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.

Let’s Hear It For The Boatswain

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Miranda and Ferdinand play chessI ran across a bunch of Tempest references last week, and was reminded each time how much I enjoy the opening scene. I was even trying to think of a gimmick post that would allow me to talk about my enjoyment of the boatswain character. I called it “One Scene Wonders”, but then remembered he technically appears at the end of the play as well.

Then I figure what the heck it’s my blog I can write whatever I want.

How much do you love Boatswain? From his opening “Cheerly my hearts! Yare, yare!” it’s like he’s got his own language and personality, even though he doesn’t even merit a proper name.

Boatswain

I pray now, keep below.

He’s also got patience.  First he tells his passengers, “Keep below.”  Then he politely tells them, “Stay out of the way, you’re doing more harm than good up here.”

Boatswain

You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.

Then when Gonzalo goes and name drops the King, our hero does exactly what any worker would do when told the suits were coming.  He says, “If you can do it better than go right ahead, otherwise get out of the way.”

GONZALO
Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boatswain
None that I more love than myself. You are a
counsellor; if you can command these elements to
silence, and work the peace of the present, we will
not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you
cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make
yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of
the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out
of our way, I say.

He’s not even done.  After complaining that his passengers complaints are louder than the storm, he sees them returning and asks, “Are you trying to get us killed?”  When Sebastian swears at him he says, “If you’re going to stay out here pick up a rope!”

Boatswain
Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring
her to try with main-course.
A cry within
A plague upon this howling! they are louder than
the weather or our office.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO

Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o’er
and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

SEBASTIAN
A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
incharitable dog!

Boatswain
Work you then.

This poor chap’s just trying to do his job and not get them all killed, and these sorry fools are all getting in his way.  Even Gonzalo has to acknowledge, “I like this fellow.”  Granted, I’m not sure it’s a compliment to say “I see him more fated to hanging than to drowning,” but we’ll take what little appreciation we get.

GONZALO
I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he
hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his
hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,
for our own doth little advantage. If he be not
born to be hanged, our case is miserable.

All of Shakespeare’s openings are great, in their own way. I like this one because as far as setting the tone of the rest of the play goes (see Macbeth, Hamlet)  it’s really more about what Gonzalo says after Boatswain’s big moment, all that stuff about “give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground” because in the next scene we see the island.  So really the interaction with Boatswain is kind of extra, isn’t it?  Sure it introduces the bad guys and gives a taste of their personalities but there’s plenty of ways he could have done that. I’m glad he picked this one.

Anybody else love seeing this guy make his brief appearance?

Yare, yare!

 

Pre-Review : Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

When I first heard about the Hogarth Series that would product “modern novelizations” of Shakespeare’s work I thought, “Eh.  So what.  If you rewrite Shakespeare it’s not Shakespeare, it’s yours, and it’s just like any other novel.”  As such I’ve avoided them all to date.

I decided to change that because we’ve got a book club at work and I wanted an excuse to read something of at least passing interest to me. When multiple people told me that Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood’s retelling of The Tempest, was the best one to come out so far,  was hooked.  If I’m going to give the series I try I might as well start with my favorite play.

So glad I did! I’m just about halfway finished with it but I’m very excited to get out a review (and, who we kidding, it gives me another post for Shakspeare Day).

Felix, our director, is in the middle of what’s to be his masterpiece, a production of The Tempest.  He likes this play so much he even named his daughter Miranda.  Unlike Shakespeare’s story, however, both Felix’s wife and daughter have passed away before the story takes off. But the next part plays out like you’d expect — control of the group is usurped by Tony and Sal, and Felix is “banished” from the theatre scene until he gets a job teaching Shakespeare to prisoners. He even uses the pseudonym “Mr. Duke”, an amusing callback to Prospero as Duke of Milan.

The plot is following along close enough to the original that you have some idea what’s going to happen. Tony and Sal are going to end up in the prison where Mr. Duke will make his triumphant return. I just have no idea what’s going to happen other than that.  Our Prospero has no Miranda. This one seems to be all about revenge.  What would Prospero have been like if everything else had gone the same, except Miranda had not survived? I think we might have seen the full scope and scale of his power.

While retelling The Tempest this book is also a lesson in The Tempest as Felix walks his prisoners through the finer points of the play.  He makes them re-envision Ariel as something other than just “a fairy”.  He asks them to find all the “prisons” in the play (apparently there are nine?) and they discuss what form each prison takes, who is imprisoned, and who has captured them.  I’m learning lots of new things.  I hope she gets back to the question of “is the island by itself magic” because I’ve often wondered about that myself.

I don’t want to spoil much more of the book so I’ll stop here.  Suffice to say I’m loving it, and when I’m done with this one I’m going to dig into Jo Nesbo’s new Macbeth next. Definitely recommended.

Shakespeare’s Dark Comedy

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

Over the centuries it’s been common practice to spin a happy ending on Shakespeare’s tragedies.  Romeo and Juliet live, King Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after.

What if you went the other way? The comedies are known for their happy endings.  Can you spin your favorite comedy and give it a dark ending?

Twelfth Night is the obvious choice, with Malvolio’s ominous, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!”  How does he not show up at the wedding with an AR-15?

How about A Midsummer Night’s Dream?  The lovers wake up, the love potion has now worn off Demetrius, who sees Theseus and Egeus and immediately goes right back to the character he was in the first scene.  Seeing no change in anybody’s feelings on the matter and with Hermia refusing to budge, Theseus has her executed.  I was going to write that Lysander tries to protect her and gets executed for his trouble as well, but it’s more fun if he’s a coward who absolutely doesn’t do that. 🙂

Can we count The Tempest?  I know, not technically.  But it’s so easy to envision the entire play as the ravings of a poor old man alone on an island making up the whole thing.

Anybody else want to take a shot at going dark?

 

 

 

What Would You Do With Twins?

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

The other day I saw a discussion about how you think a modern Hamlet’s ghost should be staged. My first thought was, “I was the ghost popping up randomly, in the audience, in a way that makes them think it’s impossible for that to be happening.”

My first thought was, “Hologram?” But I put that off as too expensive, but also because the evidence about what was to happen (such as a mini pedestal/stage where he’d appear) would ruin the effect.

Then I thought, “Just have multiple actors dressed as the ghost, so when one exits, another one can appear elsewhere.”  But if they don’t look identical, the effect isn’t the same.

Twins!  Comedy of Errors had twins.  Ok, fine, maybe Shakespeare didn’t actually have twins to work with (did he?)  I know that I’ve yet to see a Comedy of Errors with actual twins.

But that brings me to our question. What if you did have twins in your group? How would you use them?  On the drive in to work today I was thinking about the difference between doubling an actor (Theseus / Oberon anybody?) versus how you’d do it with twins.  If you never have them on stage at the same time there’s no point, so how would you change the staging to take advantage?

How about two Hamlets?  One that devolves slowly into madness (complete with costume change), while the other remains his normal self, silently watching the proceedings. Until at some crucial point late in the play the good Hamlet disappears. (I saw a high school production once with five Hamlets, all on stage at once, all delivering the lines.  It was weird.)

King Lear where Goneril and Regan are twins?  Not sure how much that really changes the story, but it strengthens the bond between them versus Cordelia, and later shows how big a deal it is when they split.

A Tempest where Ariel and Caliban are twins?  I saw a production once where they were handled like conjoined twins, and at the end Prospero separated them.

I’m clearly no director, but I know many of you are. What better ideas can you come up with?  Assume that you can have access to a set of twins of whatever type you need, young or old, male or female.

Guest Post : Still Dreaming by Hank Rogerson

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‘Still Dreaming,’ a documentary that in many ways is a sequel to another film I (Hank, not Duane) directed called ‘Shakespeare Behind Bars,’ will premiere on PBS starting this Saturday, April 14.

STILL DREAMING is a multi-award winning film about the powers of creativity, and how engaging in art-making can deeply enrich our lives at any age. 

Filmed at The Lillian Booth Actors Home just outside New York City, where a group of long-retired Broadway entertainers dive into a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and find that nothing is what it seems to be. With a play that is usually about young love and sex farce, this ensemble finds that for them, the themes of perception, reality and dreaming deeply resonate. 

This wistful, honest, and frequently hilarious documentary follows the rehearsals as opening night approaches. Tempers flare, health concerns abound, and disaster seems imminent. But as these former entertainers forge ahead, they realize that creativity is a magical force of renewal.

This whole film journey started back in 2009, when I went to the Lillian Booth Actors Home to meet with the Shakespeare group there to discuss the possibility of their doing a play and my filming that process. The residents and staff were all very supportive of the idea right away, so the discussion quickly turned to which play they would do. The residents in particular were very enthusiastic about the possibility of re-connecting with their craft, for it was as one put it, “This is my whole life inside, and this is a way of getting all of that back.”

My co-director, Jilann Spitzmiller and I went in with the idea of Romeo & Juliet, but that was met with very little enthusiasm, and so a discussion ensued mostly around comedies, since as one resident jokingly put it, ‘There was enough tragedy in their day to day lives already.’ They did discuss Macbeth, King Lear of course, with its theme of old age, and one point someone suggested The Tempest, but I quickly rejected it since it was the play done in ‘Shakespeare Behind Bars.’ The residents kept coming back to comedies such as Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was Midsummer that seemed to gain the most backing since it was a comedy, and had an ensemble cast with no real leads. This was good they felt since it wouldn’t fall on one or two actors to carry the whole production, which seemed like too much pressure at their age.

Still, there was quite a bit of resistance from the residents. How the heck would it ever work? A fantastical moonlit forest in a sterile nursing home environment with fairies and sprites leaping around all played by 80-year-olds, and 80-year-olds playing young lovers. How in the world would that work, they wondered. (Jilann and I wondered too!)

At one point in the discussion, a long time pro from film, tv, and theater, who was by far the most experienced actor in the room, spoke up and added, “We have no sets, no costumes, no lights or tech crew. How would we ever do this? And to do it half-ass-ugh, no thanks.” This was met by a prolonged and sinking silence, and it felt like the entire idea of the production was going down right before us. I could sense many of the seniors in the room thinking, “Well if she doesn’t want to do it, then how could we ever go on without her…”

Then another resident broke the quiet and said, “We don’t need a set, we have the outside. Just stand beneath a tree, in a field, and we have spaces indoors in which to work.”

To this, another added, “Yes, all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

A tangible, visible energy moved through the room, a collected sigh of relief that the group could go on, and that this opportunity ‘to get it all back’ might still happen.

And it did.

You can tune into your PBS stations starting this Saturday to watch, or you can stream the film at www.stilldreamingmovie.com.