Watching a bit of Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth yesterday, I was reminded of something I don’t like about the Porter’s scene. Whoever is at the door knocks *10* times. That’s an awful lot of knocking. If you were at somebody’s front door, you’d almost certainly give up before knocking 10 times. I realize that this is a castle, not a house, and that someone is surely home and just needs to wake up. That doesn’t change the fact that the amount of knocking is jarring to me, it takes me away from the scene and makes me think “Somebody answer the damn door!”
Here’s what came to me, though. The Macbeths hear 4 knocks before exiting, and then the porter hears 6. But what if the first knock that the Macbeths hear is really the same first knock that that the porter hears? They are almost certainly in two different parts of the castle, after all. See what I’m saying? What if these two scenes actually take place simultaneously? It’s a common enough trick and you’ve probably seen it in any number of novels: one chapter shows you that a situation has changed unexpectedly, and then the next chapter, written from a different character’s perspective, goes back in time a little bit and shows you how that character caused the change in whatever situation.
How might such a technique play out on stage? Could you even attempt to put both the Macbeths and the porter on stage at the same time, or would they step on each other’s lines? If you don’t, though, how do you explain that this is not a sequential series of events, but a simultaneous one?

So, when your kids are in pre-school you get lots of things sent home with them that they made for you. Sometimes it’s finger painting, sometimes it’s something glued to something else. Sometimes it’s just a cut up piece of paper that your young darling decided looked pretty, and he wanted to keep.

I got this.

Shakespeare was talking to Puck so he would know when Hamlet was born.

Now of course my 5yr old son did not write that – he dictated it to the teacher. Whether or not he did the purple decorations, I have no idea. (For those who may not be able to see the image, it is block lettering in what appears to be colored pencil the words “SHAKESPEARE WAS TALKING TO PUCK SO HE WOULD KNOW WHEN HAMLET WAS BORN.”)

I expect that this comes directly from his latest request of telling Shakespeare stories at night. But personally I think it’s very Neil Gaiman, very Sandman. It occurs to me, as I go hunting through the archives, that while I’ve read Gaiman’s Sandman books (at least the Shakespeare bits ;)) I never blogged about it. Will have to fix that. But, either way, I definitely get the vision of Shakespeare the playwright wandering through the forest, speaking with mischievous sprite Puck, while Puck feeds Shakespeare all his best ideas.

I love that I’ve created a world in my child’s brain in which Shakespeare, Puck and Hamlet can all live simultaneously.

If anybody ever corners me and asks for a Shakespeare trivia question I will say, “Who is Corambis?”
The answer is that this is the name Polonius is called by, in the Bad Quarto of Hamlet.
My question to you is, where does this name come from? If the Bad Quarto is supposed to be the one made up from the memories of actors who’d performed the play, how does one get Corambis from Polonius? It’s not even close. I note for comparison that Laertes is spelled Leartes – that makes sense. Likewise with Ofelia or even Gilderstone for Guildenstern. But this Corambis thing is out in left field.
Anybody know the history? Reason to believe that Polonius was in fact called by another name by Shakespeare himself at some point?
By the way, found text of the Bad Quarto over at Project Gutenberg. Who knew?

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a new set of Shakespeare stamps is being produced that showcases iconic images from their performances.

First up is David Tennant’s Hamlet, which will surely get all the love – but personally I’d like to see the 1976 Ian McKellen stamp from Romeo & Juliet, which they seem to have banished to airmail.

Anybody know if a list has been published that shows all of them? Ideally, with pictures? The linked article contains only a picture of the Tennant stamp.

UPDATED: I originally thought that this was a set of 50 stamps, that is apparently not correct. More details to follow.

UPDATED AGAIN : Look what I got! Thanks to Andrew Boyers from RoyalMailStamps for the goods!  Which is your favorite? I think I love them all.  I love the Lear quote, it goes great with the pose. And look at the hair on Sir Ian!

Want them for yourself?

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