Agatha Christie, Willy Loman, and Faerie Smut

Plus: "The dog will be handled by a tall, male actor who is wearing a hat"

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Quick Links

• Romeo and Juliet reviews. (more) (on star Shakespeare)

  After the couple’s tragic demise, three more performers take the stage, representing an older Romeo and Juliet and a daughter, allowing us to glimpse the life they might have had.

• Why do Juliets often outshine their Romeos? (the exception)

• Thank you to the folks who wrote in about Drunk vs. Sh!tfaced Shakespeare. The consensus seems to be that Sh!tfaced is UK-based and the parent/original of Drunk, which is US-based and possibly “a ripoff”? Also meaningful. Still curious.

• Colman Domingo does Midsummer on Hot Ones.²

• The history of Faerie Smut™ goes through Midsummer. (more) (fairies, not smut)

  …many productions emphasise the fairies' erotic potential. A 1999 RSC production directed by Michael Boyd was so sexually charged that a school party left at the interval.³

• Oh, I have so many thoughts about the performative girlboss aesthetic of this.⁴

• “Lavinia has been on my mind…”

• Shakespearean Six-Sevens and and Giddy Minds via Good Tickle Brain.

• Oh. Oh no.

  “Macbeth” is not merely a play about ambition. It is about a man who catches sight of a possible future and mistakes that glimpse for a license to force events to conform to his interpretation — and then watches that interpretation devour him. Soon he ceases even to pretend that action should wait on understanding…Modern targeting systems promise the same fantasy in technological form…

• When Gertrude’s brother is a meteorologist.

• Jack O'Brien on Two Shakespearean Actors.

• Production/reading roundup: R&J and Joni, a new musical, Hamletta & Twelfth Bro, Out, Darn Spot!, Richard III: A Twisted Fairy Tale, “A queer take on a Shakespearean classic,” “Fakespeakeare,” Midsummer at OSF, Complete Works, La Plaza Hamlet (more), and Mugen-Noh Othello in the Biennale. (more)

• Bate on Bloom. via Jonathan Bate

  …the notion that he single-handedly invented the art of self-discovery through dramatic monologue is grossly condescending to his predecessors in the imaginative exploration of the human condition…

• Shakespeare on The Traitors. (as previously seen on)

• The lady sings in…Børk! Børk! Børk!

• Related: The Globe Research team has joined Reddit. (More of this please.)

• Willy Loman is longer than Lear? (STET)

• Free books! Shakespeare and the Staging of Exile + Shakespeare and the Senses.

• “Hamlet’s ‘majestical roof fretted with golden fire’ was King’s chapel roof…” (past)

• Agatha Christie and Shakespeare via The Common Reader.

  The way she writes about Macbeth in The Pale Horse, which I think is a really underrated novel, including thoughts on how it should be staged, which are really interesting and very, very good.

• The APT design conference sounds like heaven.

• Plates and swords (x2) as teaching tools.

• Othello, the ballet.

• “…a 16-year-old has somehow perfected ‘Put out the light and then put out the light.’”

• “The dog will be handled by a tall, male actor who is wearing a hat, so it’s important that we check in to make sure that’s going to be okay for the dog…”

• “One might say that Hamlet is having a moment were it not for the fact that Hamlet often seems to be having a moment.”

• Cool, why is the picture (bad) AI?

• Judi Dench on changing her mind.

• Nikitin’s Hamlet. (2016) via Natasha Tripney

• Krymov’s Hamlet. (2016)

  Volkov played Claudius and the Ghost brilliantly. He died suddenly and we played the last performance without him, in his honor…We had filmed one show, so we had a recording of his voice and even his footsteps on stage. So we played that last show without Volkov but with the sound of his voice and footsteps. A couple of times we projected his face on a screen, but nothing more. And his final exit was the sound of his feet as he left. That was an astonishing show. I’ve never heard such silence in a theater.

Recommendations

• Craft.

• Peanut buttons.

• A scrapbook dress.

• Chess by telegraph.

• How Many Artists Are There in the U.S.?

• An upside down “h.” via Inconspicuous Consumption

• Did Bette Davis Have A Vision Board? via James Grissom

• “How does someone remove someone’s confidence?” (more)

1. Like this one.

2. Why is there so much Shakespeare on an internet chicken show? is an excellent question I plan to answer.

3. There’s much to discuss here. Word choice for a start.

A teacher, Stephen McGaw, marched his pupils out of the theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon after watching a man dressed as a donkey simulating sex with Titania, Queen of the Fairies. ‘The production has really driven a horse and carriage through our school religious education and sex education policies,’ said Mr McGaw.

4. Buy better books. One suggestion.