Month: March 2011

Over on Yahoo Answers there was a question about Edmund’s status as a villain. So I went looking through the archives to find one of our many “Best Villain” discussions…. and couldn’t find any.
Could it be possible that we’ve never had that discussion? Let’s remedy that.
Best Villain In Shakespeare. Make your case. Tell us who, and tell us why. Strictly *in context of the play* – not “because you really want to play him” or any meta-stuff. Fair enough? Keep everybody arguing the facts of the case.
Who’s it gonna be? Edmund? Iago? Richard III? Aaron?
(It dawns on me that it might be fun to do a post on *all* Shakespeare’s villains, like a Rogue’s Gallery focusing specifically on the evildoers in all of Shakespeare’s works. Hmmmm, yet another idea to put up on the shelf….)

Did Shakespeare write Edward III?
Jeff Watkins, founder and artistic director of the Atlanta Shakespeare Company, thinks so. And it’s crucial to his argument that his group is the only one in America to have produced all 39 of Shakespeare’s plays.
Let the debate rage. If you fall back on the classic agreement of plays — 37 (leaving out Two Noble Kinsmen) — then there are a number of Shakespeare companies that have achieved this goal. If you count Kinsmen, then the Royal Shakespeare Company (granted, not in America) can raise its hand to make that claim.
Watkins isn’t stopping at E3, however, and ye gods one can only hope that he’s going for quality and not just quantity — his group will be doing Double Falsehood (aka Cardenio) as well as Sir Thomas More, which would indeed make him the only company around to have produced 41 of Shakespeare’s plays.
Maybe he can just put an asterisk next to Shakespeare(*) like they do in baseball.

It’s happened again — this time it was all fun and games over in Ireland until Hamlet almost lost an eye. I’m assuming that this is a freak accident that would have happened with any stage weapon, and not one of these crazy cases where the director insists on using real weapons. What I’m most curious about, though, is this:

The A.P. said that Mr. Madden sustained a cut beneath his eye and collapsed on stage, requiring the theater company’s artistic director, Alan Stanford, to go to the stage and explain to stunned audience members that this was not part of the play: the actor had been injured, and the play could not continue.

Not “the actor could not continue” – the play could not. Isn’t it common to have some sort of second for your lead, for situations like this? Or does that only apply if the actor is not able to go on at all?
I suppose a third option is that I’m being heartless, and the cast was unable to go on because they were too distraught at the injury to their Hamlet. Though I remember professional wrestler Owen Hart *dying* on a live pay-per-view event, and the show went on.

Face it, Daniel Radcliffe, you’ll forever be known as Harry Potter. And I know, it’s not terribly newsworthy to hear that he’d “love to do Shakespeare one day”. But since he seems intimidated by the idea (he admits that he’d need a lot of direction), I thought it might make for some interesting conversation to ask…. which character for him?
I figure that his name recognition alone at this point would require that he get a fairly lead role, there’ll be no Banquo or Benvolio for him. But do we see him as a Romeo? I don’t think so. It would be a fun character turn to see him try Iago, but come on, the kid’s intimidated by Shakespeare already, do you really want to start him there?
How about Benedick?

We’ve spoken before about that sign of the apocalypse known as Jersey Shore, and what it has to do with Shakespeare.
Well here’s the latest link in a chain of events heading us straight for the end of the world – one of the “actors” (I don’t know or care what his name is, Vinnie something) is apparently trying to become a “real” actor, and credits his Shakespeare background with giving him a boost.

If you can’t bear to click on the link I’ll save you the pain – he mentions Shakespeare, they ask him for some, he busts out “Wherefore art thou, Romeo”, and one of the hosts says “Yeah, but Juliet says that.” I wonder if Vinnie played the girl’s role? Whatever would the boys at the gym think!