Ok, maybe the series that Big Think is doing has some potential. Here James Shapiro, Carol Gilligan and Kenji Yoshino is discuss “Which Shakespeare play do you think most illuminates contemporary issue and our culture?“
Ok, who guessed Antony and Cleopatra? Wouldn’t have been my first choice. Not that I had a first choice, I just don’t think of A&C that often.

Jim Shapiro: …I think about how, especially Antony, deals with the disappointment others have in him. This is kind of an Obama type problem. Philo and Demetrius come out at the beginning. This **** general offloads the ****. He is not doing what—we want to follow him and lead. We need him to lead us in the way that he’s always led us by those Roman values or whatever parting line it is and he realizes he is not going to do that anymore and he has to deal with their disappointment in him and I think that’s really hard today. We live in a world in which we don’t want to disappoint our followers or our students or our political supporters and you also have to do that if you’re going to be true.

It gets better from there. Yoshino goes throws Titus Andronicus into the mix as well.
It’s short, but thought provoking.

Here’s a fun story that’s heavy on the geek: Ian McDiarmid is playing Timon of Athens.
Who?
Timon. Of Athens. It’s a Shakespeare play.
🙂
I kid. Ian McDiarmid is better known to Star Wars geeks the world over as Emperor Palpatine , aka Darth Sidious, aka Darth Vader’s boss.
My kids, the youngest being just 4yrs old, are only now beginning to appreciate the Star Wars universe as it was meant to be told – starting with episode 4, going through episode 6, and then just stopping. No animated Clone Wars series, no JarJar. A world where Darth Vader is the scariest mother walking the face of this or any other planet. My son informed me that Darth Vader was the biggest bad guy in the universe. “Oh no,” I told him, “Darth Vader has a boss. The Emperor.” They were very impressed by this. They have no idea who the Emperor is, because they won’t see him until the third movie.

So this weekend, my wife surprised me with an early birthday present : tickets to go see HAIR, one of my favorite shows of all time. I’ve often told people “It’s a tossup between HAIR and Hamlet,” and let them work out exactly what sort of similarities they share that they could both be at the top of my list :).
For those unfamiliar with the “60’s tribal love rock musical” you may not realize that it’s loaded with Shakespeare references. I thought I’d had them all:

• An entire song called “What a piece of work is man”, from Hamlet.
• The big finale song finds the tribe singing “Eyes, look your last….arms, take your last embrace….” which are Romeo’s last words to Juliet.
• This crescendoes into “the rest is silence! the rest is silence! the rest is silence!” which is, of course, from Hamlet.

Well last night I spotted two more. Maybe I’ve just missed them in the past, or forgotten them. Or maybe they’ve been cut in other productions, who knows. But:

• Claude (our tragic hero) breaks into “O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt….” when it seems the world is getting him down. Hamlet again.
• After the “What a Piece of Work is Man” song, Berger, who plays something of a Mercutio in this story, just goes ahead and refers to Claude as Shakespeare directly.

That combination – a play whose second half is one long bad acid trip, intermingled with liberal Shakespeare references – continues to show the infinite variety in what Shakespeare had to say. If you come to the show with the wrong attitude, you’re going to be in for an uncomfortable night. Berger takes his pants off and begins climbing over audience members within the first five minutes. Most scenes involve liberal demonstrations of simulated sex, in every conceivable combination. The entire cast famously gets naked at the end of the first act.
You could, as some people do, get offended by all that nonsense and walk out at intermission. I’ve seen it happen.
Or you could pay attention to the story of Claude, caught between the responsibilities of his reality, and his desire to be with his tribe of dreamers. The hippies get their draft cards. What to do? Berger burns his. Will Claude? What will happen if he doesn’t?
I’ve known for a long time that the creators of HAIR – Gerome Ragni and James Rado – were accomplished actors, with a Shakespeare background. You have to be, you don’t just toss in entire songs lifted directly from the text without some foundation in the subject.
What I learned this weekend, though, is that Ragni was actually on stage during Richard Burton’s Hamlet! I immediately went hunting through the credits ( I have the film at home) to see if I could spot him. Unfortunately, according to his bio he is listed only as “attendant (uncredited). So I don’t get to see him on video. Or, I may have, and just can’t recognize him.
It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I don’t particularly love much of the second act, that whole “bad trip” sequence I think goes on too long and is too difficult to follow this far removed from the days when everybody in the audience could relate to what Claude was experiencing. But I adore the story, I adore the music, I adore how they weave Shakespeare and Hamlet throughout. Note that above I’ve linked the movie version, which is different in a number of ways from the play. Better, in some ways, if you ask me.

So this weekend I received an email from Hank Rogerson who, with his partner Jilann Spitzmiller, created the documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars. I’m always at a bit of a loss for words when people who do this sort of thing for a living (and, might I add, win awards for it) reach out to me. It reminds me just how far our little corner of the Shakespeare universe has grown, and just who out there is listening. It’s pretty humbling, I have to say.
So, with that out of the way, let’s get on to the good stuff, shall we? Rogerson and Spitzmiller have a new Shakespeare documentary in the works, and if it’s anything like their first effort, we can expect great things.
Still Dreaming takes place at the Lillian Booth Actors Home just outside New York City, and follows a group of lifelong entertainers (all well into their 80’s, they tell us) as they work on a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“Four lovers? Among 80 year olds?” the short clip begins, as one of the self-described 80yr olds questions the premise.
“I think it’d be terrific!” retorts one woman, with a hint of indignation, “You never give up!”
What I think is amazing about the potential for this story is that they’re not just walking into their local nursing home and sticking a script in front of a bunch of people who’ve never acted a day in their long lives (although that would be a story in itself, albeit a different one). These are people who have been entertainers for decades, and who aren’t letting age get in the way of their ability to continue being entertainers.
“What is it like to lead a creative life, even at the end of your life?” Spitzmiller asks in voiceover. It works on a whole bunch of levels. We talk an awful lot about the universality of Shakespeare, and I think we’re about to witness another demonstration of it.
I’m fascinated by the idea. I admit — I don’t ever plan to be “behind bars”, nor have I ever really had anything to do with that aspect of our society (no family or friends in that situation, etc etc ….) So I could only get so close to that project. However I have relatives right now approaching their 80s, some in assisted living homes, and heck I plan to be 80 some day as well. I can only hope that there’s somebody there to hand me a script.
Right now, Still Dreaming is gathering funding (hence the push for publicity, I’m quite sure. I’m not kidding myself ;)). Visit the site for your chance to contribute, and check out the perks they’re offering. Guarantee yourself a copy of the DVD when it’s done. For a little more, get a copy of Shakespeare Behind Bars as well. For a little more than that, get your name in the credits! And it just keeps going. Get tickets to the premiere! Meet the cast! I love this “perk” model of funding independent projects.
Go check out their video, and click around the site. Jilann in particular seems quite active in the comments. They are very enthusiastic about making this happen. Even if you’ve not seen Shakespeare Behind Bars you’ve almost certainly heard of it. This is not a gamble, and these are not amateurs. We know what they’re capable of. Become a part of it.

This series from Big Think has potential:

On each day of Shakespeare’s birth month, Big Think will examine a different way that studying Shakespeare enriches the various disciplines—from neuroscience to business to psychology and beyond. Experts contributing to this series include James Shapiro, Professor of English at Columbia University and author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare; Ben Brantley, chief theater critics of The New York Times; Robert Pinsky, U.S. Poet Laureate from 1997 to 2000; Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres; and Carol Gilligan, psychologist and author of In A Different Voice.

I’m a bit curious to see how it goes, because quite honestly this introduction is …. well, boring. I’m not really fond of using expressions like “interdisciplinary examination” and “social cohesion” in my own discussions of Shakespeare, so I can only hope that once they actually start talking about our favorite subject, they’re a bit more approachable when they do it.