Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

~ duane ~ 1 Comment
Anybody familiar with this book, and/or the upcoming movie?  Check out the description that caught my eye:

Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player,
Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen
Hawking and Ringo Starr. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent,
secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to
find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who
died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Of course, the Shakespearean bit could be all of about 2 lines of dialogue in the introduction of the character.  But I prefer to imagine something more along the lines of “Searching for Bobby Fischer”, where the kid just exudes this sort of genius for everything he does.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=64738

Atlanta Needs Money

~ duane ~ 2 Comments
Every year around this time, The Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta holds their fundraising drive.  This year they’re heading for $50,000 having been promised a matching gift that would bring them up to $100k.

The Tavern is very highly regarded for their “original practice” style, and we’ve spoken of them often here on the blog.  One of their staff, Ann, has been a regular contributor in the past (though I’m not sure if she’s still hanging out with us).  If you’ve got some bucks to donate and want to support Shakespeare, Atlanta can certainly put your generosity to good use.

New Merchandise Now Available!

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Every time I showed my wife the t-shirts I was making she’d say, “I don’t like big stuff on the front. Why not make just a little Shakespeare up in the corner, like an emblem? And then put something big on the back if you want.”

Worth a shot.

I’ve added three new shirts, all in the same basic style – a white-on-dark image taken from the Chandos portrait that I use as my logo. The image really only works in this scheme – I’ve tried dark-on-light but it doesn’t look good. Please note that “Customize” button – all of these are available in all men’s and women’s styles and colors (just dark ones).

The difference between the three is in the text:

  • The image shown, with text ShakespeareGeek.com underneath.  This particular sample is on a red shirt, but that can be changed.

  • The same image (this time on a black shirt), with just “Shakespeare Geek”, no dotcom.

  • Image (shown on a dark blue shirt), with no text at all.

So there you have it. Hopefully my wife is right and people do like this more understated “small on the front” style.  Note that there is nothing at all on the back of these shirts.   Enjoy!

Chicken and Egg Shakespeare

~ duane ~ 6 Comments
This question has been explored by greater minds than my own, but let’s talk about the … universality? … of Shakespeare.

We know that modern audiences tend to appreciate a story with even the hint of a Shakespeare plot line : West Side Story.  Ten Things I Hate About You.  Lion King.   “Hey,” people tell each other, “Did you know that’s based on a Shakespeare story?”

Thing is, we also know that Shakespeare simply rewrote existing stories.

So if you remove Shakespeare’s words and retreat back to the story, where does the inherent value and appeal come from?  Do we like it because we associate it with Shakespeare and therefore lift it up more than we might? Or are we looking at the deeper story that predates Shakespeare, that caused even Shakespeare himself to say “Hey, that’s good, I should borrow that.”

Take Romeo and Juliet.  We know that Shakespeare rewrote that one.  He added characters and changed some stuff around.  So what if we staged the Romeo and Juliet story today, without those additions? Would it still work? And if it didn’t, would that be because it wasn’t as good a story until Shakespeare got to it? Or has the Shakespearean version become so ingrained in our brains that if we recognize it as “not Shakespeare” then it’s just not as good?