We don’t discuss interpretation of the text enough these days. I really should make more progress in R3, but that’s a different story :).

The other day I answered somebody’s question on Macbeth, asking what this quote means:

I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent

I pointed out that this quote is only partial, and when you look at the rest it makes more sense:

I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on the other.

This quote comes from Macbeth himself, trying to pump up for the bloody deed he’s about do (namely, kill the king).  My best summary for this particular passage was, “Nothing personal, Duncan.  I don’t have to do this because of anything that you did.  You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I want to be king, and that means you gotta go.”

I know that’s a gross over simplification, but sometimes that’s all these kids want.  When I think of “translating Shakespeare into modern speech” this is what I think of.

Anybody want to help flesh out (or correct) that answer?  The next time somebody googles for the meaning of that quote I’d love for them to land here and see some interesting discussion about what that passage means.

I can’t say I know much about Dr. Battis, but his resume is impressive to say the least and I felt that his contributions to our beloved playwright deserved a little recognition. Dr. Battis died this past weekend due to complications from bladder cancer.

Read the whole obituary to get the full span of this man’s achievements – I’ll list only a few here:

• He played more than 90 characters in Shakespearean plays and,
  he often noted, had only one onstage kiss in his life.
• He worked at
  Baltimore’s Centerstage before moving in 1984 to Washington, where he
  appeared in almost 70 productions of the Shakespeare Theatre. He
  received a Helen Hayes Award for his lifetime contributions to
  Washington theater in 2002.
• Dr. Battis
  acted in all but one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays — the lone exception was
  “Cymbeline” — and gave his final performance as Marcade in a 2006
  production of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” in the Bard’s home town of
  Stratford-upon-Avon in England
• Battis’s
  Falstaff, one critic wrote, “was all that Shakespeare wrote the
  character to be: braggart, glutton, coward, liar, obscene buffoon, yet
  blessed with an indomitable spirit and an ability to laugh at himself.”
• After a 1967 performance in Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer
  proclaimed Dr. Battis’s interpretation “the best Lear of our
  generation.”

Sounds like we lost one of the good ones. Anybody out there happen to know his work, and can share any stories/experiences?

Flights of angels, Dr. Battis.  RIP.

I can’t find the original reference, but Friday on Twitter I saw somebody say something like “by that logic Iago would be 408 years old.”

And I thought, “You know, Iago never actually dies at the end of the play. They just take him away to be tortured.  How cool would it be if he was in fact immortal?”

The plot of a horror movie formed in my brain.  Bunch of college kids over in Italy (American kids studying abroad, of course), working on Othello.  Over study group they have the “Iago didn’t die” conversation.   “You know this is based on a true story, right?” one of the kids says.  “And it took place not too far from here…” It’s only a matter of time before they’re crawling around centuries-old tunnels, until they reach the very chamber where Iago was brought so long ago…

…what happens next?  And where my screenwriters at? Make it happen!

This article from The Idler on Shakespeare movie adaptations doesn’t cover the same old ground that everybody else does. Rarely do you see mention of Edward II or Middleton’s Revengers Tragedy amid the praise for Heath Ledger’s work in 10 Things I Hate About You.

I’m linking the article for the list at the bottom – the author has gone into Netflix and made a list of all the Shakespeare adaptations that are available for instant streaming.  I’ve often browsed the listings myself, stumbling across items such as Jarman’s 1979 Tempest (Mentioned in the article) or James Earl Jones’ King Lear. I wonder how complete her list is?  That would be a great resource if it was kept up to date somewhere.