I first discovered this show back in August 2005, but missed it because I didn’t have the Sundance Channel. I got to watch it for real in February 2008. I’m now, as I mentioned, watching it again.  It’s being shown on the Ovation Network, if your cable provider offers that channel.  They’re currently in the third and final season, though, so your best move might still be the DVD set. In short? The setting is a Shakespeare theatre company, tackling one of the great plays each season – Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear.  Each has its own issues (Hamlet played by the up and coming Hollywood actor who only wants it for the screen cred, a Macbeth portrayed by someone who’s played it so often he no longer takes direction, and so on…)  There is a back story that reads much like a soap opera.  The director is crazy, haunted by the ghost of his former director, for instance. It might well be the best “show about Shakespeare” ever put to television. Every episode is loaded with opportunities to discuss Shakespeare.  Just this moment, as I sit here watching a King Lear scene, the actor playing Lear goes off on a screaming tirade that his daughters are not showing proper respect for the verse. During the Hamlet season they discuss details like whether Gertrude may have killed Ophelia.  You can watch every episode a dozen times and find a dozen things to talk about each time.  The crime is that the show only lasted 3 seasons, and 6 episode seasons at that. If you’ve seen the show, what was your favorite season?  Convince those that haven’t that they simply must by the DVD right now.

Spotted via Twitter, I had to dig a little bit to get to this interview with Helen Hackett on the subject of Queen Elizabeth.  Definitely check it out for the bits on Spenser’s Faerie Queen, but stay for the Shakespeare.  Here, have a taste:

Once you start thinking about this it is quite obvious – you have Titania the Fairy Queen who is infatuated with an ass. Well, you can’t think about the Fairy Queen without thinking about Elizabeth because of Spenser. Titania is made to be a slave to lust, a comical figure, her powers are mocked and she is brought back under the authority of a husband. That is implied to be the norm.

The connection might be obvious, but I guess I never thought about it.  The way Hackett paints the picture, nobody was happy with Elizabeth at the time (she’d not had an heir, for instance) and Shakespeare was being pretty blatant in his criticism.

Yesterday I was speaking with someone who said, “Shakespeare fans, or as you call them, geeks.”

I don’t think it’s quite that easy.  I think there’s a difference, I’m just not sure I can explain it.   I know plenty of Red Sox fans, for example, but I’ve never heard some one call themselves a Red Sox Geek.

From where I sit, it goes something like this.  A Shakespeare fan knows that there’s Shakespeare on Boston Common, so he goes to see the show.  Likes it, maybe talks about it over dinner with the friends that came with.  A geek wears his Shakespeare t-shirt with a joke very few people will get, live tweets the show, looks for other “geeks” in the audience to bond with (like those that brought Othello to Othello?), and goes home afterward to get on the blogs and talk about the show, and any other topics that come up tangentially, as long as the conversation will continue.

Maybe the distinction lies there, in the social circle.  I could be a Shakespeare fan entirely by myself.  I don’t need to hang out with other Shakespeare fans.  I can just read it, see it, and like it.  Done.  But I’m not like that, I’m a geek about it.  I needed an outlet for my love of the subject, and when I couldn’t find one, I made one.  And what I’ve found in the intervening years is that fellow geeks have flocked here for the same reasons.
Or, getting back to the sports thing I mentioned earlier, perhaps there is still some level of academic association with the term, confused so often with “nerd” as it is.  Star Wars geek, math geek, theatre geek.  Since I’m clearly on this side of the line, I can’t really speak to the other side – does anybody want to step up and proclaim themselves a marathon geek or a weightlifting geek?

What do you folks think?  When asked, in the real world, are you a fan or a geek? How would you explain it?

This oughtta be good for some discussion.  What, exactly, is “bad Shakespeare”?  If you saw 6yr old children attempting Henry V, would you call it bad?  What about prisoners behind bars, or juvenile delinquents, or any other situation where it’s to be performed by people who are not actors by trade?  What about a good actor who does a less than stellar job? Here’s my thinking.  The only way that it’s bad is when it doesn’t show appropriate respect for the source material.  If your production is attempting to do a good job, then by definition I think you’re on the positive side of the scale because even if the words aren’t coming out of your mouth properly, you know that you want them to, you are striving to make that happen, and that’s a good thing.  But if you’re phoning it in, and you couldn’t care less whether you’re reciting Lear or the phone book, that’s where I think I have a problem. Make sense?  I will be disappointed with a production not because of its quality, but because of its effort (or lack thereof). I’m tempted now to apply this reasoning to movie version of the play like Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet, or Al Pacino’s Merchant of Venice, but it’s not that easy since I don’t know rationale that went into some directorial decisions.  Did they really think they were doing Shakespeare justice in some of their choices?  Or did they think that the source material needed a serious overhaul to make it better?  I can say I didn’t like Hawke’s Hamlet (I’ve not seen Pacino’s Merchant, only read reviews), but I couldn’t necessarily call it “bad Shakespeare” unless I sat down with the man himself and got his opinion on why he did what he did. 

If you came here from Google looking for the actual Shakespeare Pillow, sorry for the confusion. You’ll want to go here for the nice version with the love quotes, or here for the “naughty” version. Enjoy!

Am I the only one that sees a bit of a plot hole in the final scene of Othello?  Othello strangles Desdemona in her bed.  It’s very important for him not to leave any marks.  It’s often done by smothering her with a pillow.
But, when Emilia (why didn’t somebody tell me I was spelling her name wrong?) comes in and finds her still alive, Desdemona replies “Nobody,” has done this,  “I myself.” 
Does Emilia not then ponder, at least for a moment, “How did you smother yourself with a pillow?”
How else is the death scene handled? I’d like to talk about the Boston production I just saw, because I think there was one good thing and one bad one, but I don’t want to put in any spoilers yet.
Or is this part of it?  That Emilia never believes it, she knows exactly what happened?  I suppose that’s the most logical assumption, but if that were the case you’d think Emilia’s reaction would be more immediate, and they wouldn’t go through that whole “I have to report the truth as she told it to me” nonsense if she knows different.  Unless Emilia’s afraid of Othello as well.  But I never think of her as physically afraid of the men around her.