Dancing With The Shakespeare

I’m not sure how many of you watch ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, either because you’re in another country and have no idea what it is or because you just got sick of them playing fast and loose with the word “star” about 10 seasons ago.

But!  This week was “Dynamic Duo” week, and somebody (Val and Janel) did Romeo and Juliet. I always pay closer attention when there’s a chance that somebody’s gotten some Shakespeare into other random stuff.

Unfortunately there’s not a whole lot of Shakespeare to be found, once you get past the name. Check it out (they did get a perfect score for the performance):

On second thought, let’s look a little closer.

I’m not quite sure what they were going for here, but when I first saw it I thought, “Are they in her bedroom looking out the window?”  As in, “It was the nightingale, and not the lark?”

But here’s what sealed it for me. I can only hope that he was going for what I think he was going for:

Romeo’s reaction to discovering Juliet’s dead body? I love it.  (By the way, you may notice that he’s literally holding her up across his knees. Nice trick!)

Collier Shakespeare

On Halloween I asked for research into which edition added a stage direction for Hamlet to put down Yorick’s skull.  Bardfilm tells me it was added in the Collier edition, but then disappeared before I could ask for more info on Collier.  So, I had to go look for myself.

Interesting!  From the Wikipedia page:

Collier used these opportunities to effect a series of literary fabrications. Over the next several years he claimed to find a number of new documents relating to Shakespeare’s life and business. After New Facts, New Particulars and Further Particulars respecting Shakespeare had appeared and passed muster, Collier produced (1852) the famous Perkins Folio, a copy of the Second Folio (1632), so called from a name written on the title-page. In this book were numerous manuscript emendations of Shakespeare, said by Collier to be from the hand of “an old corrector.” He published these corrections as Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare (1852) and boldly incorporated them in his next edition (1853) of Shakespeare.

More information here.  Did this guy just forge his sources? If there’s such controversy over his edition why would the Moby edition, which is based on the 1864 Globe edition (thanks JM), have this line?

I would have thought the authenticity of this edition would have been seriously called into question just by looking at the first scene of Romeo and Juliet, anyway:

SAMPSON 

Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals. 

GREGORY 

No, for then we should be colliers. 

SAMPSON 

That would be awesome. 

GREGORY 

This is what I’m sayin, right? Colliers are the coolest. 

SAMPSON 

I hear you.  Ain’t nothing wrong with being a collier. Colliers rule. 

GREGORY 

You know who doesn’t rule, though? Montagues.

Review : The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents Macbeth

When Bardfilm showed me his early review copy of The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents Macbeth
I was all, “Awwww!  Want.”

Then Ian wrote and asked if I wanted a copy as well and I was all, “Yay!”

This … can we call it a graphic novel? Tells the story of animals in the zoo putting on a performance of Macbeth.  Not only do you see the audience, the audience interacts with the show in a series of inset panels, commenting on the action and making various puns and other jokes. This has been done before (Marcia Williams’ books come to mind) but I like it even more here, because it doesn’t overpower the story. The audience gets a single panel at most, in context with the rest of the flow of dialogue. You don’t feel as if one story is talking over the other.

This is a very kid safe version of the story. Macbeth, a lion, does not kill people – he eats them (apparently whole, as they keep talking to him from inside his belly). There is no blood, there’s ketchup (and lots of it). Lady Macbeth, forced to do her husband’s laundry, cannot seem to get the ketchup stains out and this drives her a bit crazy.  As people begin to notice Macbeth’s increasing waistline, they start asking questions and he starts overeating.   The best part is that somehow Lendler manages to give us a happy ending, while staying pretty true to the original story (including a nice twist on the “not borne of woman” thing).

The best praise I can offer comes from my son, who is 8. Right now we are going through a tough time getting him to read. He sees it as a chore, and no matter what we put before him, he’ll kick and scream and go through the same routine even though he knows it never gets him anywhere. It’s worse than pulling teeth.

Well, when this book showed up I brought it to him and said, “You and I need to read this book. This is a big deal, because the man who wrote this book knows that I have kids, and that my kids like Shakespeare, and he thought we might like to read his book and write a review of it so other people can decide if they might like it.”  At first, without opening the book, he gave me the same eye roll and drooped shoulders I’ve become so familiar with.  But I persisted, and said that we should sit down and read Act 1 together, which we did.

The next day, before I went off to work, I told my son, “Don’t feel as if you have to wait for me, you know. I know that story. You can go ahead and read it without me.” Fast forward to later that night when I returned?  He tells me, “I finished the Macbeth book, Daddy. I like books like that, get more of those.” Not completely ready to trust that it had been that easy, I asked him to tell me the story. He told me of how Macbeth’s friend “Banksy” talked to much and got eaten, and how Macbeth’s wife had to do so much of his laundry to get the ketchup stains out that she used up all the soap in the castle, and how “Detective” Macduff eventually solved the mystery … but I’m not going to spoil the story for anybody. 🙂

Ian tells me that Romeo and Juliet is already planned, and I can’t wait. This one may not score highly on the classic Shakespeare scale, but I’m ok with that. I’d rather have a book like this that has my kids asking for more, than a more advanced book that I feel like they’re only reading to keep me happy.

Searching for Romeo

When I spotted the summary of a story focusing on Rosaline I thought this must be an update on the upcoming movie about Romeo’s “ex-girlfriend”.

Nope! Searching for Romeo is a new stage musical that tells….well, basically the exact same story. Why does everybody go for Rosaline? She’s not even technically a character, she’s a name. It’s easy to say you’re walking in Tom Stoppard’s shoes, but at least Shakespeare gave him some Rosencranz and Guildenstern to work with. Stoppard didn’t, for example, invent a new character for Paris’ mother.  (Yes, Searching for Romeo offers us Paris’ mother.)

For some reason the article decides to pull in Ophelia, which I thought was interesting.  Spinning off a play about Ophelia is more in the Stoppard vein, I’d say.  (Personally I even tried my hand at writing such a play back in college.  The premise was that Ophelia was in on Hamlet’s feigned madness, and they were both having a good joke at the expense of their respective parents, until Hamlet really does lose his mind.)

What I don’t understand is the author’s summary of Ophelia’s existence:

Curiosity has long surrounded Hamlet’s love Ophelia, who dies after speaking about 170 lines in a play with more than 3,800. 

“She just seems to go mad out of nowhere,” said Emily C.A. Snyder, who directed a production of “Hamlet” in which she give Ophelia more time onstage to create a stronger connection with the audience.

Ms. Snyder missed the part where Hamlet went crazy, said he never loved her, killed her father, got banished to England.  Out of nowhere? Really?

Let’s have less invention of Rosaline and other characters, and more exploration into Ophelia’s character. I’m all for that idea.

Cirque du Soleil Does Shakespeare

I’d seen the commercials for Cirque du Soleil’s new show Amaluna, but I had no idea it was their interpretation of my favorite play The Tempest!

Set on a mysterious island governed by goddesses and the cycles of the moon, the story of Queen Prospera (Shakespeare’s Prospero), a shaman with magical powers, unfolds. The queen conjures up a great storm in preparation for the coming-of-age ceremony of her daughter, Miranda. The storm leaves a group of young men, led by Prince Romeo, shipwrecked on the island. An epic romance between the prince and Miranda ensues.

(I admit, “Prince Romeo” is a bit cringe-worthy. You kept Miranda and Prospera but felt it necessary to not only change Ferdinand, but to borrow from a completely different play?)

Playing in Boston now, but only through July 6 so I can’t possibly get there. If it comes to your part of the world, let us know how it is!

For more information : http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/the-circus-comes-to-town/