Month: September 2009

“Say you are an idiot.  Now, say you are Nicholas Cage.  But I repeat myself.”

With apologies to Mark Twain and none to Mr. Cage comes this story about the latter’s opinion on why Americans should not do Shakespeare:

"There is something about it. I feel the rhythm of the English language and manner of English speech seem to work effectively with William Shakespeare but when Americans do it, something seems stuck."

Now you may be saying to yourself, “The Leaving Las Vegas guy?  Moonstruck?  He won some awards, didn’t he?  Son on Francis Ford Coppola? I suppose he’s entitled to his opinion.” Wrong Nicholas Cage.  We’re talking about this guy:

  Oh, wait.  Same guy.  My bad.   Turns out there’s at least one American than shouldn’t do Shakespeare, I’ll give him that. Oh God. The bees.

Check out the quote I just tripped over, strangely enough when googling “Zombieland” :

"If a group of Shakespeare scholars believe that the universe is explained in the bard’s plays, does that mean science courses should include readings of Shakespeare? Shakespeare’s plays are literature, the Bible contains scriptures sacred to several religions, and neither has any pretentions to being a book of science or scientific authority." ~~ Michael Shermer in Why People Believe Weird Things

As somebody who has made the “all of human experience can be seen on Shakespeare’s stage” argument, I think I know what he’s getting at with the “universe is explained in the bard’s plays” thing.  No, Shakespeare didn’t say much about the orbits of the planets.  But he did do a pretty good job at saying “Here’s people, and here’s how people react in certain situations.”  So good, in fact, that 400 years later we have to often remind ourselves what he did actually say, and what we’ve just projected onto him. But it’s not science, and has no claim as such. 

That’s right, love.  Caught your attention?  Mine too. http://markrosenyc.com/?p=94 Their talking about a new production of Othello starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, opening this week in New York.  There’s a video interview with Hoffman, but I have not yet watched it. What’s even more interesting in the article is the bit about a new play by Toni Morrison called Desdemona:

In Morrison’s words, “The only reason Desdemona loves Othello, or so she says, is the stories he told her. She listened to these stories of his, of his travels and his adventures. Where are those stories? We need to hear those stories that are not in the play.”

That idea intrigues me.  We so often dissect the tiniest details of Hamlet that we forget you could do the same sort of thing with Othello, or for that matter any of the tragedies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/sep/13/judi-dench-shakespeare-theatre Dame Judi Dench, who made movie trivia history by playing Queen Elizabeth in two movies simultaneously (and winning an Oscar for one of them though I can’t remember which), was given the theatre set from Shakespeare in Love as a gift.  What to do with such a thing? Why, donate it to a trust that’s going to set it up as a permanent structure, of course.

Dench wants to see the set turned into a full-scale replica of the Rose theatre, which stood close to the Globe on the south bank of the Thames and was also used by Shakespeare. The actor, who was born in York, has donated the set to the touring British Shakespeare Company for re-use as a permanent Shakespeare centre in the north of England.

Dench said her husband, the actor Michael Williams, had called her mad to accept the present, but she had been determined to see the open-air apron stage, with its horseshoe of galleries and open space for cheap ticket "groundlings", used as a working theatre. Structural reinforcement will be needed, but the building parts are basically sound and it held up to heavy, sometimes rowdy, use during the making of the film.

I may never get a chance to see such things, but I’m glad there are people in the world who want to make such things happen.

http://shanghailow.typepad.com/home/ An old friend of the blog, David “Master of Verona” Blixt, has got a new project going that I thought I’d plug.  For a quick summary I borrow from their basics page:

Shanghai Low Theatricals is a group of craftspeople engaged in the development of literary adaptations for – but not limited to – the stage.

The company is a non-profit 501(c)3 arts organization based in Chicago, Illinois – and, as a whole, constitutes one playwright.

Anyway, the link of interest is the fundraiser / coloring contest that they’re doing, with profits going to benefit the non-profit Illinois Arts Organization. The contest?  Coloring stuff.  It doesn’t even say you have to stay in the lines. The prize?  Books and Chocolate. Sounds like win all around.  Check it out.