Sometimes we realize this when we wake up to discover that an entertainment idol has died – Robin Williams, David Bowie, Tom Petty. You don’t appreciate what you had until life tells you, “No more.”
But sometimes you know what’s coming, and I’m not sure if that’s worse. Sir Ian McKellen (and Sir Patrick Stewart and Dame Judi Dench and too many others to name) will not be around forever to bring the Shakespeare. In the linked interview above Sir Ian gets realistic on us that he’s “probably not really” got any more Shakespeare in him. Sad day, but one that had to come eventually.
What’s your favorite Sir Ian role? Richard III, Macbeth, Lear? In the image above a very young McKellen takes on Hamlet. I wish we had video of that!
For my day job we have a very large email marketing business. It’s normal conversation to talk about what others are doing, so when I got the following subject line in an email I laughed and showed it to my coworkers:
Make someone ugly cry. Adobe can help.
What I wrong as a comment was, “I know what they meant, but that’s the worst subject line I’ve ever seen.” It sounds like Adobe’s offering to help you chase ugly kids around the playground and make them cry.
A couple days after that post, a coworker calls me over and says, “You posted something the other day and I’ve been meaning to ask you about it…I don’t get it? You wrote, I know what they mean … but I don’t. I don’t know what they mean? Is it like the optical illusion with the old woman and the young woman and I can only see the old woman?”
So I told him, “Claire Danes in the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo+Juliet.”Turns out there’s actually several blogs and tumblrs dedicated to her cry face in particular, and she’s even been asked about it in interviews 🙂
In the kitchen at work the other day, a coworker tells me that he’s just returned from London, where of course he had to stop by The Globe. I ask if he saw a show, and his response is, “I wasn’t really on a schedule that allowed time for a show, and besides, it was Taming of the Shrew. Maybe if it was Hamlet or something, but Taming of the Shrew?”
We generally agree that Taming of the Shrew is, at best, “nothing special” Shakespeare. I refer to it as a Shakespearean sitcom, and compare it to a Seinfeld re-run that you see on the hotel room tv when you’re channel surfing. Maybe you’re all “Oh yeah, this is a good one” or maybe you’re more, “Eh, seen this one a thousand times.”
But! A coworker hears our conversation and comes to Shrew’s defense. He calls it a vicious takedown of masculine roles in Shakespeare’s time, and that it is only the fault of modern directors who want to “move it along” and tend to skip or de-emphasize key scenes that cause the play to appear like the “battle of the sexes” romantic comedy it’s known as. He says that when played properly, you completely empathize with Katherina because you see the kind of men that she’s expected to put up with. When I push him for specific examples of key scenes he refers to the line of suitors that are introduced early in the play, by which I assume he’s referring to Act II, Scene i for anyone that needs a refresher.
Where do you stand on Taming of the Shrew? Is it completely misogynistic? A silly romantic comedy with a happy ending? Or should it be taken more seriously? How deep does it go?
So the other day I spot a headline that says something about the worst Emmy Awards in the history of the show. Thinking it’s going to be some sort of slam on the job Stephen Colbert did, I check it out.
Imagine my surprise upon learning that the 1961 Emmy Awards are on the list primarily because a certain movie swept all the major categories. That movie? The Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Macbeth!
Now if you told me, in a year when I was alive, that a Shakespeare production was sweeping the night? I’d watch the whole thing with popcorn. Probably call some friends.
I went to research this production, see if I could maybe find some video. It starred Maurice Evans, who I only knew from such supporting roles as Dr. Zaius in the original Planet of the Apes movies, and The Puzzler from the Batman tv series (in fact I even blogged about him once).
But once you’ve seen his IMDB page you realize just the level of Shakespeare cred the man had in his prime: Malvolio in 1957, Petruchio in 1956, Richard II in 1954, Macbeth in 1954…wait, what?
In 1954, Maurice Evans played Macbeth in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Macbeth.
In 1961, Maurice Evans played Macbeth in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Macbeth.
That’s not a typo. According to the Wikipedia page:
Macbeth is a live television adaptation of the William Shakespeare play presented as the November 28, 1954 episode of the American anthology series Hallmark Hall of Fame. Directed by George Schaefer, and starring Maurice Evans and Dame Judith Anderson, the production was telecast in color, but has only been preserved on black-and-white kinescope.
In 1960, Evans and Anderson starred in a filmed made-for-television production of the play, also directed by Schaefer for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, but with an entirely different supporting cast. That production was filmed in color on location in Scotland, and was released theatrically in Europe.
These days when we think of a “reboot” we think of an entirely new production with an entirely new cast, usually because of some sort of contract wrangling between studios. In this case we’ve got the same director and the same leads, just a different location and different supporting cast.
Though I’d love to watch them side by side and play spot the differences, I can’t find much video of the 1961 version. However, the 1954 version appears to be complete on YouTube (as of this posting, at least), so enjoy!
All I found of the 1960 version (won an award in 1961 but the film is dated 1960) is the opening credits:
Let’s try something different. I may have mentioned once or a thousand times that there’s a Shakespeare Geek line of merchandise on Amazon. I try very hard not to nag everybody by actually creating blog posts for every new design. I keep it mostly to the Facebook/Twitter feed and some ads around the edges. I appreciate the patience of my most loyal readers who still make it here to the blog and don’t catch just the headlines and summaries on social media :).
Everybody who sees you in this is going to go straight to Game of Thrones, but we Shakespeare geeks know that the original quote comes from King Lear ( albeit with 2 fewer dragons 😉 ).
For a limited time, this shirt is available ONLY through this link for the sneak preview price of $15.99. It is not available in Amazon search, and I will not advertise it. In a couple of weeks, once I feel that my followers have had a chance to buy it if they want it, I’ll release it to the Amazon public search feed – and raise the price as well, most likely to $19.99.
You CAN share the link with your friends, or just let them be envious and beg you to tell them where you got that awesome shirt. As with just about all of my designs it’s available in men’s, women’s and youth styles, in a variety of colors.
Thanks for loyal readership over the years. This link will continue to work, but the price of $15.99 is only temporary, so if you want it I encourage you to grab it before the price goes up!
Sometimes we realize this when we wake up to discover that an entertainment idol has died – Robin Williams, David Bowie, Tom Petty. You don’t appreciate what you had until life tells you, “No more.”
