http://www.cinemas-online.co.uk/films/ayli.fhtml
Trailer’s up for Kenneth Branagh’s newest film, As You Like It (apparently opening in September, 2007).  Looks neat, I hope it gets wide distribution so I can actually enjoy it in a theatre and not have to go hunt it down on DVD later.

http://alaydhien.blogspot.com/search/label/Costuming I’m glad I stumbled across this blog by “Anniina” who has been tasked with designing the costumes for a western version of Taming of the Shrew.  In her own words, “…my task is to create a Wild West as if it were Wild West on another planet or universe … think that episode of Star Trek Next Gen where Picard and pals visit the wild west planet.”  Nice!  She’s got sketches for Kate and Petruchio as well as a few different ideas on Lucentio and Tranio. Don’t forget to click on the picture to enlarge them where you can actually read her notes on material, color, and so on.  Great stuff!

Ah, I love a nice Shakespeare pun. I’ve heard back from the Royal Shakespeare Company on the very curious press release found in a Spanish publication about their working on a “Shakespeare play about a character from Don Quixote.” The answer? The project will be based on Lewis Theobald’s eighteenth century adaptation of a manuscript of Cardenio, the original source, Thomas Shelton’s 1612 translation of Don Quixote as well as the original Spanish version of the episode in Don Quixote. So this is not an academic or literal find – but hopefully will be a theatrical find – a collaboration between Spanish and British artists to eventually bring a production to the stage of Cervantes’ story of Cardenio – via William Shakespeare – of which both great authors might have been proud. (Emphasis mine.)  So, there you go.  Everybody go back about your business, nothing to see here. I’m curious, though, about the wording in the article which said:  “The piece has been lost for three centuries after a fire at the Globe Theatre, but now the Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Gregory Doran, has said they have managed to confirm the authenticity of the piece. It was written with the dramatist John Fletcher, and had been performed twice by the King’s Men Company in 1613.”  It seems to be that “managed to confirm the authenticity of the piece” is new information, more than just doing another project based on Theobald’s Double Falshood, which has been done for years. I’ve written back asking if they have any more to say on that particular question.  Now that I see it in better context I think that perhaps the author of the article was unfamiliar with the history of Cardenio versus Theobald’s Double Falshood, and wrote about it as if this was a new discovery. Update: The official word is “there is nothing new to add to the authentication debate…some facts may have been slightly lost in translation.”  Gregory Doran will be working on his project on the assumption that Theobald’s work is, in fact, based on the Shakespeare/Fletcher original. Thanks very much to Nada Zakula of the RSC Press Office for getting back to me!      

Look look look what I found!  The text of “Double Falshood; or, The Distrest Lovers”.  The Theobald play in question, which could indeed be the lost Cardenio (or at least a revised and adapted version).  Whether it is or isn’t, I certainly wasn’t going to pass up the chance to read it! I don’t know who this “jwkennedy” person is who did the transcribing work, but he’s my new BFF :).  Thanks!

Over at “The Hamlet Weblog” the author “read a rumour about this over the weekend” (hmmm, I wonder where he read it?) and dug up an actual press release from the Royal Shakespeare Company.  His theory, unfortunate though it may be, is that they’re really just talking about the Theobald version which has been known about for quite some time.  This is a script from the 18th century called The Double Falsehood which was “revised and adapted” from the Shakespeare original.  A little more googling found me this link on Shakespeare Apocrypha that describes the play thusly:  “this was initially regarded quite skeptically, but is now being looked upon more favorably following recent analysis and research, beginning with Stefan Kukowski in 1991.” I also found a blog post from June 2006, stating that the RSC has listed Cardenio among the complete works to be performed back then.  So now I’m not really sure what the “new” thing is anymore.