I almost forgot about this, but once again PBS is presenting some modern classic Shakespeare as part of their Great Performances series.  Last year it was Sir Ian McKellan’s King Lear, this year it is David Tennant’s Hamlet (also starring that other guy, what’s his name…. Sir Patrick Frickin Stewart(*)).

I’d seen Lear before PBS broadcast it, but I’ve not yet seen Tennant’s Hamlet.  I’ve actually been eyeing (? that doesn’t look right) it this week, but as my birthday approaches I figured I’d give the family a chance to score it for me first.  But since I never actually mentioned it to anybody it’d have to be a heck of a coincidence.  We shall see!

P.S #1 : I expect my subtle subject line humor to go over the heads of the folks who don’t recognize that David Tennant also played a character called Dr. Wherewhen.

P.S. #2 : I am from Boston, where when we feel strongly about somebody we give them a new middle name.  Another owner of this proud distinction, but for completely different reasons, is Bucky Effing Dent.

P.S. #3 : UPDATED, The date is tomorrow April 28, not Thursday April 29.  The latter is the date of Open Mic Shakespeare, which was on my brain because I’d posted it earlier in the day.

Just got word that there’ll Shakespeare in the Park in my hometown this summer!  Woot!  More details to follow (since I literally just got word 10 minutes ago I don’t want to jinx things), but babbling about Shakespeare is a good thing.  You bring it up, it turns out you’re speaking to a librarian who wants local Shakespeare and just hasn’t made it happen yet.  So you point out that you know some people a few towns over who have a Shakespeare group and are looking for places to perform.  Badda boom, badda bing, Shakespeare in my back yard!

I can’t help but laugh at this article, which takes the position that Taming of the Shrew is conclusive evidence for Shakespeare’s personal hatred of all women.  This one play, out of some 38 or so, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shakespeare’s goal in life was subjugation and inhuman treatment of women.  After all, aren’t all his women examples of this?  Lady Macbeth, Gertrude.  There, that must prove it.

I really want to leave a comment but I can’t decide whether it would be worth it.  The icing on the cake is when the author invokes the ghost of fictional Anne Wetly, arguing that Shakespeare clearly loved her but was stuck marrying Anne Hathaway instead, and thus forever had a hatred of women that he vented in his plays.  Which would be a valid point, except for that whole “she didn’t really exist” thing.

Personally I don’t love Shrew.  It’s little more than slapstick to me.  I really have no interest in debating the “wink” moment in the final scene, and what it really means.  But I don’t know how you meaningfully write a piece that on the one hand points to Katherine as a poor weak creature cowering under her husband’s hand, while at the same time using Lady Macbeth as an example of the same point? Lady M clearly wears the pants in her family.  Apparently the author’s point is that Shakespeare thinks that men want to … dominate women, be dominated by them, or, re: Gertrude, marry them.  Yes, that makes a very consistent and logical point?  I suppose perhaps we could take all the girls who dress up as boys and use that as evidence that Shakespeare was into transgender, too?  And all the ones that kill themselves as evidence that Shakespeare wants all women dead?

It’ll make you laugh, if it doesn’t make you tear your hair out.  Articles like this make you realize where the stereotype of feminists as man-haters comes from.

I was wondering if they’d have this event again this year, and looks like they will indeed.  Gulu Gulu in Salem, MA, in partnership with Rebel Shakespeare, does an Open Shakespeare Mic Night in honor of you know who’s birthday.  This time it’s Thursday April 29.

I went last year and loved it.  With short notice on a weekday night, however, I don’t expect I’ll be able to attend this year.  🙁  Somebody go and tell me how it went!

And next year give me some notice and maybe have it on a weekend!  I know, I know, getting bar space on a weekend night to do Shakespeare is asking for trouble…

Regular readers of Shakespeare Geek may not recognize the name Joseph Mooney/Mahler but they’ll probably spot the initials, JM.  JM’s a regular contributor here, and we’ve developed something of a game where he comments on what I wrote and then I desperately try to understand what he said. 🙂  At the heart of our “disagreements,” however, I think we’re both in this for the same reasons.  We love this stuff, and we want to expose the world to it in any way we can.  He’s got his ideas for how to do it, and I’ve got mine.

As such, I’m happy to link my readers over to the mission statement for JM’s theShakespeareProject, his own very real world project for putting his stamp on the Shakespeare (and classic literature) universe:

theShakespeareProject is dedicated to the idea that a fresh
approach to these literary/dramatic gems, employing them as living
examples of excellence, might lead to a regeneration of heightened
interest–in the theatre, the classroom, the boardroom—even the family
room—and result in a natural and progressive repossession by the
community at the grass roots level.

I may say it differently, but how can I disagree with any of that?