.
Like this one.
Controls include: “E: Stealth takedown (from behind) / drag body.” “According to the company, their monthly playerbase includes half of all American children under the age of 16.”
Soccer (or pedipililudium) used to be a much more violent game. (h/t
) There’s no football in Shakespeare’s Henry VI that I know of, however there are references in Lear and Comedy and there’s still time to catch the RSC’s soccer-themed Much Ado. Also, this Hamlet as a soccer match sketch is eternally delightful. (“He’s bad, he’s bad, he murdered Hamlet’s dad!”)"intolerabiles inde et diuturnos dolores sustinuit"
Abstain from meat, apparently. It was thought that Henry was killed on a Tuesday (May 21, 1471) in the Wakefield Tower at the Tower of London. You can visit and whisper “down, down to hell and say I sent thee thither” if you’re feeling particularly perverse.
As a director, I find Bolingbroke's language when he is exiled of particular interest:
"This must my comfort be:
That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,
And those his golden beams to you here lent
Shall point on me and gild my banishment."
Given the linking of sun with kingship, it doesn't feel accidental.