http://www.hampsteadstage.org/shows_shakespeare.html I unfortunately have to miss this show when it comes around next weekend (previous, unbreakably family engagement) but didn’t want others to miss it.

Our interactive educational tours run year-round and are performed by two professional actors, each playing multiple roles. Our scripts are original adaptations, based directly on literary classics, and include children and adults from the audience. The plays last one hour, with a question and answer session following the performance. We travel to your space and bring our own realistic sets and costumes, designed using extensive historical research, which are flexible enough to fit into any assembly/performance space.

It’s hard to find info on their actual shows, as their web site seems more geared toward “You can pay us to come to your school and perform.”  Which is also awesome – more schools should do this. Has anybody ever seen one of these shows? I think my kids would love it.

Doing anything special? Where I’m at it’s rained pretty steadily for, oh, 3+ days now?  Luckily I just had a system installed in the basement a week or two ago, and it’s holding up nicely.  I really have nothing special to say, just felt obliged to mark the obvious Shakespeare day in much the same way geeks around the world celebrated yesterday, 3/14, as “Pi Day”.

Funny who you meet online.  I’ve mentioned in the past that I went to Worcester Polytech (WPI, Class of 91), right? That I was involved in the theatre program, and such?  Last week I received an email from a very surprised Michelle, follower of my little ol’ blog, who just happens to be the Shakespeare professor at WPI since 1999!  Turns out she’s got her own blog on the subject, and asked for an interview.  Happy to oblige! http://www.everydayshakespeare.com/2010/03/homebaked-shakespeare_12.html Thanks Michelle!

This post is something of a spin-off from the “Ophelia Was Pushed!” thread going on earlier.  Shakespeare wrote a play.  It has a start and a finish, and either he puts something on stage, or he has somebody tell of something that happened off stage. What about everything else?   What’s your opinion? In my other life, the one with all the computers, we have this idea of “specifications”.   Any good project is supposed to have a good specification, which defines all the inputs to the system and how the system handles them.  Inevitably there are conditions that are missed, and for those we say simply that the behavior is “undefined.”  As computer geeks we’re cool with that having a certain meaning – it doesn’t mean “these inputs can never be provided”, it means “the system can do whatever it wants, and each implementation of the system may handle it differently.” I see something very similar here with Shakespeare’s work.  He gave us a closed system.  He left some stuff undefined.  So when those questions come up we could say “Those questions cannot be asked, because they cannot be answered” or we could say, “Since Shakespeare does not answer them, it is understood that we can answer them however we think is right.” What’s your position on this?  Tolerable, because you can’t stop it? Or perfectly natural and welcome?   I don’t have to like or agree with any individual interpretation, of course, much like I can see a certain implementation of a spec and say “Well, no, that behavior makes no sense to me.” But I’m perfectly happy with the rule that “undefined” means “do whatever you think is right.” UPDATE: For bonus points, point to an example of a production where something was added that clearly Shakespeare never said.  Isn’t there an example from history where Fortinbras shows up, and his line “Bid the soldiers shoot” is actually an order to execute Horatio?

I have to admit I’d never thought of this.  How, exactly, does Gertrude offer such a perfect description of Ophelia’s apparently lengthy death? Did she basically watch it?

My first thought is, “There’s no motivation.” But if Gertrude didn’t directly kill her, then she certainly watched her die.

So I offer it up as a valid question – what’s the deal with Gertrude sitting there and watching Ophelia die? Does anybody have any rationale for that, how she came to be watching, why she didn’t summon help or try to go in after her, or anything like that?  Does anybody think the “Gertrude did it” argument has any legs? If so, what’s her motivation? Jealousy over her son’s lover? Putting the crazy girl out of her misery, like a mercy killing? It’s obviously not a new idea, but it’s new to me.