Marlowe Did It

http://bigtweet.com/c/b/twitter/lowercase_dave/38uA88 I’m at least somewhat familiar with the Marlowe authorship story – faked his death, blah blah blah.  Here we have a nice little 15 minutes of video from a documentary filmmaker who goes into detail about why he believes the theory.

Vote For The Shakespeare Hall Of Fame

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/poll/2009/feb/04/shakespeare-hall-fame I like the idea.  Loses major credibility for including Leonardo DiCaprio, who no matter how good he may or may not have been as Romeo still really has just the one credit to his name – but maybe they felt the need to pull in the younger crowd? What’s cooler is that we get to vote on the remaining member. But how could it *not* be John Gielgud?  He gets my vote. UPDATE:  The results make it look like David Tennant is a shoe-in.  That upsets me, I hate popularity contests.  I’m sure the Dr. Who guy is a fine Shakespearean actor, but I mean come on, Gielgud was doing Shakespeare longer than Tennant’s been alive!

Al Pacino … as KING LEAR?!

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999542.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Wow.  Oh, geez.  Umm…. I think I’m a little speechless. The first thing that comes to mind is “Oh, crap, the director is the same guy that did Pacino’s Merchant – and that got crucified by the Shakespeare crowd.”  (See Rosenbaum’s Shakespeare Wars for a good example of said crucifixion.) But…it’s Pacino!  Can he do it?  Does he still have the chops?  Is Michael Corleone/Tony Montana/Sonny Wortzik still in there?  Or would we get the screaming half-deaf Lear ala Colonel Frank Slade?  COME NOT…BETWEEN THE DRAGON, AND HIS WRATH!  HOO-AH!

Seriously, has Pacino ever had it in him to play Lear?  He’s been a great actor, no doubt – but has he ever really had that kind of range?