Month: September 2012

[Thanks to reader Angela for the link!]

When each of my children was born, people would ask me whether I was going to name them something from Shakespeare.  I did, in my own way.  Katherine, my oldest, knows well the story of her shrew-ish namesake (and her little sister loves the story about the beautiful younger daughter who all the boys want, who can’t get married until the mean older sister finds a boy who likes her).  She gets double points because her middle name, Delia, reminds me of Cordelia, the best of daughters.

My second child, Elizabeth, is not so much a Shakespeare name as a Shakespearean one – and I’ve even had conversations with her about that.  Her middle name, Anne, also happens to be the name of Shakespeare’s wife.  So there ya go.

The boy was tricky.  It was easy to pick “classic” girls’ names that have been around long enough that they meant something to Shakespeare.  But for boys we get a whole lot of Italian / Spanish sounding -o names (Banquo, Romeo, Petruchio etc…) while the more English sounding names (Richard, Henry, Edgar, Edmund…) just didn’t do anything for us.  So the boy didn’t get a Shakespeare name.  He’s Brendan.  One day Brendan Fraser will do some Shakespeare and then we’ll have a connection.

But!  I’m deep into the story and haven’t served up the link to Shakespeare Baby Names that Angela sent me.  It’s funny that the author clearly tries to suggest that only realistic names were included (so no Iago), but then Cymbeline is in the list.  Really?

Lots of minor characters listed, obviously because they had a modern connection already (like Celia, Audrey, Marina, etc…) but does that mean I could have called my son Christopher and argued that he was named after Christopher Sly from the induction of Shrew?

I still don’t see many names on the boys’ list that would have made it in my house.  Caliban? Horatio?  Interestingly the list includes Richard, but no Henry.  What’s wrong with Henry?  My son is in class with a Henry right now.

Somehow the other day, Bardfilm and I got onto the subject of the Golden Girls.  Remember that show?  It wasn’t long before we were singing the theme song (luckily over instant message so one one had to hear such a thing), and it wasn’t long after that that we started inserting the theme songs into random Shakespearean situations.  Thus was born our new game..

Come and listen to my story ’bout a king named Lear–
A crazy British monarch well-stricken up in years.
“Daughters, what can you say to show you love the king?”
Cordelia spoke up and said, “Daddy—nothing.” 

Nothing? Nothing will come of nothing. 

Well, the next thing you know, old Lear’s out on the heath.
Regan said, “Now, that’s a big relief!
But I think that our Lord Gloucester’s trying to help out that guy.”
So she and hubby Cornwall plucked out both his eyes. 

Oh, that vile, vile jelly. 

Well, now it’s time to say goodbye to Lear and all his kids.
They’re mostly lying dead on stage, done in by what they did.
You’re all invited back next week to this locality
To have another helping of Shakespeare’n tragedy. 

Swimming pools—with Ophelia drowned in them—movie stars—betrayed by their own ambition.

Obviously these are much longer than our usual games and not the sort of thing where we can put together 20 of them in one post.  Look for more coming soon!

If there’s something I’ve learned over the years I’ve been doing this, it’s that there’s two sure fire ways for a post to pull crazy traffic.  The first is to hit the SEO (search engine optimization) just right so that you show up on the first page of Google results (see “How old was Romeo?” for an example) (( Oh, thank you Google for letting me know that Li’l Romeo is 29 years old.  Wow. ))

The second way?  The second way is to get Bardfilm to write you a guest post.  Every time he drops a new list on my virtual doorstep, I know it’s going to be a good day.

If you’ve not had a chance to read them all, you’re missing out.  Let’s fix that problem.  Gathered together here, right now, for the very first time on stage simultaneously, I present Bardfilm’s Lists:

• When Shakespeare Does His Taxes  (April 2012)
• Shakespearean Light Bulb Jokes (January 2012)
• Bob Dylan’s Shakespeare Songs (May 2011)
• Shakespearean Pick-up Lines (January 2011)
• Shakespearean Collective Nouns (December 2010)
• Top Twenty Shakespearean Faux-Pas (October 2010)
• Twenty Bits of Shakespeare Trivia You Probably Haven’t Heard Before (October 2010)
• Shakespearean Movie Quotes (October 2011)

If you’re not subscribed to Bardfilm’s own site, what are you thinking?  Go do it.  Right now.

Yes, I’m reading them.  Technically, listening on audio book.  I like to know what the latest pop culture things are all about.  Just don’t ask me about 50 Shades of Grey…

Anyway, I discovered (and I don’t think it’s a spoiler) that the bad guy’s first name is Coriolanus.  Really?  That caught my attention quickly.  I wondered why for awhile, but could not immediately make the connection.

Then I learned that a girl who has her tongue cut out is named Lavinia.  Aw come on!  That can’t be coincidence.

Of course, there’s an obvious connection to Roman history running through the games (not even counting the whole bread and circuses, gladiatorial thing).  Once I started looking I realized that other characters are named Cinna (“I am Cinna the Poet!  I am Cinna the Poet!!”), Octavia…heck there’s even a Caesar.

So does anybody know whether the author had any Shakespeare thoughts in mind with these stories?  I’m guessing that perhaps she had enough passing familiarity with Shakespeare that she was able to pull names at will, and just used them as she saw fit.  The Lavinia thing probably isn’t a coincidence, I suspect that when she was seeking a Roman name for her girl with no tongue, Lavinia was the obvious choice for anybody who knows who that is.

I saw a brief mention yesterday of “America’s Son” being picked up by Fox:

This project focuses on a Kennedy-esque political family. When the family’s favorite son and presidential hopeful is killed in a car crash, his son (described as being a JFK, Jr. type) returns to D.C. to find out the crash that killed his father wasn’t really an accident.

But I was unaware of ABC’s venture into a similar (potential?) space with Westside:

ABC also has a Shakespeare-based project on tap called Westside, which is generally referred to as being based on West Side Story.

The Cinema Blend article  goes on to talk about how far removed the projects are from Shakespeare, so that they “don’t suffer too much.”  Fair enough.

But perhaps we should point them to Sons of Anarchy, which will be heading into its sixth season?  The show about a motorcycle gang has long been seen as drawing upon Hamlet for its inspiration. Though I’ve never seen it (not really the kind of thing we watch at my house), I did spot the connection back in 2009.

I’ve also just realized that in my article, the creator said that he planned a 5 year run of the series to mimic the 5 acts of Hamlet.  And that it’s now been renewed for a sixth season.  Hmmmm.