I probably knew this once, but while googling for “Valentine” references in Shakespeare’s work I re-discovered that Mercutio has a brother named Valentine:

Romeo
Stay, fellow; I can read.
‘Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselme and his beauteous sisters; the lady
widow of Vitravio; Signior Placentio and his lovely
nieces; Mercutio and his brother Valentine; mine
uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters; my fair niece
Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio and his cousin
Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.’ A fair
assembly: whither should they come?

This week I continued the tradition of volunteering in my childrens’ classrooms to teach whatever Shakespeare unit was welcome.  In the past I’ve done sonnets, we’ve acted Midsummer, I pretty much make up a new lesson every time.

This year, for the 9yr olds (fourth grade), they were in the middle of their own ‘book talk’ week where each student read a biography and then did a presentation. So I was asked to do a Shakespeare book talk.  Happily!

Brought all my props – my pop-up Globe Theatre
, my First Folio
, a whole bunch of books geared toward kids. Brought my new Shakespeare finger puppet
, my t-shirt with a big Shakespeare picture on it.  Printed out a “Shakespeare mask” that I could wear, generated a puzzle for them to do (I always bring a puzzle), and created my own “How To Draw Shakespeare” worksheet as a handout.

In keeping with the book talk theme, I planned to talk about Bill Bryson’s The World As Stage
.  I made up notecards in a timeline style, starting with 1564 and going through to 1623.  Not that I particularly need them, but they made a nice prop and kept some structure on the thing.

Then realized that I’d forgotten my note cards.  Which gave me a great opening, because I actually said to the kids, “I wrote all my notes down on a stack of cards just like I was supposed to, and I totally left them at home.  Anybody else ever forget their homework?”  Bunch of hands go up.  Nice.

So I proceed to wing it for about 15-20 minutes.  At every opportunity I hype the unknowns about Shakespeare’s life, because I think that will be the most interesting to them. How we don’t know the day he was born.  How we could debate what he looked like.  His “lost years”.  I told these elementary school children that Shakespeare would have only gone to elementary school – but that he spent about 12 hours a day in school, 6 days a week.  THAT got their attention.

I asked them what might have happened in 1593 to close the theatres.  “War?” one asked.  “Taxes?” asked another.  There was a third that I can’t remember, I think he said something about unemployment.  So we talked for a little while about the plague, and Shakespeare switching over to poetry for a little while to keep paying the bills.

I told them the story about losing the lease on The Theatre, and having to move the whole building across the river.  When I tell that story I always make it sound like they did it in a single night, so the next morning the evil landlord came to see his property and Shakespeare and his gang were waving at them from across the river.  Which led to my big reveal where I show them my pop up Globe theatre.  Always a hit.

We eventually got to Shakespeare’s death, and to the publishing of the Folio. This gave me the opportunity to talk about being in the room with Folio #1, one of the most valuable books in the world.  I also remembered from past experience to open up the Folio and walk around the room with it so they could see the actual text.  “Do you guys have spelling tests?”  I asked.  All hands go up.  “Guess what?” I say.  “Shakespeare didn’t.  They didn’t have spelling rules back then. Shakespeare could spell words however he wanted.”  The children find this awesome.  What’s really interesting to me is that I’ve opened to a page that says “Scena Secunda” and this is what they all point out.  I tell them that it’s Latin, reminding them that Shakespeare would have learned Latin in school, and that it means “Scene 2.”

Eventually we switched over to questions, and that’s where it got amazing.  Honestly, I thought I’d bored them.  Turns out they were hanging on every word.

When did Shakespeare die, in the day or the night? How did he die? Couldn’t we dig up his bones and do that recreation thing to see what he looked like, like they did with King Tut?  (Bardfilm points out to me that I totally should have brought up the curse on his bones, and I’m kicking myself that I forgot!)  But I did tell them all about the recent Richard III discovery.

The teacher asked me my favorite play, I said The Tempest, which caused me to give a brief description of Tragedy / Comedy / Romance.  Apparently the tragic concept was new to the kids.  “Wait, the *good guy dies*???”  “What about the bad guy, does he die too???”  “Ok, so, wait, was Romeo and Juliet one of those tragedy plays?”  “Juliet *dies* in the original?!”  I even said at that point, “Spoiler alert!  But, yes, that’s kind of the point about the tragedy plays, is that before you start reading you know the good guys are going to end up dead.”

I was asked how they’d do beheadings on stage back then. We talked about special effects, and animal blood, and Julius Caesar. I felt bad, sometimes my sense of humor gets the better of me, one of the kids asked what was the name of the play about Julius Caesar.  I told him, “That’s a tricky one to remember, the one where Julius Caesar gets stabbed is called Julius Caesar.”  After seeing the expression on his face I realized that he came away thinking I’d just called his question stupid.  Not my intent!

But my absolute favorite question?  The one that reminded me why this is all worth it?

“Can you still see Shakespeare’s plays today?”

…..and there it is.  It’s so easy when surrounded by educated adults to fall into assuming what everybody else assumes and nobody ever speaks up and says. We know that we can do see Shakespeare.  Most of the adults that know that also know that they’d never do such a thing, but that’s a different story.  Shakespeare’s just kind of there for everybody at this point in our lives.

I just walked into a room full of 9yr old children who had no preconceived notions about our beloved playwright. Heck, many of them may not have ever heard of him.  And by the time I was done there was at least one little girl who wanted to know if she still could experience the works of this guy that lived 400 years ago.  I informed her that oh so very much she could, and how every year we go see Shakespeare under the stars in Boston Common, and how there are 4 Shakespeare movies coming out this year alone, and how a few months ago the local high school performed Hamlet.

Eventually the teacher had to kick me out because it was their library time.  While I packed up and they lined up, one student asked me, “Was Sherlock Holmes a Shakespeare story?”  I said that no, he came a few hundred years later.  “Oh,” said the student, “Because he’s the good guy but he dies in the end after he gets the bad guy, so I thought it was one of those tragedies.  But then he comes back.”  I’m not really sure which Sherlock Holmes story he’s referring to, but the connection was fascinating.

Now you want to hear the other other best part?  I heard from multiple sources (my daughter, and then the librarian herself) that all my new students went to their library time and said, “Do you have any books on Shakespeare?”

I wrote to the teacher and told her that I’m up for an encore if she is. She runs the school play (not Shakespeare) in April and asked if I could come back and help with that, perhaps use Shakespeare to get the over the stage fright of wanting to do the play at all.  Ironic, really, when you consider that I’m here today doing this precisely because I was too shy in school to ever try acting myself.  I can’t wait!

Ok, this Shortlist link tells us about upcoming Shakespeare movies to ‘get excited about’ in 2014. At first I was because I didn’t realize there were 4.  But let’s look more closely.

1) Cymbeline

Ok, we’ve talked about this enough already. I think “cautiously hopeful” would be the best we can say, especially after the trailer came out.  You know, the one with the flamethrowers?

2) Macbeth

This one should be good, although maybe I’m just out of the loop that I don’t recognize any of the names they’re dropping.  Michael Fassbender?  Marion Cotillard (who we’ve previously discussed)?  Fine.  But then they’re all “Ooo! It’s being directed by the guy that did Snowtown!” and I’m all, “What the heck is Snowtown?”

What I think is really funny is that they’re *still* saying “…who replaced Natalie Portman.” We first learned that back in August 2013. I think that lends evidence to my theory that name recognition is everything.  Even though she’s not in it, they still want the buzz that her name generates.  (Trivia – Natalie Portman auditioned for Juliet in Baz Luhrman’s movie but didn’t get it because she was way too small compared to DiCaprio and it looked too pedophilish.)

3) Enemy of Man


I’ll just leave this here, from the summary:  “stripping back the dialogue and cranking up the action.”  Yeah, because that’s why we go see Shakespeare. For the action.  Maybe they could tackle Hemingway next?   (“Dude, did you see that guy just gut that other guy from his stomach all the way up to his face?” / “I know!  That’s some straight up Macbeth action right there!”)

4) Rosaline


I started out optimistic about this one when I first heard about it back in 2011, pondering whether it could be another Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Then I got a look at the source material, which proudly describes itself thusly:

“Rosie knows that she and Rob are destined to be together. They are best friends, next door neighbors, and the soon-to-be cutest couple in their senior class. Rosie has been waiting for years for Rob to kiss her–and when he finally does, it’s perfect. But just before their relationship becomes completely official, Rosie’s cousin Juliet moves back into town. Juliet, who used to be Rosie’s best friend. Juliet, who now inexplicably hates her. Juliet, who is gorgeous, vindictive, and a little bit crazy…and who has set her sights on Rob. He doesn’t even stand a chance. 

Rosie is devastated over losing Rob to Juliet. This is not how the story was supposed to go. And when rumors start swirling about Juliet’s instability, her neediness, and her threats of suicide, Rosie starts to fear not only for Rob’s heart, but also for his life. Because Shakespeare may have gotten the story wrong, but we all still know how it ends.”

The scariest thing about this project is that it really makes you say “Who the f%& is deciding what movies get made these days?”

My favorite part of the summary, I think, is that it’s going to be in “modern language.”  Because, well, you know, Rosaline doesn’t actually HAVE ANY LINES IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY!  At least the villains making this one didn’t go all Julian Fellowes and just start adding in random crap that sounds like Shakespeare to them.

So maybe I’m “excited” for just the Macbeth?  Maybe the Cymbeline.  Technically it sounds like two of them aren’t even Shakespeare. I’d like to hear more about Enemy of Man and just how much original text it uses.

[Spotted in Reddit this morning on the “Boy Meets World” forum because I track all things Shakespeare.]

Was there a single television sitcom that involved high school kids that didn’t do a Shakespeare episode? The Brady Bunch, Cosby, Head of the Class, Welcome Back Kotter and those are just the ones I specifically remember.  Even Sanford and Son did one with their all adult cast.

Boy Meets World was just a little after my time, starting in 1993 when I was already out of college. So I think I missed this episode they did on Much Ado About Nothing:

[Video removed because it was defaulting to autoplay and driving me crazy!]

[Link here in case the embedding causes trouble, I’m not familiar with the particular service on which I found this clip.]

I always appreciate when a show branched out and did something other than what we’ll call the “high school staples.”  It’s almost always Romeo & Juliet or Hamlet for easy name recognition.  Or, if you go for the “character has Shakespeare homework” storyline you’d often get Julius Caesar or Macbeth (thank you Dr. Cosby!)

On that note, here’s a clip of Boy Meets World doing Hamlet, because I think the accent is funny.

While the most hardcore of Shakespeare geeks debates the merits of another Ethan Hawke version of Shakespeare (and whether the flame throwers were a good idea), I thought it might be a good opportunity to play catch up with the rest of the world who are scratching their heads and asking, “Cymbeline? Wotzat?” Well, brace yourself. This is not your Mama’s Shakespeare. (Your mother was a high school English teacher, right?)

1) Unless you study these things, you’ve almost certainly never heard of Cymbeline. IMDB shows only 5 filmed productions dating back all the way to 1913 (and counting this yet to be released one). In comparison, I stopped counting Hamlet productions at 30+, and that wasn’t even counting all the variations (Hamlet 2, Zombie Hamlet, and so on). Romeo and Juliet has even more. Many Shakespeare plays have become ingrained in our cultural subconscious to the point where we all recognize various Shakespeare references before we ever sit down to watch the show. You’ve almost certainly seen a balcony scene reference, or Hamlet talking to his skull, or Macbeth’s witches around their cauldron. You’ve almost certainly never seen any Cymbeline.

2) The only quote you’re likely to recognize will also probably make you cry. There’s no “To be or not to be” here, no light through yonder window breaking, no witches chanting around a bubbling cauldron. If you recognize anything that comes out of this play, chances are it is this funeral dirge:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust. 

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust. 

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!

3) It’s not a tragedy, or a comedy, or a history. It’s true that Shakespeare plays had a certain formula you could rely on. Comedies end with a wedding (or, well, the promise of one), and the joke is that tragedies always end with everybody dead. Ok, fine it’s more complicated than that, but you get the idea. Cymbeline breaks all the rules. It’s listed in the First Folio as a tragedy, but hardly anybody dies, and rumor has it that the editors of the Folio may have never actually seen a performance of this one. There’s not really a single central “tragic hero” like you might expect to find. It has a happy ending, but everybody was already married. It’s arguably something of a history, because Cymbeline was a real king who ruled at the same time as another of Shakespeare’s favorites, Julius Caesar. And, like watching a production of Julius Caesar, you’re likely to come away from Cymbeline wondering, “Ok, now, wait, how much of that was actual history and how much did Shakespeare just make up?” In short it’s a little bit of everything, which leads us to …

4) Lazy sitcoms did not invent the “clip show” or “greatest hits,” lazy Elizabethan playwrights did. (Credit to Shakespeare geeks MagpieAndWhale and TheRoaringGirl for those expressions.) Shakespeare had his favorite characters and plot devices, and threw them all into the stew for this one. To borrow from theroaringgirl’s useful summary, “It has star-crossed lovers, missing princes, a manipulative wife, an aging king, a trusty servant, a villainous liar (whose name literally means “little Iago”), a “breeches part,” an idealized pastoral setting, war with Rome, getting lost in wales, a visit from the Gods, a soothsayer, songs, mistaken identity, a death-like sleep, and the most convoluted 5th act reveal ever written.” Orson Welles is credited with the quote, “Now we sit through Shakespeare to recognize the quotations.” If point #2 told us that there’s not going to be many quotations to recognize, the good news is that there’s probably going to be a whole lot of plot you’ll recognize from other plays.

5) Most critics over the centuries have hated it. Samuel Johnson did not want to “waste criticism” on its “unresisting imbecility”. George Bernard shaw called it “stagey trash of the lowest melodramatic order.” Henry James offers, “The thing is a florid fairy-tale, of a construction so loose and unpropped that it can scarce be said to stand upright at all.” I bet Ethan Hawke and friends can’t wait for the latest crop of reviews to come out! (Credit to blog Ten Pages or More for these and more similar quotes.) None of this stops them from calling it “Shakespeare’s undiscovered masterpiece” in the trailer however.

6) It’s a pastoral comedy with a happy ending, done in the style of a flamethrower-wielding motorcycle gang. You did watch the trailer, right? I’m not making that up. As someone else noted, it’s like doing Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It with a motorcycle gang. And flamethrowers.

There’s your lesson in Cymbeline for the day. So – if you weren’t already planning to go see it (because hey, Shakespeare movie!), did I convince you?

P.S. – What do you think of the new font?  Too big?  I’m trying it out.