Show of hands, how many people have checked out the Netflix Original “Orange Is The New Black“? In Netflix’s own words, it’s “Trying to become HBO before HBO becomes us.”

Here’s the highlights if you know nothing about the show : It’s set in a women’s prison.  And it is original unrated content.  Which means highly NSFW and really potentially offensive to those with more delicate sensibilities.  If you hear “women’s prison” and you think “gratuitous nudity and lesbian scenes” then you’d be absolutely right – in the first episode.  The expected scene comes so quickly that I’m pretty sure the creators put it in there just to say “Here you go, everybody that came expecting that, you got what you wanted, now sit down and watch for the story.”

The theme of the show is about having nothing to hide, and having to come to terms with the ugly truth about who you really are. The inmate that’s your worst enemy one day may need a favor from you the next.  You’re innocent, it’s your cellmate that’s crazy…or is it the other way around?

Which brings us to “Crazy Eyes,” whose real character name happens to be Suzanne.  The first time we see her it’s in the context of another prisoner’s first day orientation and the lesson, “Don’t sit with Crazy Eyes at lunchtime.”  But Crazy Eyes has more depth than you might imagine!  She’s always singing, or rattling off some original poetry to her latest crush.  When an “acting opportunity” comes up for the inmates, she’s disappointed to learn that it is one of those “Scared Straight” programs for teens, because “other prisons get to do Shakespeare and sh*t. I want to play a role!” Not that that stops her.

This “Best Of Crazy Eyes” clip is all I could find. Warning again, these are highlights from a NSFW and potentially offensive show.  The Shakespeare starts at 1:37 and goes to 2:07. You’re going to want to stop at 2:10 unless you want to see how inmates in a women’s prison get back at each other when they are wronged (no violence, just a real WTF moment):

What I like about the clip is that it’s not random.  If Suzanne was just the generic lunatic that they had hanging out around the edge of the stage for random references, this would be strictly a comic piece – look, the crazy one throws down some Shakespeare.  But in later episodes we learn more about this character (just like all of them) and we learn that maybe she’s no more crazy than any others. She had a real life before she came to prison.  There’s another character who was a high school track star. One ran a restaurant with her husband. Maybe Suzanne was an actor?  I haven’t watched the entire season yet so I don’t know.

It’s a good show, but it’s hard to recommend.  There’s not much nudity or violence, but there’s an incredible amount of difficult language and content.  A character strapped to a bed in the asylum will make you cringe and reach for the fast forward button. Which is precisely why it’s so good.  Definitely recommended, if you think you can handle it.

Ok so earlier this week I talked about going to see the teachers for my children who are currently in elementary school (second and fourth grade) and volunteering to do some Shakespeare with them, as I’ve done for the past several years.  My oldest is in middle school, where the rules are all new to us, so I have no idea if I’ll get a similar opportunity.

Or do I?

Tonight was “Geography Night” at the middle school.  We wandered around the halls playing geography bingo, geography simon says, getting henna tattoos in one room and eating africa shaped cookies in another.  In the cookie room a bunch of teachers have gathered who recognize my daughter, and introduce themselves to my wife. One says, “I’m the English teacher.”

“You do Shakespeare with them?” I ask immediately.  I’m getting better at this.

“Oh, definitely,” she says.

I nod, give an appreciative thumbs up and say, “Nice.”

“Why,” the teacher asks, “Are you going to come in and help us?”

I find myself speechless at how to respond, because I didn’t know it would be that easy. I’m left stuttering out words like, “oh yes…defin…yeah…”

“This is his thing,” my wife offers.

“Let’s just call it a long story,” I finally get out.

Looks like I’ll be doing plenty of Shakespeare this school year!!

Loyal followers of Shakespeare Geek know what’s coming. Ever since my children were old enough to go to school, I have taken the early year “parent teacher conference” as an opportunity to volunteer to bring some form of Shakespeare content to the classroom, adjusted for whatever age we’re working with. I’ve read a children’s version of The Tempest to first graders, I’ve done recitation with the Brownies, I’ve done sonnets with the fifth graders and last year we did Midsummer Night’s Dream with the third graders.

This year I’ve got a second grader (7yr old boy) and a fourth grader (9yr old girl and veteran of Midsummer).

How’d it go?

Second grade teacher loves the idea, and in fact brings up the idea of fairy tales as inspiration for modern literature. Which I find an absolutely fascinating coincidence because in a future post I’ve got a book that claims to be a collection of fairy tales that inspired Shakespeare. Perfect fit! I can come in, read one of the fairy tales, and talk about the parallels to Shakespeare’s story. Works for me.

Fourth grade teacher, while admitting her own weakness in the realm of Shakespeare, is also chomping at the bit to try it. Her idea was to go more down the path of biography (something I’ve always wanted to tackle and not done yet) which fits in with her class’s existing book report schedule, where their second book must be a biography. She suggested that as a special guest I can come in and do a presentation on Shakespeare’s biography. Sounds good to me!

So it looks like it’ll be showtime for me again at least twice this year. My oldest is now in middle school where the rules about parent volunteers are entirely different, so I have no idea whether I’ll be able to get in there at all. But if the opportunity presents itself I will try!

I told the teachers today, “I know that the high school actually has a very good Shakespeare program. What I’m hoping is to create this wave of children back in elementary school that have already got enough Shakespeare experience that when they get to high school and are “introduced” to the topic officially they’ll all be, “No problem, we got this,” and the teachers in charge of that program will be left wondering, “Wait, what just happened?”

Loyal readers know that your Shakespeare Geek is born and raised in Massachusetts, which makes me a lifelong Red Sox fan.  Baseball changed forever for us in the 2004 World Series when we broke the curse by shutting out the Cardinals 4-0.

Speaking of the Cardinals….(oh, that was a cheap shot over the bow and I’m not ashamed of it)…it happens to pass that our pal Bardfilm is a Cardinals fan!  And lo and behold look who has made it back to the World Series this year.

A wager!  There must be a wager!

There is.  And here it is: The loser has to write and post an original sonnet on his blog, praising the other team.  So should the Cardinals win, I would have to pen a sonnet singing their praises (what rhymes with grumble?)  And, when the Red Sox win, Bardfilm will need to join the choirs that already sing our many praises.  I hope he doesn’t think he can plagiarize one of the songs already sung about our hometown heroes, as I will be checking.

🙂

Play ball!