Month: September 2012

I tend to keep half an eye out of “Young Adult” novels with a Shakespeare twist, and several references to Kissing Shakespeare popped up this weekend.  My oldest daughter enjoyed books like The Shakespeare Stealer (which, I realize, I never reviewed here) so I scan the plot:

In this story we meet Miranda. The daughter of two famous actors with the New England Shakespeare Company, she finds herself beginning to despise acting.

Ok, so far so good.  Shakespeare name, Shakespeare content.

After opening night of Taming of the Shrew, where she basically performs the lead role as a statue, a boy who’s a senor year transfer student from England that no one has really spoken to, comes up to her and tells Miranda she has to come with him. Apparently this Stephen Langford is from 1581 and he’s there to tell her that THE William Shakespeare is in danger.

Again, not a problem – the whole “young hero/heroine needs to travel in time to save a famous historic figure” is a common plot.  A little confused about playing the lead in Shrew as a statue, though.  Did they mean Winter’s Tale?

What does Stephen Langford want her to do? He wants Miranda to seduce Shakespeare so that the future bard will forget all about becoming a priest.

LALALALALA *hands over ears* LALLA I AM NOT LISTENING I CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALALALALA

I don’t know when I got old, but I don’t want to see the work “seduce” anywhere near the words “young adult”, thankyewverymuch.

🙂  All kidding aside, my daughter is 10 – I’m well aware that there’s an entire audience of later teens that can deal with such topics while still falling under the “young adult” category.  I’m just not going to push it. In my house we’re still in the midst of an ongoing brainwashing experience, where every time we stumble across even the most innocent kissing scene my wife and I will screw up our faces and yell ‘EWWWWW!  KISSING!’  so that this is the first thought in our daughter’s head when the subject comes up, for as long as possible. 😉

While poking around IMDB for Shakespeare movies I spotted the indie Chasing Shakespeare, starring Danny Glover.  The link above has the most information, and that story was dated a year ago.  IMDB lists the film as having as 2012 release.

The plot? “A love story between a young African-American man and a Native American girl with a passion for Shakespeare.“

I saw a reference to this Isaac Asimov short story and thought, “Ooo, it sounds like I would like that!”  Then I googled for it, found it available for reading online, and the link was already purple – meaning that I’d been there before.  Go figure! 🙂

I noticed a new movie in IMDB today called Shakespeare’s Daughter. The cast is a number of big names – Eric Roberts, Chevy Chase, Tom Sizemore, Bonnie Wright…

The plot so far is only the short synopsis, “Eugen Devlin, a once famous, and now reclusive poet searches through his past looking for redemption and peace.”

Back in May I mentioned the “Shakespearean Rosetta Stone” project where a line was taken from Othello:

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

And the world was asked, “Translate this line into your language.”  The idea was to take a culturally sensitive line and look at how that aspect plays into the translation.”