http://geek.shakespearezone.com/?p=2529 Tad Davis, in what appears to be his first post on a new blog, merits a link for the depth of his analysis of Romeo and Juliet while still remaining actually readable.  It’s not a small novel, it goes maybe 10 paragraphs, but he manages to touch upon the loneliness of Juliet in the second act, points out a few of the more overt sexual references, makes a comparison of Lord Capulet to King Lear, offers some thoughts on staging in the Globe, and even hypothesizes parallels to Shakespeare’s own children. I’m not sure I agree with his opening line that the play “has to be his most heartbreaking one.”  It’s certainly his most popular and approachable (who hasn’t been in love with someone that society told them they couldn’t have?)  But I think that both Cordelia and Ophelia both die more tragic deaths than Juliet.

http://redshoesonathuuursday.blogspot.com/2007/08/shakespeare-rules-instilled-in-dench-by.html I’m guessing that “The Dench” refers to Dame Judi Dench.  I’m no actor, but I found the rules interesting.  I think we often assume that the greatest actors we see have some sort of natural instinct for it and everything just happens.  It’s nice to be reminded that they have to work at it as well.  The greatest actors still take direction.  

http://mirroruptolife.blogspot.com/2007/07/mirror-duped-boston-theatre-head-gets.html The “Mirror Up To Life” blog, a blog on Boston Theatre, has a reference up to the whole question of CitiGroup’s funding of Commonwealth Shakespeare.  As we locals know, the production run was cut crazy short this year, a mere 1 week instead of the usual 3.  When it rained on Saturday, we all thought we were done for.  I don’t know about anybody else, but I certainly was clapping when it came time to “thank our sponsor” for screwing us out of 2 weeks of theatre. Say what you will about budgets and finances and where the money went.  According to the article linked, the CEO took a salary cut of 100k this year, but still got a $1.265 million bonus.  Shakespeare’s budget, meanwhile, was sliced in half, to $480k.  Hey,  I rented my chairs and put my cash in the hat when it came around.  I wonder if the CEO wants a piece of that action, too?   

Once upon a time I found some audio of John Gielgud reading the sonnets, but complained that it was streaming only, not downloadable, and thus I never got to listen to it. Chris Hughes just sent me this pointer to his LibriVox recordings of the sonnets, which are indeed in MP3.  I’ve downloaded a bunch (they are grouped 10 to a file) but not yet had the chance to listen. Thanks, Chris! Also in Shakespeare Audio news I found an intriguing link to Shake5, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it is.  Among other things it’s 84 hours of recorded Shakespeare, which is cool.  But it also appears to be some sort of CD-ROM hosted database complete with the text of the plays all synced up to the audio?  It looks like it may have been for sale at one point but is now transitioning over to be a free download.  Anybody know more about the project?  

The last line of Shakespeare’s will reads “I have hereunto put my seale”, and then seale is scratched out and replaced with “hand”, “the date and year above written.”  What does this mean?  Typically he would have used a “seal ring” to identify the official document, but presumably he could not find it when he was writing the will, and thus his signature would have to suffice. The blog “Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet” has the fascinating history of that ring, which was found in 1810, including some very frenzied reactions to the discovery (“in sooth I hope it is not Brummagem, in double sooth I hope it is his, and in triple sooth I hope I shall have an impression” :)) and even speculation about how he lost it in the first place.  Weight loss due to illness, perhaps? Pictures included, as well as plenty of links and excerpts of original dated documents.  Nice informative post.