I don’t have much to say about Knightleyemma’s Literature Blog post on the many faces of Othello that’s not already said. The simple question, “What does Othello look like?” is mapped through the years, starting with the portrait of a Moorish Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth from about 1600, through Paul Robeson and Sir Laurence, Orson Welles (no comment) and Patrick Stewart (no picture), to some newer talent like Eamonn Walker (from HBO’s Oz) and Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko from Star Trek Deep Space Nine). There’s not a great deal of commentary, but it’s not that kind of post.  It’s a quick look.  Comments are made about costuming choices and mannerisms, but nothing too detailed. Have a favorite Othello? I’ve honestly not seen enough of them to really make a judgment.

http://www.smashinglists.com/25-famous-fictional-characters-in-stunning-sculptures/ #18 Queen Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream As always, I see a headline like that and I go scanning for Shakespeare references.  Found her. 🙂

Whenever I see a headline that reads “Actress such-and-such to try Shakespeare” I always have to click to see whether it will be exciting, or a train wreck. This week it’s Kate Moss, who is perhaps known best as a “super” model rather than an actress.  She’ll be tackling the upcoming Kevin Spacey / Sam Mendes production of The Tempest. Miranda? No.  She’ll be playing a nymph. I think that’s actually a good idea.  You don’t start with lead roles.  The question is whether she’s got the star power to keep all eyes focused on her anyway, regardless of the role she’s got.  I remember our Tempest in college, I was dating a girl at the time who was cast as a nymph.  She camped out on top of the sleeping King Alonso and growled menacingly at his would-be assassins. (While other girls got roses, I got her a unicorn carousel music box and wrote “Now I will believe that there are unicorns…” in the note.  Apparently I was a Shakespeare geek back then, too 🙂

As I work my way through Playing Shakespeare, I’m now at the selection on irony.  Barton admits that irony is very difficult to get right, because you’re left to interpret clues in the text which could go many different ways.  They then start by doing the “Brutus is an honorable man” speech, calling it the most obvious example and getting it out of the way. Who’s got another favorite example of a scene that is played for the irony?  One of the actors specifically asks about the difference between being “wry” and ironic, and though Barton seems to suggest that being wry has more to do with going for the laugh (smirk?), I’m not sure I fully understand his answer.

(Paraphrased) “And then we come to the question of what to do about the rhymes, does the actor play them, or ignore them? I am sure that he should play them, because they are there in the text.”

– John Barton, Playing Shakespeare

I got a real kick out of that line.   It’s not patronizing the way he says it, but yet I think that off camera and maybe on a grumpy day you could almost hear him add “you idiot” at the end of that sentence. :)  [ I don’t know anything about the man’s real world directorial style, that’s just the way I imagine it going down. ] It’s like a neat little summary of how to play Shakespeare, however infinitely complicated you may see it.  “Hey, how should I play this scene?”  “What’s it say in the text?”  Repeat. (To be fair, this quote comes in the middle of his lesson on irony, which Barton clearly admits is *not* clear in the text, and something you have to interpret for yourself.  More on that in later posts.)