Finally! I can’t remember the last time I saw an interesting and well researched list of Shakespeare-ish movies. Thank you ReelzChannel for providing the “Shookup Shakespeare” list, their way of saying “inspired by”. All your favorites are here, from Ran and Throne of Blood to O and Ten Things. Not one of them is a “modern version with original text” like Romeo+Juliet. I can just imagine the crowd that sees this list either being those that saw and loved Ten Things and have never heard of Kurosawa, or vice versa. Which is sort of the point of Shakespeare as unifying factor, no?
Month: May 2010
When Burbage Played
[ Twice now in the last couple days another Shakespeare blog has linked me first while simultaneously offering something of independent value that I want to link back. We are not all ganging up to play link exchange, it’s just kinda working out that way. ]
When I was in college writing for the theatre group known as New Voices, I had no theatre experience. I didn’t know how to format a script. I’m pretty sure that for my very first play I messed up “stage left” and “house left”. What they gave us to work with was a bare stage. Your walls were black, and your only objects were black wooden boxes. Anything else you carried on and off with you. If you put something on a box it was a table, if you sat on it it was a chair, if you put two together and lie down it was a bed. That’s how I learned to write, and one of the ways that I learned to love the idea of telling your story entirely in what the characters say.
With that I point you to JM’s discovery, When Burbage Played:
When Burbage played, the stage was bare
Of fount and temple, tower and stair,Two broadswords eked a battle out;
Two supers made a rabble rout;
The throne of Denmark was a chair!
Hark, A Vagrant!
Thanks to Katie for pointing out this mini-series of Macbeth comics from Hark, A Vagrant. Cute ideas, not really fall-down hysterical. Adult language, be warned. The “our kids” strip seems to demonstrate a pretty key misunderstanding of the play, but maybe I’m being picky. I like the King James joke best and totally don’t understand the “clothes too big for him” joke. Have fun.
Quote Something.
Had an interesting thought today. Was pondering a situation where I’ve met someone, they’ve heard about the Shakespeare Geek thing, and this person says, “Quote something.”
What’s the first quote that comes to mind? No fair thinking about it, no fair with the followup questions like I’d normally do (“Oh, geez, something from the tragedies or would you prefer a comedy?”)
Reason I ask is that, when it occurred to me, the quote that came to mind was “If we shadows have offended think but this and all is mended that you have but slumbered here, whilst these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme no more yielding but a dream, gentles do not reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend.” That surprised me, because normally I don’t go for Midsummer like that. If I’d been asked the question like this I think I would have said I’d pull out some Hamlet, Macbeth, or possibly Tempest. But not Midsummer.
Whether that’s because I just watched Were the World Mine, I don’t know. That’s not how it first came to mind.
What about you? No fair thinking about it. Quote something first, then ask why that one.
Melt.
My adorable 5yr old daughter follows me into the kitchen this evening, holding a small piece of paper. “Daddy, I found this card,” she says, “Under the couch. I don’t know what it is.”
I know what it is. “What does it say?” I ask.
She begins to read. She’s just learning how. “Not…of…an…of an … a g e…”
“Age,” I say.
“Age,” she says, “Not of an age…but…for….all time.”
“Thanks Sweetie,” I tell her, “That’s one of Daddy’s Shakespeare cards. You can just leave it on the counter.”
🙂 I can’t tell you people how it melts my heart to hear words like that coming out of my kids’ mouths.