Swordfighters, Sets, and Secret Shakespeare Fans
Plus: Macbeth but with cats
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“Welcome to Illyria Cruise Lines!”, “Baton Rouge is in its Shakespeare era”, + Meowbeth.
…the three witches wave cat-toy wands and stir up a giant sardine tin with a smoke machine that serves as the witches cauldron...
Was Shakespeare a Swordfighter? via Dr Callan Davies.
…combat crops up again and again as a hallmark of the Curtain’s long stage. After all, it measured 14 metres lengthwise: the exact same dimensions as a modern Olympic fencing piste.2
Austin Tichenor on Stephen King + Shakespeare (previous / more) and Sci-Fi Pericles (previous).
From the Shakespeare News inbox: #1 I am impressed that NAATCO hung on to their 2018 Henry VI email list3 and #2: glad the Hamlet sets arrived at BAM despite “changes in global shipping routes.”
Emma Smith’s Birthday Lecture. (previously on Twelfth Night)
“Twelfth Night” shows us Violet and Sebastian as people who have left behind their place of origin, disguised that place in their self-descriptions, arrived in a strange country after a dangerous and traumatic voyage, reinvented themselves with new names, and settled showing courage, resilience, and emotional flexibility in a place that does not recognize their status or talents. That sounds to me like a play about migration.
Grace Pervades: “a dreadfully dull theatrical hatchet job” vs. “a quirky, anecdotal piece.”
Macbeth captions, Stewart sonnets, and King Charles quotes Shakespeare.
The Guardian got lots of mail about their Shakespeare rankings.
And there’s the bonus of a classic Billingtonian pun (re As You Like It): “you sometimes can’t see the wooed for the trees”.
“I believe that is the longest stringed-together monosyllabic line in the canon.”4
“While Macbeth Played, Shots Rang Out” via Ron Charles.
The real similarity, I realized in the pandemonium of Saturday night, lies in the realms these two leaders have abused and spoiled. A government turned wholly to the pursuit of one man’s ravenous ambition…
Hamnet the play as “a cynical IP money grab cranked through the widget factory.”
Teen Hal was not a nice guy. (the arrow-to-the-face didn’t help)
And there we torched a beautiful home in its park, and all the land around it…and seized a significant gentleman of that place who was one of the chief supporters of Owain. He offered five hundred pounds for his ransom, and he promised to pay the full sum within two weeks if we would spare his life. We did not accept, and he was put to death.
African-American Shakespeare is looking for SF-based volunteers.
Which Lost Boys actor is like “Oberon and Puck rolled into one”?
“I was explaining this to Sir Kenneth Branagh when I was directing him….”
“Faceless bureaucrat” Jamie Ding read Asimov to prep for Jeopardy.
Robert Moses was a secret Shakespeare fan?
And yet, during the Red Scare, Shakespeare really was everywhere….Even Robert Moses, who initially opposed New York City’s Shakespeare in the Park program, could, in private, “recite whole scenes” from the plays.
Someone reversed a car into Shakespeare’s daughter’s house last October and that might still be a problem.
Amy Poehler continues to be confused by Shakespeare. (previous / help is available!)
It was a strange production of King Lear for sure…It was it was pretty special to me and so I will always wear wear that as a badge of pride and I hope to do many more Shakespeare plays.
The Alliance for Jewish Theatre resource guide has Merchant advice.
Can we leave Shakespeare out of it please?
Lively later learned that the male actor playing the OB/GYN…was one of Baldoni’s close friends. (Baldoni later countered that his friend was “a Shakespearean-trained actor with an MFA in Acting from UCLA.”)
Recommendations
How Close To The Stanford Prison Experiment Can A Reality Show Get?
“The door is on the latch just push” is a legitimately excellent note (via Ben)
Like this one.
Audience verification welcome.
“Hams for Hamlet” however continues to be delightful.