http://literaturecirclesintheclassroom.blogspot.com/2007/03/im-ready-to-hang-with-that-cool-dude.html Mr. Miller has a post up about experiences teaching Midsummer’s to his 10th graders, and what’s worked for him.  I like how he goes off on a geeky tangent about setting up a collaborative wiki for them.

For years I’ve tried to get in to Boston to see free Shakespeare on the Common.  I’ll go see something like that like other people go see a movie or hang out at a bar.  What do you want to do tonight?  Let’s go watch some Shakespeare.  Over the years I’ve seen Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest.  If you’ve got the access, how can you not want to do that? Two years ago, I missed Hamlet completely by waiting until the last day of the performance and having it get rained out on me.  That’s what happens when you try to coordinate a bunch of people going. This past year we went to see Taming of the Shrew, again on the last week. I hate seeing things on the last week, because all the fun of reviewing it and telling people whether or not it’s worth seeing is lost.  But at least we saw it. I happen to have a new job, if I didn’t mention it, which is on one side of Boston Common.  This means that when I walk to my train every day I literally walk right through the Shakespeare folks doing their dress rehearsals.  That is awesome.  I told myself, my wife and anybody that would listen that this year I will camp out on the first night of performance. And then I read this… http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/03/02/shakespeare_on_the_common_shortens_its_season/ I’m so disappointed.  At least they’re coming back to the Common for me – I’d heard a rumor that the production would be over at the Hatch Shell, which throws out my whole “I walk right past it anyway” strategy.  And I suppose it’s good news that they’re moving back to their original Common location near the bandstand.  I don’t think anybody liked last year’s location on the other side, too noisy and not enough good seating. But A Midsummer Night’s Dream?  AGAIN?  Doesn’t anybody get tired of doing that play?  Didn’t everyone who’d want to be in a professional Shakespeare cast already get it out of their systems by doing it every couple of years growing up? Plus, they’re only doing a week of performances (last week in July, 24-29).  Why… are you ready for this?  Because our Beacon Hill neighbors complained about the noise.  Seriously.  Instead of garbage trucks backing up and police sirens wailing, they get to spend a couple of weeks hearing motherf&*(ing Shakespeare performed out their g$%^&*mned windows, and they complained about it.  Can you tell I’m pissed off?   Why not just turn off the stupid television, open your windows, and enjoy it?  Who else gets to have background Shakespeare while they sit on their deck and have a glass of wine? Boston is not having a good couple of weeks.  We’ve gotten into a very McCarthy-esque way of thinking, blowing up everything in site that might be a terrorist’s Lite-Brite.  But I think that this disappoints me more.  Because overreacting to terrorism is a job for goverment people, but complained that you don’t want Shakespeare in your neighborhood says something about the people themselves. (Ironically, July 24-29 was also going to be the week that I’m down the Cape this summer, so I would have totally missed it again.  But at the last minute the house we wanted to reserve became unavailable and we had to switch weeks, so it looks like I’ll be free.  True, I’m all upset now, but as the day gets nearer I’m betting I’ll get just as excited as I always do.  Although I do wish they’d do something that I haven’t seen a million times.  Oy.  Where’s my Twelfth Night?  Winter’s Tale?  Heck, I’d take Julius Caesar over Midsummer’s, at least it would be different.  How come nobody ever tackles King Lear anymore?)  

When I saw the article title, The Brutal Ladies Behind Some of History’s Biggest Bullies, I knew that Lady Macbeth had to show up in there someplace.  I’m pleased to say that she does indeed, and you get a little history lesson in the process (hint, she was a real person and not what Shakespeare made her out to be).

Ok, I finally got around to seeing “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged]” this weekend (sometimes known as The Cmplt Wrks of Wlm Shkspr and other silly titles).  The premise, if you haven’t heard of it, is that 3 guys do the entire works of Shakespeare (that’s 37, possibly 38 plays, and maybe sonnets?) in 90 minutes.  As you can imagine, it’s a comedy.  Did I like it?  It’s interesting that one of the advertising lines for the play is:  “If you like Shakespeare, you’ll like this play.  If you hate Shakespeare, you’ll love this play.”  Well, since I love Shakespeare, I didn’t really love this play.  It’s funny, sure, in a pretty standard stand-up comic sort of way.  Somebody had the idea to start with Shakespeare and then reduce it down to jokes that everyone would get.  Example: Romeo:  Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized… Juliet:  What did you just say? Romeo:  I said, call me but love, and I’ll… Juliet:  Call you Butt Love? Romeo:  Can we get on with the scene? Juliet:  Whatever you say, Butt Love. Get the idea?  It’s always interesting when somebody writes standup comedy and people perform it for years to come, because you get to see if you can spot the jokes versus the ones the new actors have thrown in.  For instance, this weekend’s performance contained a reference to bald Britney Spears….as well as a reference to Janet Reno.  Janet Frickin Reno?  When’s the last time she was in the news, Clinton era? The treatment of the plays, for the most part, is actually well done.  They open with a silly intepretation of Romeo and Juliet to get the audience warmed up.  Good choice, since it’s the most popular play.  Want to know how much of a Shakespeare geek I am?  I actually found myself looking forward to the ending of their version of R&J, just because it’s Romeo and Juliet, for god’s sake, it has to be good, until I realized that it was two guys doing it as a comedy, so I was probably not going to do it the justice I’m hoping for.  And the entire second act is devoted to Hamlet, because it is the most complex one (debatable, but that’s a concept the audience can get behind).  For Hamlet they do take it a bit more seriously, including one of the actors having a nervous breakdown because he just can’t take the pressure. Macbeth and Othello get a fair amount of stage time, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra less so.  The histories are done like a football game, and the comedies are all smooshed down into one comedy that makes heavy use of Shakespeare’s 4 major comedic devices.  I was a little disappointed in that, particularly since The Tempest got no real love.  I don’t think of the Tempest as being one of the formulaic long-lost cross-dressing identical-twins comedies, although it does have the shipwrecked aspect that he used a few times.  Oh, and Titus Andronicus is done like a cooking show.  The only play that doesn’t get any love at all is Coriolanus, the best they can come up with for that one is an actor who refuses to do it because he doesn’t like that the name has “anus” in it.  Haha?  Perhaps the biggest disappointment for any Shakespeare geek is King Lear.  King Lear gets *one* joke, during the Histories football game, where the ball ends up with King Lear.  They throw a flag for “fictional character on the field” and then go back to the game.  That’s it.  That’s disappointing.  If there’s any debate that Hamlet is not the best thing Shakespeare ever wrote, the contender in that battle would be King Lear. So, overall, it was ok.  Cute.  Not what I was hoping for.  I brought my wife, figuring “It’ll be enough Shakespeare for me and enough funny for her.”  But honestly it wasn’t enough Shakespeare for me and wasn’t funny enough for my wife. See it if it comes around, but don’t drive an hour out of your way to find it like I did.  

Speaking of geeky Shakespeare things, you had to know that I’d post a link to this video that’s making the rounds.  In parts it’s quite good, and I appreciate the effort taken to rewrite the entire soliloquoy.