http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/03/14/1551-alice-arden/ We last wrote about Alice Arden back in 2006, in reference to a possibly-Shakespeare worked called “Arden of Faversham”. The article linked here, in “Executed Today.com” no less, details the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife, Alice, and her lover, Richard Mosby.  Apparently they did him Rasputin-style :  poisoned, strangled with a towel, smash with a 14pound pressing iron, and stabbed 7 or 8 times. Every time I hear “Arden” I can’t help but think they are related to Shakespeare.  Remember that Shakespeare’s mom was Mary Arden. 

http://www.rose-rosetree.com/blog/2009/03/13/face-reading-shakespeare-villains/ With the new(?) portrait of Shakespeare(??) getting all the buzz this week, it only makes sense for the “face readers” to come out of the woodwork and tell us some things about the man based entirely on the science of judging the book by its cover.  Or, in this case, judging the book by someone else’s interpretation of what the cover looks like.  Know what I’m thinking?  Surely this has been done, but I think that we should take all known or assumed portraits of Shakespeare, throw in a bunch of other folks of the same period, and then use one of the face recognizing software packages (like Google’s Picasa, for instance) to see if it groups all the Shakespeares together. (*) The subject, by the way, is the punch line to an old and rather bad joke.  I thought it appropriate.

http://bardfilm.blogspot.com/2009/03/gielgud-as-hamlet-in-1944.html I find stuff like this interesting for its place in history.  Anybody my age knows Sir John Gielgud as…well, ancient.  My first memory of him is the butler in Arthur, 1981, when he would have been 77. So it’s a rare treat indeed to find such a clip as Bardfilm has uncovered, showing a 1944 Gielgud performing Hamlet. I’m particularly intrigued by the delivery, a pretty straightforward “Hold skull up and deliver lines” recitation.  I went looking for an example of how the interpretation has become a bit more animated over the years, and surprisingly when I turned to Brannagh I found this, which while perhaps a little heavier on the “acting” and less on the “recitation”, is still the exact same “hold skull up and deliver lines” recitation from 60 years ago.  

http://artofmanliness.com/2009/03/16/the-hard-way/ Linked entirely for the opening quote:
“The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.”  – Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche not just quoting Hamlet but extending it to make his point?  Love it.  I don’t even know what the article is about, I stopped at the Shakespeare reference. 🙂

I don’t know if this is officially public or not, but a source on Twitter tells me that Shakespeare will return to Boston Common this summer. The play: A Comedy Of Errors. All I heard was “August” so I’m not sure if we’ll get 1 week or 3. I expect the former. Yay! A play I’ve not seen live, and despite no end of financial whining from Citibank ever since they bought everything in site and slapped their name on it, we still get our Shakespeare. I’m pleased. Unfortunately this year I don’t work 5 minutes from the stage, so I’ll have to plan accordingly to get there and get a good seat instead of just walking over and sitting someplace. But I can work with that.UPDATE, AUGUST 2009 : The show is going on right now, don’t miss it! My review is already posted here.