Once Again, Geeklets Knock Me For A Loop

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

So tonight it’s bath night and I’m pouring water over my son’s head in the tub.  “Look, a double bubble!” he says.

“Double bubble toil and trouble,” says I.  “Fire burn and cauldron bubble!”
“Fillet of a fenny snake,” I hear out of the 8year old.
“Holy sh*t!” says I, who did not realize that they knew the speech.  (Ok, I didn’t really say that, but I certainly thought it :))  It’s not like any of those are commonly used words, after all.  “Ok, you caught Daddy by surprise, I did not know that you guys knew that speech.”
“Oh sure,” says the 10year old, “Everybody knows that speech.  Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake.”
Seriously, the only time I know of that they would have heard that speech (other than the opening line) was when I taught the 8yr old’s Brownie troop.   Either it just stuck somehow, or they’ve been exposed to it in other ways.
Pretty soon they’re going to come at me with Shakespeare knowledge that they picked up independently of me.  I can’t wait.

More on the Psychology of Romeo and Juliet

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

A couple weeks ago I stumble across a mention of The Romeo and Juliet Effect in a book about motivation and will power.

Today among the various Shakespeare feeds I scan I spotted this 2008 Psychology Today article entitled, “Romeo and Juliet’s Death Trip: Addictive Love and Teen Suicide.”  

There are no great insights to be found.  The author pretty much skims the story for various death references and ties them all back to suicide, including the claim that Romeo is suicidal over Rosaline at the opening of the play.  I think that’s a bit much.  That’s not suicidal, that’s emo.  Not the same thing.

The article’s at least entertaining, though, and I appreciate that.  I wonder how far his tongue was in his cheek while writing it?

Father Laurence tries cognitive behavior therapy:

I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word:
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy (read “psychology”),
To comfort thee, though thou art banished. . . .
rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array.

But then (oy!!!) the good Father resorts to pharmacology: he gives Juliet a potion to make her appear dead.

College Shakespeare (in Boston)

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

Bard in Boston has been collecting a list of fall shows playing at some of our many Massachusetts colleges, including an all-female Taming of the Shrew, and a “a creative encounter with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, incorporating movement, music, martial arts, sound and song”

Maybe I’ll make it to some of these!  I really don’t see nearly enough Shakespeare, relative to how much is around me at all times.  Maybe some of the more North Shore schools will get added to the list?  I’m looking at you, Merrimack College …

A Dogberry Spinoff?

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

In this interview with Joss Whedon about the upcoming Much Ado movie we learn a couple of interesting bits:

  • Although the Shakespeare readings at his house have been going on 10 years and started during Buffy, Sarah Michele Gellar did not take part.  I expect he threw this in there because it’s a frequently asked question – she’s still arguably the most well known name to come out of that series (that is, outside the Whedon universe).
  • Nathan Fillion, cast as Dogberry, had never read Shakespeare before.  “People are thinking spin-off!” Whedon says.
He goes on to talk about how a Shakespeare movie is similar to The Avengers, but isn’t that what all directors and actors do when they’re interviewed?  Talk about how it’s all basically drawing from the same source?  I get his point – that both works are ensemble pieces, and you need to clearly understand and present why each character is there – but I wouldn’t call it a groundbreaking opinion.
What got me most curious was that spinoff idea.  Could you imagine that?  You take a well known cast of characters from a world where spinoffs and sequels abound (that being the comic/sci-fi world).  Then you drop some Shakespeare on them.  They don’t need to glorify the text like we do – they just want to see their favorite characters having new adventures.  So, why not?
We’ve talked about Shakespeare sequels in the past, but I don’t think we’ve ever done spin-offs.  What would a Dogberry spin-off look like?  Could you get a movie out of it, or a whole television series?

ProfShakespeare 1, Dark Lady 0

~ duane ~ 1 Comment
So the news of the day is somebody claiming that “Black Luce” mentioned in Henslowe’s diaries must have been Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady”.  The problem with these stories is that people who don’t follow Shakespeare will see it in the popular press and think, “Oh, interesting, well then I guess that’s an answer to that question.”  Meanwhile people with the slightest passing interest in researching Shakespeare will think, “Great, another unproveable theory – get in line.”

I think this theory is amusing because I heard it not from that link but from Twitter user “ProfShakespeare“, aka Grace Ioppolo, who I hope doesn’t mind me citing her research since she did a much better job than I ever would.  She also happens to be Founder and Director of the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project, so why not get your information from somebody who deals with the original source material every day?

  • Online access to the manuscript of Henslowe’s diary so you can do your own detective work:  http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/essays/henslowediary.html
  • “Henslowe dined with Gilbert East & Peter Street, the Fortune’s builder, many times in summer 1600, during the building of that theatre.Henslowe’s records of dining with Gilbert East & Peter Street (from line 2)” http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-7/099r.html
  • Henslowe lists ‘Lewce Easst’ as a tenant at the Boar’s Head in 1604 (3rd line in second list, on 2nd half of page): http://www.henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/images/MSS-7/177v.html

Professor Ioppolo is hosting a conference (I assume – she calls it “my conference”) on the connections between Shakespeare and Henslowe in September:

Who invented Shakespearean theatre?Burbage & Shakespeare
and/or
Henslowe & Alleyn:
Who Invented the “Shakespearean Theatre”?
Saturday, 24th November 24th 2012, 10am-5pm
The University of Reading

http://www.reading.ac.uk/english-literature/aboutus/ell-shakespeare-conference-2012.aspx