Month: May 2008

http://www.bookdecor.com/hand-picked.html If the only reason you’re into Shakespeare is so your friends see high quality literature on your bookshelf when they come over, here’s a solution for you. Book Decor sells “books by the yard” to use as decoration.  Seems like there’s something to be said here about judging a person by their book covers? (Note, books are not in English and I have no idea if there’s anything vaguely Shakespeare related in there.  You don’t get to pick the books, only the decorative style.) [Found via http://www.boingboing.net]

http://colorblindblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/romeo-and-juliet-soundtrack/ This kid(?) had the assignment of creating a soundtrack for Romeo and Juliet (presumably the Zeffirelli version, since that’s the image he chose).  I like some of the choices, although truthfully I don’t recognize many of them.  Would have been cool to provide MP3 links, hint hint hint.   Oh, and “Romeo and Juliet” the song is originally by Dire Straits, covered by The Killers (among others). It’s not a Killers original. “Juliet, when we made love you used to cry, I love you to the stars above, I’ll love you til I die.” Good stuff.

I wrote earlier today that “Words are timeless, performance is not.”  If the greatest performance of Hamlet was performed 100 years ago, what’s that to me?  I missed it.  Even today, the most ardent defenders of the “see it don’t read it” school still freely admit “Every night is different.”  So perhaps the best performance was yesterday, not tonight.  So sorry. Aha, but what about film?  Now we’re talking a whole different animal.  In a way it is simply the persistence of a performance.  You could, although it’s not done so commonly anymore, do a straight recording of a stage play.  Or you could, to put it mildly, go crazy.  The “language of film” (thanks Alan) is not my point.  I’m interested more in the idea of persistence, and the idea of not missing things. Rosenbaum’s Shakespeare Wars  spends most of its opening chapters talking about a 1970’s version of Dream by Peter Brook that changed the author’s life.  He raves about it.  He travels the world looking for people to speak with about it.  But you know what?  I can’t get into it.  Because I wasn’t there.  No amount of praise from anyone who was there will bring me any closer to experiencing it, other than to simply say “Wow, I wish I’d seen it.”  I have seen a good handful of Dream productions at this point, some good, some not so much.  The only real constant has been the text.  Each has bits and pieces that I like, but none had me stark raving. Compare film.  Have I seen what Orson Welles did with Falstaff?  Not yet, but hang on a bit……ok, seen it.  Yeah, that was good.  I can now have an opinion, we can discuss it.  I feel as if I’ve shared that experience with others.   And by others I don’t just mean others who have seen the movie, I mean the people *in* the movie.  I have an opportunity to feel what they feel, from my living room couch. A different example that I’m trying to hunt down is Olivier’s Othello, which apparently only exists as audio.  In trying to find the right words to do justice to Olivier’s performance Rosenbaum chooses not a line, not even a word, but a syllable within a single word – Desdemona.  There’s apparently a bit near the end, when Othello is wailing his wife’s name, that his voice cracked in just that certain way that encapsulated all of the hero’s anguish in one simple sound.  Had Rosenbaum been telling me this of a production he saw 30 years ago, I would at best be able to say “Wow, wish I’d seen it.”  But instead I find myself thinking “I wonder where I could get that?” It’s here that performance wins, hands down.  I agree completely.  I can know the words of the plays, but in my head I would never see the facial expression of Hal when he denies Falstaff, or the cracking voice of Olivier’s Othello.  For that, I need performance.  But I’m very jealous of performance.  Don’t tell me that I’ve missed the good stuff, I don’t want to hear that theatre is exciting because you never know what you’re going to get from night to night. I want the infinite beauty and depth of what it means to be human.  Maybe I can have that on film, maybe I’ll get to see it live.  Either way, they’re both speaking the same words. So by studying the words I still get myself that much closer to the goal, even if I never get all the way there.  Know what I mean?

http://www.nysun.com/arts/doing-battle-with-the-bard/76756/ Is Milton Better Than Shakespeare?  So asks Nigel Smith in his new book of the same name.  The title of this post comes directly from the article, in describing Milton:  Ever since “Paradise Lost” was published in 1667, Milton has been acclaimed as a supreme English poet, Shakespeare’s only rival in linguistic mastery. Yet even at the height of his prestige, in the 18th century, Milton never inspired the kind of ardent intimacy that readers bring to Shakesepare. Nor is it simply our lazy generation, unused to reading long poems and deaf to the majesty of Milton’s artifice, that has relegated “Paradise Lost” to the seminar room. Even Samuel Johnson, in his “Life of Milton,” wrote that “Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions.” The article goes on to point out that apparently no, Milton is not better than Shakespeare, as the book really ends up being more of an introductory piece on the current issues in Milton scholarship.

So an anonymous poster found an old post of mine entitled Who Killed Christopher Marlowe? where he begs assistance: Here’s the thing,I’ve got an english project on this guy, this Marlowe fellow,and I want to know precisely how he died,and who killed him. can you recommend me a reliable source? you are Tht Shekespeare Geek after all. I could go to the usual Wikipedia and things, but I’m wondering if somebody out there’s a Marlowe Geek.  The best I’d be able to tell the commenter is the usual about Marlowe dying in a bar fight, and the theories about him secretly being a spy, faking his own death, that sort of thing. Anybody got better, more reliable info than me?