http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1208248384292160.xml&coll=2 I just happened to see a review roll through my feeds today.  This one was in Cleveland, and neither the production nor the source material get a particularly good review.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/14/theater.patrick.stewart.ap/index.html Great article (by CNN, no less!) on what Patrick Stewart does when he’s not playing Macbeth.  Answer?  He reads Hamlet. For fun.  The man is far more a “Shakespeare freak” than I think even his biggest fans give him credit for. “What I’m doing now is all I ever wanted to do. I didn’t have any other ambitions,” he says. “Once I’d been accepted into the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, I was perfectly content.” He stayed for an eyebrow-raising 14 years, playing everything from Mark Anthony to Henry IV to Shylock to Oberon. “People who were not in the company would say to me, ‘Give it a break. Why don’t you go somewhere else?’ And I would say, ‘To do what?’ ” he says. “Telly?”

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10996471 Apparently “World Book Day” is coming up?  Some crafters specializing in bookbinding are jumping all over this day (I wonder why?).  In the link above someone has made a pretty cool looking Shakespeare-themed notebook.  I wasn’t really sure at first what it was, hoping for some original content, but eventually I figured out that it’s just a nicely crafted blank 50 page notebook.  The backs of the pages are actually printouts, in various forms, of assorted Shakespeare content including pictures, biography and other bits.  Check out the pictures, that’s really the only way to explain what I’m talking about.

http://bookdweeb.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/enter-three-witches-by-caroline-b-cooney/ Last week we spoke of a young adult novel about Ophelia, only in that version apparently she’s pregnant and runs off with Horatio, or something like that. This week I see “Enter Three Witches”, which revolves around Lady Mary, the 14yr old daughter of the Thane of Cawdor.    Since in this case the character is entirely made up, I’m not sure if that will make people feel better or worse about butchering of the story.  I suppose if you love this stuff you’ll like it, and if you hate this stuff you won’t.  To each their own.

So again this weekend somebody asks me my favorite Shakespeare play, and again I give my standard answer, “No favorite, they’re all good for different reasons.” But she wants to argue it with me, saying I must have a favorite.  I point out that if you ask me what I think the best play is I will say King Lear, but that I have read The Tempest to my children as a bedtime story and had my 3yr old quote it back to me, and that offers a value that I can’t get anywhere else.  They are different. I’ve decided to change my approach.  Now, when somebody asks me that question and does not take my honest answer, I’m going to name random Shakespeare plays and see what sort of response I get.  “Favorite play?  Oh, gotta be All’s Well That Ends Well.  Do you know it?  Great stuff.”  Be interesting to see if I get anybody who actually wants to pursue the question after that. 🙂