Once again Reddit’s bringing the interesting conversation, this time on an old Romeo and Juliet question:

Do you think that Friar Laurence is a criminal or a hero?

Somewhere along the line, someone (was it you, David Blixt?) told me that Friar Laurence is a really bad guy who used two stupid lovestruck kids as pawns in his scheme to be the hero who ends the feud. When I go look in the text, however, all I really find is that one line of his where he tells Romeo “For this alliance may so happy prove, To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.”

We’ve often discussed the fact that Romeo and Juliet, right up until Mercutio’s death, is a romantic comedy that suddenly goes very very badly.  Even the darkest plays have at least a couple of jokes thrown in (or do they?)  So let’s talk about that.  Among all the plays that are not supposed to be comedy, which one do you think is the funniest?

There’s multiple ways to look at this:

* Laughs where Shakespeare put them, and expected them.
* Laughs where a modern director found an opportunity to get a laugh.
* Laughs where the audience laughed, and probably wasn’t supposed to.

So let me rephrase it this way – which play do you think provides enough potential for the audience to walk away thinking, “Wow, I never expected to laugh that hard!”

I’ve seen a fair share of laughs in Othello, and Macbeth.  I didn’t laugh at Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus, but when I saw a production in Boston Common the lead character was so over the top snarky in his attitude toward everybody that I couldn’t help myself (although I also wanted to punch him).  I’ll be very surprised if King Lear makes this list.  Somebody remind me if there’s any funny bits in that one at all?

[Thanks to reader Angela for the link!]

When each of my children was born, people would ask me whether I was going to name them something from Shakespeare.  I did, in my own way.  Katherine, my oldest, knows well the story of her shrew-ish namesake (and her little sister loves the story about the beautiful younger daughter who all the boys want, who can’t get married until the mean older sister finds a boy who likes her).  She gets double points because her middle name, Delia, reminds me of Cordelia, the best of daughters.

My second child, Elizabeth, is not so much a Shakespeare name as a Shakespearean one – and I’ve even had conversations with her about that.  Her middle name, Anne, also happens to be the name of Shakespeare’s wife.  So there ya go.

The boy was tricky.  It was easy to pick “classic” girls’ names that have been around long enough that they meant something to Shakespeare.  But for boys we get a whole lot of Italian / Spanish sounding -o names (Banquo, Romeo, Petruchio etc…) while the more English sounding names (Richard, Henry, Edgar, Edmund…) just didn’t do anything for us.  So the boy didn’t get a Shakespeare name.  He’s Brendan.  One day Brendan Fraser will do some Shakespeare and then we’ll have a connection.

But!  I’m deep into the story and haven’t served up the link to Shakespeare Baby Names that Angela sent me.  It’s funny that the author clearly tries to suggest that only realistic names were included (so no Iago), but then Cymbeline is in the list.  Really?

Lots of minor characters listed, obviously because they had a modern connection already (like Celia, Audrey, Marina, etc…) but does that mean I could have called my son Christopher and argued that he was named after Christopher Sly from the induction of Shrew?

I still don’t see many names on the boys’ list that would have made it in my house.  Caliban? Horatio?  Interestingly the list includes Richard, but no Henry.  What’s wrong with Henry?  My son is in class with a Henry right now.

If there’s something I’ve learned over the years I’ve been doing this, it’s that there’s two sure fire ways for a post to pull crazy traffic.  The first is to hit the SEO (search engine optimization) just right so that you show up on the first page of Google results (see “How old was Romeo?” for an example) (( Oh, thank you Google for letting me know that Li’l Romeo is 29 years old.  Wow. ))

The second way?  The second way is to get Bardfilm to write you a guest post.  Every time he drops a new list on my virtual doorstep, I know it’s going to be a good day.

If you’ve not had a chance to read them all, you’re missing out.  Let’s fix that problem.  Gathered together here, right now, for the very first time on stage simultaneously, I present Bardfilm’s Lists:

• When Shakespeare Does His Taxes  (April 2012)
• Shakespearean Light Bulb Jokes (January 2012)
• Bob Dylan’s Shakespeare Songs (May 2011)
• Shakespearean Pick-up Lines (January 2011)
• Shakespearean Collective Nouns (December 2010)
• Top Twenty Shakespearean Faux-Pas (October 2010)
• Twenty Bits of Shakespeare Trivia You Probably Haven’t Heard Before (October 2010)
• Shakespearean Movie Quotes (October 2011)

If you’re not subscribed to Bardfilm’s own site, what are you thinking?  Go do it.  Right now.