No, not a hint of a new production coming…or maybe it is?  This morning while waiting for my commuter rail train (at the Anderson/Woburn station, for the locals), I noticed that somebody had slapped a Macbeth sticker over the word INBOUND, so that one of the billboards read MACBETH TO BOSTON.  I was intrigued, but the sticker had nothing on it other than the one word, and a little double triangle symbol like you might see on a train or airplane logo of some sort.

You know, all yesterday I tried to think of some reason to post about 3/15, the Ides of March, without being cliche and doing it just because. Well, I have no heat in my house now.  Something broke on the burner yesterday night.  It’s snowing, and the repairman tells me that we might not be able to get a part until Monday.  We’re in the process of packing up to spend the weekend at the in-laws as I speak. Beware The Ides of March!

http://www.jewcy.com/post/shakespeares_plays_were_written_jewish_woman Well well, isn’t this interesting, what with all the talk lately about Shakespeare’s depiction of Jews, and his own personal experience with them.  Today I spot this story about Amelia Bassano, a new candidate for the Authorship question.  Not only is she a she, she’s Jewish. Point #2 in the article is particularly relevant to our recent discussions.  Did Shakespeare really include spoken Hebrew in All’s Well That Ends Well?  I wasn’t familiar with that.    And #8 is all about the various “Jewish allegories” in the plays.  Oberon represents Yahweh?  What?? For the most part the article is just blatantly biased, as Authorship articles normally are.  For instance #4, “There would have been no way for Shakespeare to learn Italian in Stratford-on-Avon.”  And #6 is just plain funny, citing “over 99.999999% chance this is no coincidence!” Perhaps the funniest of all is that nowhere in the article does he mention Merchant of Venice.  At all.  Somebody explain to me why this Jewish woman would have written Shylock?   You know, the more I look at it, I wonder if the whole thing is a joke.  I almost think it has to be.

http://community.livejournal.com/bard_in_boston/62671.html So I notice via  Bard In Boston that a local production of Much Ado begins soon.  It got me thinking, maybe this would be a good time to introduce my kids to a real Shakespeare show?  I’m not sure if the 3yr old could sit still that long, but the 5yr old might.  I saw Much Ado a couple years back when they did it on the Common, and I remember them playing it up very slapstick, almost like a Scooby-Doo cartoon (where Benedick is listening to his friends talk, stalking silently behind them and then freezing like a statue every time they turn around).  There’s no violence to speak of, other than the whole “We think Hero’s dead but not really” thing. Or, she might not be ready for it at all.  So I thought I’d throw it out there.  Got any experience with 5yr olds at Shakespeare shows, particularly this one?  I also don’t want to be disruptive by having her be the only one in attendance (which I’m sure would contribute to making her more uncomfortable than she’d normally be). (Context, for my new readers – my kids know about Shakespeare.  They know who he was, and they know the general plot to many of the stories, including Tempest, Twelfth Night, R&J, and King Lear.  I’ve never tried to work through the text with them at this age, but I have told them the stories to the best of my ability and answered all of their questions, of which there are many.)

http://www.podiobooks.com/blog/2008/03/13/city-of-masks I’m a big fan of “podcast novels”, serialized audiobooks that come straight to my MP3 player.  Beats carrying around big honkin hardcovers.  Plus I can’t read while driving or walking across town, but I can listen. The description for this one calls it “a swashbuckling adventure in a setting reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Italy (complete with twins).”  No idea if it’ll really have any connection to Shakespeare, but I tend to sign up for the new podiobooks as they come out regardless.  I can always cancel after a chapter or two if I don’t like it.