Category: Shakespeare Plays

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the most influential playwrights in history, and his plays have been performed and studied for centuries. From the timeless tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to the hilarious antics of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s plays continue to captivate audiences around the world. Whether you’re a fan of tragedy, comedy, or romance, there’s a Shakespeare play for everyone. So why not revisit these timeless classics and discover the magic of Shakespeare for yourself?

Browse the entire text of Shakespeare’s plays right here on Shakespeare Geek.

With Caliban Still Enslaved

~ duane ~ 3 Comments

A couple weeks ago on Twitter I had an interesting conversation about The Tempest and I’ve been meaning to post about it. A reader directed me to the poem Fuck / Shakespeare and I was left head scratching a bit at the ending:

Play ends / Cali still enslaved / Bruh / that shit fucked

My first thought was, “Is that really how it ends? That’s not how I remember it. Caliban gets the island. Prospero leaves. Sounds like freedom to me.”

Then I went back and looked at the text. 

PROSPERO
He is as disproportion'd in his manners
As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;
Take with you your companions; as you look
To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.

CALIBAN
Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter
And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
Was I, to take this drunkard for a god
And worship this dull fool!

PROSPERO
Go to; away!

There is no moment of understanding between them. No “sorry for enslaving you, here, I’ll make it up to you by leaving and letting you have the island like you always wanted” exchange. Prospero’s last words to Caliban are, in fact, still those of master to slave.

I think my misunderstanding of the ending comes from two places. First, I’m visually thinking of Helen Mirren’s portrayal in Julie Taymor’s film version. If I recall that correctly, there is a clear moment (albeit in silence, since Shakespeare gave no words) that fills the need for what I wrote above.

The other is that I’ve just never really thought of The Tempest, my answer to “Which one is your favorite play?” in terms of slavery and racism and colonization. I love it as a story of fathers and children and forgiveness. That just goes to show just how good it is, that it can be both. You can read it as a happy ending fairy tale to your children about wizards and monsters and long lost princesses returning to their kingdoms. Or you can read it as a four hundred year old depiction of the darkest aspects of human behavior still on display to this day.

It’s given me a lot to think about. I’ve always known about those themes in the play, I’ve just never really focused on them, preferring instead to think of it as a positive book end to Shakespeare’s writing. Which is a bit ironic because in my modern reading I often chide books that wrap things up too nicely, and prefer those that give me something to think about and work on. If Caliban is forever enslaved because of what Prospero did, then how can we ever break the cycle?

Which ending do you prefer? Is Caliban free now to be king of the island? Or is he forever enslaved by what Prospero did to him, long after Prospero is gone?

A VR Tempest is Coming and I Want It.

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been doing this blog for a long, long time. It’s been a natural crossover to look for ways that technology is used in innovative ways to tackle Shakespeare. We need to get back into more of that. I’ve been missing some good stuff.

An “Oculus” is a virtual reality headset. I know it as the Oculus Rift but I guess there are different models now. I think Facebook owns them. You’ve no doubt seen them, if even in a science fiction movie – you strap the goggles over your head, then the immersive experience that’s shown to you moves around as you do. I actually got to watch some Hamlet like this once, it’s pretty cool. My experience was only what they call a “360 video”, where you can’t move – you can only spin your head around like an owl. In a true VR setting you can actually move around.

https://www.engadget.com/the-under-presents-tempest-oculus-rift-view-225750213.html

So I’m trying to understand what this game / performance called The Under Presents is, but it sounds pretty neat. They’re doing The Tempest next, and it’s a live show – you need to get tickets.

The play will feature a single actor who, in the play’s narrative, was supposed to play Prospero in a proper stage show. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, their in-person performance was canceled.

I have no idea what’s actually going to happen within the show but I can see them taking the whole “These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air” thing in a whole new direction. I am imagine the actor as Prospero pointing his staff into blank space, conjuring up a Miranda or Ferdinand, and *poof* your headset comes to life, you are in the show, you are Ferdinand. Maybe you get a script? This is all technology, maybe it just goes ahead and walks and talks for you, driving you like auto pilot and you’re just along for the ride. I can think of all kinds of crazy things that might happen.

Anybody out there got one of these headsets and can spend the couple of bucks to check it out?

Digitally De-Age This.

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

Hollywood may be all about “digitally de-aging” its stars these days, but that doesn’t leave live theatre much to work with. It’s a sad truth that even our greatest heroes age, and will eventually age out of their own greatest roles. I could watch Sir Patrick Stewart play Macbeth forever, but Sir Patrick Stewart can’t play Macbeth forever, you know what I’m trying to say?

Some years ago, Sir Derek Jacobi played Mercutio at the age of 77. That’s not quite the same thing as playing Romeo at that age, though.

And I wish I could find a link, but I remember an interview with Christopher Plummer, while he was playing Prospero, lamenting that there were no more roles left for him to play at his age.

“Hold my beer,” I imagine Sir Ian McKellen telling them all as he announces his “age-blind” production of Hamlet.

Yes, we’re talking about Sir Ian *as* Hamlet. For the love of God somebody make sure to record this!

Sigh No More, Students ( A Geeklet Story )

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

I hear my oldest coming down the steps. “I wonder if she needs help with calculus or physics?” I ask my wife.

She rounds the corner. “Ok, so, we’re playing trivia in virtual classroom and the category was Shakespeare.” Oh fun. “Which character has been in three plays?”

“I’m going to assume Falstaff.”

“Right. Yes, well, we got it wrong. We guessed Antony.”

“That’d be Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, only two.”

“Exactly, I knew that wasn’t it. But anyway, he’s, like, a big character, isn’t he?”

My kids know thee well, old man.

“He was never the title character, but it’s been argued by more than one person that he’s Shakespeare’s greatest creation. Books have been written on just him. I literally have a book upstairs right now that’s nothing but an actor’s diary of when he played Falstaff.”

“I thought so. Our teacher told us that he’s a huge Shakespeare fan, and how he’s read all of the Henry’s because, you know, he prefers the lesser known plays, and that he didn’t remember this character, he must not have been that important.”

I fire up my computer. “Hold on a second.” I google “Harold Bloom Falstaff”:

Then there’s Harold Bloom, who, in the opening pages of his short, charming new book Falstaff: Give Me Life,[1] writes that he has “come to believe that if we are to represent Shakespeare by only one play, it ought to be the complete Henry IV, to which I would add Mistress Quickly’s description of the death of Falstaff in act 2, scene 3 of Henry V.”

For Bloom, what puts Henry IV on top is not the starring role, Prince Hal, but the supporting character Sir John Falstaff. “I think of this as the Falstaffiad,” writes Bloom, “rather than the Henriad, as scholars tend to call it.” For Bloom, who has been teaching at Yale since 1955 and who is considered by many to be the most distinguished living literary critic (he’s 87), Falstaff is not just “the glory of the Henry IV plays” but (his italics) “the grandest personality in all of Shakespeare.” 

You can’t bluff your Shakespeare knowledge in front of my kids.

Sex Education : Romeo & Juliet

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

I’ve never seen the Netflix show Sex Education. Have no desire to. The most I know about it is that the trailer used to uncomfortably autoplay whenever the kids were around, and eventually my son got so intrigued by it that he got grounded for binge watching it when he wasn’t allowed to.

But then I heard that Season 2 ends with some sort of Romeo and Juliet thing (and, honestly, doesn’t every high school drama eventually involve some sort of Romeo and Juliet thing?) and I thought, I’ll probably have to end up watching that.

Luckily I don’t! The whole Romeo and Juliet thing is available on YouTube. Ready?

It’s pretty awful and I’m glad I didn’t put up with two seasons of a show I wasn’t interested in just to get to this.

It’s like a weird a Darren Nichols (Slings & Arrows) production staged by middle school students who learned what sex is from watching ABC Shondaland dramas. Everybody’s just kind of bumping and grinding on each other like that’s how babies are made.

People say text things, but there’s hardly any Shakespeare content. Benvolio talks to Romeo’s parents. Romeo and Juliet meet. I think Mercutio got some lines? He’s the one that talks about idle brains, right?

I like to be open minded, though. Somebody who has watched the whole show tell me, would it have been better if I had any sort of context for the characters? Romeo is reluctant to be there. The show does get interrupted and there is a “hold my hand” moment that must have been some sort of big deal. And then a dude comes in and shuts down the whole show. From my Shakespeare only seat those things were all negatives, but maybe for someone who saw this as “Sex Education with Shakespeare” rather than the other way around, those things were a highlight to some lengthy story arc?