Like Shakespeare

~ duane ~ 9 Comments

Something occurred to me this weekend, while mowing the lawn.

How come when a movie actor wants to portray his project as having quality, he’ll say that it’s like Shakespeare (I’m thinking of the Spiderman reboot, although there are other examples)… but if you went up to the average moviegoer and said “Hey, you want to go see a Shakespeare movie?” most of them would look at you like you were crazy? It’s as if “like Shakespeare” means “very good”, but “actual Shakespeare” means “I won’t like it.”
My theory is that it has to do with our own lack of confidence in ourselves. We’ve all been taught that Shakespeare is the pinnacle of literature. The best of the best. So to compare yourself to such a high standard inherently puts you up there near it, at least. And that’s pretty good.
But, at the same time, we also think that Shakespeare is therefore out of our own reach. That it is too difficult for us to understand. We fear that we will not be able to appreciate it, to discuss it and offer our opinions afterward. So pre-emptively we decide that just wouldn’t like it to begin with.
That makes me sad. People want “like Shakespeare”. But they’re afraid of actual Shakespeare, because they don’t think they can handle it. I wonder how to bridge that gap?

Macbeth : A Love Story

~ duane ~ 7 Comments

This article is little more than the announcement of a particular show, but I like the way they spun it. This particular interpretation will focus on the Macbeths as one of Shakespeare’s great romantic couples.

“Our director Iam Coulter kept telling us she wanted Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to light up every room when they walk in. They’re dynamic, they’re sexual and they’re very much in love,” says Konchak.

What do you think? I know we’ve discussed Shakespeare’s best couples in the past, but sometimes it’s fun to revisit topics for the new geeks.
Are the Macbeths an example of a wonderful couple, or are they incredibly dysfunctional?

Top Twenty Shakespearean Faux Pas (Guest Post by Bardfilm)

~ api ~ 3 Comments

The author of Bardfilm thought it would be fun to compose a guest post here at Shakespeare Geek. And I thought it would be fun to let him! Here we are, then:

Bardfilm’s list of the Top Twenty Shakespearean Faux Pas:

  1. Inviting Lady Macbeth to a dinner party and constantly telling her where she can wash up.
  2. Inviting Macbeth to a dinner party and constantly saying, “What a great Banquo!” instead of “What a great Banquet.”
  3. Asking Henry V “Whatever happened to Richard II? We hardly ever see him around anymore!”
  4. Telling Rosalind she looks just like a boy actor playing a girl pretending to be a boy acting like a girl.
  5. Asking the two noble kinsmen which one is the noblest.
  6. Casually mentioning to Macduff that your wife and children weren’t butchered by a desperate megalomaniac.
  7. Inviting Claudius to see Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap with you.
  8. Trying to compliment Hamlet by referring to him as “The Great Dane.” He hates that.
  9. Shouting “No! It’s your imagination!” whenever Macbeth starts on that “Is this a dagger?” nonsense.
  10. Answering all of Hamlet’s rhetorical questions in a sarcastic tone of voice (viz. “What’s Hecuba to him? He dated Hecuba in high school!”).
  11. Standing in the way of Richard III’s ascent to the throne.
  12. Offering Othello a handkerchief after he sneezes. It’s kind of like offering Lady Macbeth a moist towelette.
  13. Singing the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” when Lavinia (from Titus Andronicus) is in the room.
  14. Slipping a fake spider into the martini glass of Leontes (from The Winter’s Tale).
  15. Referring to Gertrude as “Hamlet’s father’s brother’s wife.”
  16. Requesting the pianist at a bar to play “We Don’t Need Another Hero” when Claudio is right there.
  17. Showing up at a social occasion wearing the same cloth-of-gold of tissue dress as Cleopatra.
  18. Serving Caesar a salad . . . over and over again . . . every single time he comes to your place.
  19. Proposing marriage to Isabella—even though you know she’s almost finished taking her vows to be a nun.
  20. Asking King Lear about his 401(k).

Our thanks to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare in a relatively-informal manner.

Welcome Guest Blogger : KJ from Bardfilm!

~ duane ~ 1 Comment
If you hang out at all on Twitter and follow the Shakespeare crowd, you’ve no doubt seen Bardfim‘s hysterical lists with names like #ShakespeareanWWEWrestlers (“The Big Show-within-a-Show”!), #ShakespeareInBed (If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly….in bed!”), and many others that have long since scrolled out of my ability to search them.

“Why don’t you gather those all together into list-posts so that people can find them later?” I asked. Long story short, we struck upon an idea – he posts them here!

Starting today (shortly, as a matter of fact) you’ll see Bardfilm’s lists showing up here on Shakespeare Geek, and I think the content will be a worthy addition to everybody’s experience. If you’re not already following his blog, go do so. He deserves the traffic. If you’ve ever spotted a Shakespeare reference on film, KJ’s either already talked about it, or wants to hear about it.

Thanks, KJ!

Without further ado, let’s get to the fresh content…

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Alternate / Original : The diminutive chains of habit are seldom heavy enough to be felt till they are too strong to be broken.

Saw this one go by on Twitter this morning, and it didn’t feel right.  Seems too much like advice, and not the sort of Polonial (ha, I just made that up!) advice like “To thine own self be true,” where it’s directed from one character to another. As a general rule, most of what you’ll find in Shakespeare’s body of work is something that someone said, aloud, to someone else.  (True there are soliloquies, and then there’s the sonnets and long poems, but the bulk of the canon is made up of conversation). So ask yourself whether it sounds like something that would have come up in normal conversation.

Turns out, in this case, it’s not.  However it’s closer to Shakespeare than you might think.

This quote comes from our old friend Samuel Johnson, sometime in the late 1700’s.  Though I cannot find an exact reference to Dr. Johnson’s work, others were quoting him as early as the 1880’s.

In case you missed the Shakespeare connection, you need to go here.