I think that Daeshin Kim would be fun to hang out with.  We have a lot in common.  We both think that it’s never too young to expose our children to Shakespeare. We both think that music is a key component in doing that.  I sing lullabies, never met a pun I didn’t like, and post stories of my geeklets wisdom here on the blog.

And then Daeshin goes off and produces Kinderbard, and we’re in different leagues.  Clearly a labor of love for him and his family, Daeshin and his 5yr old daughter Sherman wrote and produced a collection of nursery rhymes – including Sherman singing them! – that they call “A Horse With Wings” (Imogen, from Cymbeline).  Each rhyme is sung from the perspective of a Shakespeare character, and attempts the dual task of teaching a lesson (or dealing with an issue) while providing some context about the character doing the singing.

Example?  Juliet’s song, “It’s just a name.”  If you know the story of Romeo and Juliet you’ll immediately recognize the idea behind Juliet’s “What’s in a name?” speech.  Here, sung by Sherman, it’s a song about dealing with teasing when your perhaps your own name is on the more unusual side.

Or maybe Cordelia’s “I don’t know what to say” song, encouraging shy children to speak up for themselves.

Of course there are the silly ones, too.  Two Gentlemen of Verona‘s contribution is the “Smelly Dog” song, and let me just tell you now, the dog doesn’t smell because it needs a bath, it smells because of what somebody’s been feeding it.  If you get what I mean.

And then there’s Falstaff’s dirty laundry song, where he comes face to face with something so disgusting I’m not going to blog about it (but it will no doubt have younger children in stitches).

Honestly there’s not a great deal of Shakespeare in this.  The coverage is impressive, with contributions from 16 different plays (not just “the big ones”).  Where possible they sneak in direct references (Yorick sings about giving piggyback rides, and As You Like It’s Jaques pretty much sings a simplified version of his entire ages of man speech), and there is some artwork with original quotes.  But I don’t think that a child is going to come away from any of the songs with any long term understanding of Shakespeare.  Although I’ve often said that at the youngest age, the most important thing is recognition of character and maybe plot.  So if the kids who work through Kinderbard learn about Ariel and Yorick and Cordelia and remember those names?  It’s a good start!

Disclaimer – Daeshin and I have discussed this, and he’s clear that his goal is “a songbook that happens to have Shakespeare as its source”, and that he is not primarily attempting to teach Shakespeare.  So I don’t feel as if I’m throwing him under the bus by going here.  This is, after all, a Shakespeare blog so I have to take the logical angle.  If I saw this on a shelf I’d want to know how much Shakespeare my kids are going to get out of it.

My kids are too old for the collection now, but I’d like to think that if it had existed when mine were still young enough that I was popping nursery rhyme CDs into the car stereo when we drove around town?  That I would have picked it up.  If nothing else Kinderbard shows what can happen when you’ve got the kid of passion for a project that Daeshin has demonstrated.

This year’s Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world.   In celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they’ve ever been!

*phew!*

So, how was your day?

This year I succeeded in publishing a new record *28* stories.  And you know what?  I’m pretty sure that a silly picture I tweeted in the middle of the day got more traffic than all of those stories combined.  But that’s ok.  Tweets are temporary, posts are forever.

Here’s a quick recap of the day’s action, since so many posts will have scrolled into the archives before most people get to see them:

1. My Shakespeare, Rise!
2. Cover Songs and Sampling
3. Playing Against Type
4. Deconstructing Shakespeare
5. Theme Song Shakespeare : And The Rest!
6. The Master
7. A Game! Novel Perspective
8. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music
9. A New Sonnets to Music Collection
10. WIN One of the Beautiful Shakespeare Signature Series, Free!
11. Review : Undiscovered Country by Lin Enger
12. Synetic Shakespeare
13. “Shakespeare” by Jaden Smith
14. Romeo & Juliet Trailer
15. Drive-by Earl of Oxford Jokes
16. Review : Shakespeare Shaken
17. Review : So Long, Shakespeare
18. Willie “Shakespeare” Joel’s Greatest Hits
19. Kinderbard
20. Dreaming in Shakespeare (A Continuing Series)
21. Tales from Shakespeare : Illustrated
22. Why Are Some Plays Better Recognized Than Others?
23. Pen Us A Play You’re The Stratford Man
24. Review : The Wednesday Wars
25. Rocky Shakespeare III
26. What Shakespeare Means To Me
27. Is Shakespeare Universal? Show Your Support!
28. Why Should I?

I’ve been thinking about adaptation lately, and not just because Bardfilm keeps dumping homework in my lap.  This idea has been a recurring theme here on the blog all the way back to the Lion King / Hamlet debate.

(For the sake of terminology, when I speak of “adaptation” I refer to telling the story using modern language.  Kenneth Branagh’s work, using original text in a modern setting, is what I’d call “interpretation”.   10 Things I Hate About You or She’s The Man or, yes, even Lion King are adaptations.)

When you take this approach, a new telling of Shakespeare’s stories, what you’re really doing is deconstructing the story and building it back up from its elements.  Start with a king, have his brother kill him and take over his kingdom, and the son is left to avenge his father?  Is that all you need to be Hamlet?  What about Lear?  If you start with a powerful landowner and his three assumed heirs, and add a misunderstanding and a falling out with the one good one, do you have a Lear story?

I don’t mind modern adaptation.  When people talk about Shakespeare no longer being approachable or relevant the first thing they trot out is how it’s all about kings and ghosts and swordfights and we don’t have any of those things in any meaningful capacity, so you have to switch it out.  Instead of a king we have the president of a company.  Instead of Montagues and Capulets with swords we have Jets and Sharks with guns.  Lear’s “heirs” don’t have to be his children, and Claudius doesn’t have to be Hamlet’s uncle.  You can work at the edges of those relationships (you want approachable Shakespeare?  How many young people out there right now do you think have to call mom’s new friend “uncle” and it drives them insane?)

So how far back can you take it?  Is there a minimum where, if you don’t take at least that much, you no longer have the story?  You’d think there must be.  If King Hamlet isn’t out of the picture at the start of the play, it’s a different play.  If Macbeth doesn’t make his move on his superior officer, it’s a different play.

Of course there’s no rules for this, so what I’m really talking about it something between being recognizable, and “getting a bump” as they say in political/media circles.  Whether something is recognizable as having elements of X is entirely dependent on your audience’s familiarity with X. Only recently did somebody point out to me that Lion King has elements of Cymbeline.   I don’t think that the recognition factor is something that writer/directors can control.  They can hope, but they can’t control.

It’s the “bump” thing that’s more interesting, and it’s very similar to how people quote random things on the internet and stick “-Shakespeare” at the end.  It makes people think twice, and think better.  Oh you wrote a love story? Big deal, there’s lots of those.  Oh you wrote a Romeo and Juliet story?  I know that story, that’s a great story!  I’ll check out your version.

Did Tommy Boy or Strange Brew ever market themselves as Shakespeare remakes? Maybe if they did, they’d have been more critically received.  Or, worse, maybe they would have been crucified as terrible Shakespeare adaptations.

In the drive in to work this morning I thought of something.  In Lion King, Simba doesn’t realize that his uncle Scar killed his father until the very end.  This is entirely different from the world of Hamlet where his father *tells* him that, and he first has to prove it, and then has to do something about it.  Yet another reason why I will continue to argue down the “Lion King Is Hamlet” theory to the day I die.

Let’s talk about the new trailer that was released for Julian Fellowes’ adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, starring Hailee Steinfeld (which we first reported back in 2011).

First of all, as far as trailers go, I really liked it.  I think it’s paced well, I think the soundtrack is excellent, and I think it does a good job of capturing what your typical audience knows of the “greatest love story ever told.” Special note of attention to Paul Giamatti as Friar Laurence at 2:00, by the way.

Now, let’s talk about the Shakespeare.  This is not a true interpretation of the original source. Fellowes has gone off on his own in some places (and I’m not always sure how far or how frequently). I’m pretty sure Tybalt never said, “Romeo! Come settle with me, boy!”  Nor did Romeo say something about “I have murdered my tomorrow.”   Is all the dialogue Fellowes’ creation, and not Shakespeare’s?  Not necessarily.  The trailer also has Juliet’s “cut him out in little stars” speech, which appears to stray not too far from the original (although it is acted pretty poorly).

What do we think? Are you going to be in line for this one?  It feels like it’s going in the same bucket as the 1996 Romeo+Juliet did – namely, you either hate it as an interpretation of Shakespeare, or you love it for its attempt to bring Shakespeare to a modern young audience in the way that their receptive to.  Personally I’m for that.  If a movie like this comes out, and I hear random people talking about Shakespeare because of it?  That’s a win.