Virtual Reality Shakespeare is Almost Here

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

A good video game starts with a good story, and anybody looking for a good story heads straight for Shakespeare.  I’ve seen many video game versions of Hamlet over the years, and even wrote about virtual reality Shakespeare back in 2015. Now it looks like we’re one step closer.

TheatreVR has created a demo where you don the headset and play through the last scene of Hamlet.  Check it out!

Companies have been working around this idea for years.  Remember Second Life?  There was a whole virtual reality Shakespeare troupe in there.

I think that the problem with VR has always been one of interface.  There’s just too many ways that your body is interacting with reality – site, sound, smell, touch, not to mention peripheral vision, not to mention more specific senses like balance and proprioception (knowing where your limbs are in space). You can only do so much putting on a headset and some gloves.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the OMG COOL! factor is very real.  Even putting on something like Google Cardboard (not to mention Oculus Rift) is still something to be experienced before you’ll believe it.  But the same was true of Pacman and DOOM once, too.  The excitement wears off, and you’d better have a good story to tell when it does.  From the perspective of the plot, yup, you’ve got Shakespeare.  But have we just reduced it down to going through the motions?  Escape the pirates, save Ophelia, kill Claudius?  Or are we saying that one day we’ll act it out as well?

I’m not a “gamer” by modern standards, and will likely never have the necessary gear to play most of these. I’m hoping that eventually they become the new video arcade, and I can go somewhere like a Dave and Busters to try my hand for a couple bucks.  I’m sure it’ll last 30 seconds, but maybe if I manage to kill Laertes and Claudius I can win enough tickets to a shot glass! 🙂

 

Oh, Sir Ian, No.

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

Ian McKellen has said his King Lear, which is currently on at Chichester Festival Theatre, is probably his last big Shakespeare part.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41531398

Sometimes we realize this when we wake up to discover that an entertainment idol has died – Robin Williams, David Bowie, Tom Petty.  You don’t appreciate what you had until life tells you, “No more.”

But sometimes you know what’s coming, and I’m not sure if that’s worse.  Sir Ian McKellen (and Sir Patrick Stewart and Dame Judi Dench and too many others to name) will not be around forever to bring the Shakespeare.  In the linked interview above Sir Ian gets realistic on us that he’s “probably not really” got any more Shakespeare in him.  Sad day, but one that had to come eventually.

What’s your favorite Sir Ian role?  Richard III, Macbeth, Lear?  In the image above a very young McKellen takes on Hamlet. I wish we had video of that!

 

This Is Gonna Get Ugly

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

For my day job we have a very large email marketing business.  It’s normal conversation to talk about what others are doing, so when I got the following subject line in an email I laughed and showed it to my coworkers:

Make someone ugly cry. Adobe can help.

What I wrong as a comment was, “I know what they meant, but that’s the worst subject line I’ve ever seen.”  It sounds like Adobe’s offering to help you chase ugly kids around the playground and make them cry.

A couple days after that post, a coworker calls me over and says, “You posted something the other day and I’ve been meaning to ask you about it…I don’t get it?  You wrote, I know what they mean … but I don’t.  I don’t know what they mean? Is it like the optical illusion with the old woman and the young woman and I can only see the old woman?”

So I told him, “Claire Danes in the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo+Juliet.”Clare Danes cry faceTurns out there’s actually several blogs and tumblrs dedicated to her cry face in particular, and she’s even been asked about it in interviews 🙂

Sir Anthony Hopkins To Play Lear….Finally!

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

I’ve never seen Sir Antony Hopkins play in King Lear, though I’ve always felt he’d be outstanding.

In fact, I’ve been watching the possibility closely for years.

Here’s a post from 2006 about how he wanted to do a Lear movie one more time and then quit doing Shakespeare.

And here’s a 2008 discussion about an “upcoming Lear” that was to star Hopkins, but I don’t recall ever seeing anything else about it.

Well, I’m happy to report that it looks like it’s finally happening!

Set in the fictional present, King Lear sees Hopkins as the eponymous ruler, presiding over a totalitarian military dictatorship in England. Emma Thompson stars as his oldest daughter Goneril. The ensemble also includes Emily Watson, who stars as his middle daughter, Regan, and Florence Pugh (Lacy Macbeth), who plays his youngest daughter Cordelia.

This is a BBC production, but the headline clearly says Amazon, so I’m unclear when (and whether) this will be available to Amazon Prime customers in the US.  But I’ll be waiting!

Does anybody know whatever happened to that 2008 production? None of the actors (nor the director) named in that post appear to have any IMDB Shakespeare credits in that time frame.

 

Give Shrew Its Due

~ duane ~ 6 Comments

In the kitchen at work the other day, a coworker tells me that he’s just returned from London, where of course he had to stop by The Globe.  I ask if he saw a show, and his response is, “I wasn’t really on a schedule that allowed time for a show, and besides, it was Taming of the Shrew. Maybe if it was Hamlet or something, but Taming of the Shrew?”

Taming of the ShrewWe generally agree that Taming of the Shrew is, at best, “nothing special” Shakespeare.  I refer to it as a Shakespearean sitcom, and compare it to a Seinfeld re-run that you see on the hotel room tv when you’re channel surfing.  Maybe you’re all “Oh yeah, this is a good one” or maybe you’re more, “Eh, seen this one a thousand times.”

But! A coworker hears our conversation and comes to Shrew’s defense. He calls it a vicious takedown of masculine roles in Shakespeare’s time, and that it is only the fault of modern directors who want to “move it along” and tend to skip or de-emphasize key scenes that cause the play to appear like the “battle of the sexes” romantic comedy it’s known as.  He says that when played properly, you completely empathize with Katherina because you see the kind of men that she’s expected to put up with.  When I push him for specific examples of key scenes he refers to the line of suitors that are introduced early in the play, by which I assume he’s referring to Act II, Scene i for anyone that needs a refresher.

Where do you stand on Taming of the Shrew?  Is it completely misogynistic?  A silly romantic comedy with a happy ending?  Or should it be taken more seriously?  How deep does it go?