Category: Shakespeare Geek

Hamlet is Batman

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Ask a random person if they’ve seen Hamlet, and chances are, they’ll treat it like a yes or no question.

Ask that same person if they’ve seen Batman, and they’ll say, “Which one?”

In the time I’ve been alive, Batman has been portrayed by Adam West, Michael Keaton, George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Christian Bale, and Robert Patrick (did I miss any?) That’s not counting the animated or television versions. I know Adam West was tv Batman but they also did a full-length movie.

AI-generated image of Batman performing the Yorick speech from Hamlet.
Alas, poor Joker.

See where I’m going with this? Everybody knows “the Batman story”. Parents murdered when he was young. Grows up to be a crime-fighting billionaire, works at night, has lots of cool toys. Not only do we keep telling his story over and over again, but people keep going. We understand that we basically know the story. We want to see how it’s going to be told this time. We want to see how it’s going to be acted this time.

That is exactly how Shakespeare fans feel about Hamlet. I don’t feel the same way about Moby Dick or Catcher in the Rye. Those were checklist items, you read them and say ok, read that, I’m done. I suppose you could do this with Hamlet. You could read it and say, check, done, I can say I’ve read Hamlet. I know a lot of people make it their bucket list to read all of Shakespeare’s works.

But to see it, that’s a whole different story. Whose did you see? What do you think about Mel Gibson’s version versus David Tennant? Or Andrew Scott up against Benedict Cumberbatch? Thoughts on Kenneth Branagh, or Kevin Kline, or Derek Jacobi?

This is how I want us to explain our love of Shakespeare to our friends and family. Shakespeare’s not something you get through in high school just to get the grade and forget all about it. The text may not be changing, but our desire and opportunity to interpret it has continued to evolve over hundreds of years. A character like Hamlet should be as iconic as Batman. We all know the story. Everybody who’s seen Lion King knows the story. Uncle kills father, marries mother, son avenges father. We go to see how it’s going to be told this time and by whom. What insights will new voices bring? Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear … let them be our superheroes.

Did Shakespeare Write Let It Be?

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Personally, I’m not a huge Beatles fan. I put them in that category where I can acknowledge that they deserve their legendary status in the history of music, but that doesn’t mean when a song of theirs comes on the radio I turn it up. (Except maybe some stuff off the White album.)

So I don’t have all the trivia about where and when the Beatles crossover with Shakespeare. I know there’s a video of some TV skit where they did bits from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And isn’t there a song out there that samples from King Lear? There are probably plenty more that have scooted their way across my radar over the years.

But a headline like “Paul McCartney reveals how Shakespeare inspired Let It Be” is just begging me to click it. One of their most popular songs, inspired by Shakespeare’s most well-known play? And I haven’t heard this story before? Ok, I’m curious.

Right off the bat, the article mentions inspiration at a “subconscious level,” and I think oh, here we go. But then it takes a turn:

“And it had been pointed out to me recently that Hamlet, when he has been poisoned, he actually says, ‘Let it be’ – act five, scene two. He says ‘Let be’ the first time, then the second time he says, ‘Had I but time — as this fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his arrest — oh, I could tell you. But let it be Horatio.’”

The Beatle concluded: “I was interested that I was exposed to those words during a time when I was studying Shakespeare so that years later the phrase appears to me in a dream with my mother saying it.”

Really? There’s really that one-to-one connection? To The Text!

The second reference is easy to find, starting in Q2. It’s just like he says, right as Hamlet is dying. It’s not in Q1. It’s in FF as well.

AI-generated image of The Beatles performing Shakespeare
Paul is dead, Horatio.

But what about that first reference? It’s hard to parse that quote — it sounds like he’s saying that the first time is also in Act V Scene 2, but that’s not correct. He’s basically saying, “Yeah, yeah, he says it once … but the second one is the more famous one.”

That’s because the first one doesn’t really hit the same:

 I pray you all,

If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,

Let it be tenable in your silence still;

Hamlet I.ii

Saying “Let it be” as a complete thought is definitely different from “Let it be this” or “let it be that”.

Still, though. Inspiration confirmed, I guess. Something to add to the Beatles / Shakespeare trivia category.

Dame Judi Dench is my Roman Empire

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

When Sir Patrick Stewart reads Shakespeare, you want to follow him into battle.

When Dame Judi Dench reads Shakespeare, you want to curl up under a quilt near a fireplace, holding a nice cup of tea. I love her interviews, like this one, because she’s simultaneously a theatrical legend and also someone you want to be your grandmother. I want my parents to drop me off at her house for a sleepover where I can curl under a quilt on her couch near her fireplace with a cup of tea that she made, you know? I can listen to her recite sonnets endlessly (and I’m not kidding, I replayed that clip from the Graham Norton show for days). But then she says grandmother things like, “I can’t stand people who throw away food on the sell-by date. What’s wrong with eating bread a few days old?” Absolutely, Dame Judi. You are the essence of wisdom in all its forms.

It makes me sad that her eyesight is failing rapidly. Soon, we’ll have to be the ones to read Shakespeare to her. I would totally sign up for that. Can’t wait to get my hands on her book.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/qa/2023/12/judi-dench-life-memories-shakespeare-inspirations

Geek Walks Into A Shakespeare Shop And Says …

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My wife and I took a little trip out of town recently to one of those towns where “Walk around the little shops” is the thing you do. One of those shops turns out to be one of those “All Things British” things, so we wander in to check it out. It’s a Wednesday, and it’s off-season. All the shops are empty of customers. So the store owner person, who’s literally sweeping when we come in, asks if there’s anything special he can help us with.

So I say something I’ve always felt like I should say in these situations. “Got any random stuff with Shakespeare on it?” I ask. “I collect random stuff with Shakespeare on it.”

He says, “Here.”

This is what four bucks and a love of Shakespeare gets you.

I don’t even know what it is. Stationery? I flip it over, and it’s four bucks, so I get it.

Apparently, it’s supposed to be a greeting card. When you take him out of the package, he folds open and is blank inside (oh, the irony). But he stands up on his own, so I think I like him as a little cutout that I can station on my desk and talk to.

He's my new tiny Shakespeare muse.

It also comes with a sheet of stickers and something I find unexpectedly amusing. Check out the back of the package first:

Where'd they get a Richard Burbage sticker, and who would want one?

At first glance, I was wondering who the face was, and thought, “Why would it be Will Ferrell?” But that’s Richard Burbage. What an odd choice for a sticker.

But! Here’s the funny part. Check out what happens when I unwrap it.

The disappointing unveiling.

So our sheet of Shakespeare stickers includes “Happy Birthday,” “Good Luck,” “I Love You,” and “Congratulations.” Run out of Shakespeare, there, did ya? In the long history of deceiving the customers by hiding unexpected low-quality product behind the packaging so they only see it after they bought it, this is certainly one of the more trivial ones. But I got a kick out of it. Shakespeare geeks get to play in the disappointment, too! It’s Shakespeare knowledgeable enough to include a picture of Burbage, but they couldn’t throw in 2 more original quotes?

<shrug> For four bucks, I get some content out of it. I think that makes it tax deductible.

Unexpected Shakespeare Is The Best Shakespeare

~ duane ~ 3 Comments

So, this weekend is Parents’ Weekend at my daughter’s college. “Want to go see a Shakespeare exhibit with me while you’re here?” she asks. I’m intrigued, but there are rules in this family, I’m not allowed to hijack the agenda for Shakespeare. “My teacher was one of the curators, and we all have to go check it out for my class and write a paper about it.” Oh, it’s for homework? I’m so in!

Off we head to the Pequot Library in Connecticut. Ready for what we saw?

We probably should have looked around before we said, “Can you point us to the Shakespeare?” when this was staring us in the face.
Hello, Hamlet. Good to see you again, my friend. These are Fourth Folios.
A Fourth Folio Tempest
I love when there’s handwrwiting. 1766?
Wish I could tell what this one said.

The collection, like many this year, was a celebration of 400 years of the Folio. So there were many cards describing the difference between the editions and which plays were added as they came out. A pleasant surprise was the amount of space dedicated to Charles and Mary Lamb’s work, which is one of the ways I introduced my kids to Shakespeare. I’m not honestly sure of the connection between the Lambs and the Folio, but hey, I wasn’t part of the curating.

Two things I especially loved about this one. First, this small library really decorated with Shakespeare. While we were in the exhibit room, one of the ladies at the desk came to tell us that there was an additional room that we shouldn’t miss. This turned out to be mostly illustrations from later collections behind glass, so I didn’t get any good pictures. But I appreciate her making sure we didn’t miss it. There was also a Hamlet on display right by the entrance that she called out as well. I definitely hadn’t missed that one.

Also, check this out. As we walked in the door I saw a brochure for a local Shakes-Beer fest, which unfortunately I won’t be in town for. But then check this out!

They went ahead and gave him his own little display, shot glasses included!

Second, and I think I love this most of all … the exhibit blended seamlessly with the children’s section of the library.

On the wall is that very well-known “Phrases Today That We Owe To Shakespeare” poster, done up on a very nice and colorful canvas. The shelf is covered with children’s books about Shakespeare (some I have, many I don’t!) Across the top are paper dolls of Shakespeare’s characters. I imagine a family coming into the exhibit for the adults and older kids to see Shakespeare, and sometimes they’re going to have younger kids in tow. Those kids are going to be bored, right? It’s over their heads? It’s boring? Wrong! Genius idea. More exhibits should do this.

Very happy that we stopped by. There was definitely a lot of cool stuff to look at. There were some other patrons wandering around, so of course, my daughter and I had to have some fun. I mentioned that we were looking at a Fourth Folio, and she asked, “Which one did we see?”

“You guys have seen …” I paused to count … “I think 5 First Folios? I’m only now realizing that I should have kept a better count. That’s a fun bucket list item, to see as many as you can. You definitely saw Folio #1 when we were down in the Folger Vault.”

“I think I tried to touch it,” my son said.

“No, you tried to touch a different one that they had out on the counter,” I told him. “Folio #1 was special, we had to ask to see that.” Alas, none of the little old ladies seemed interested in our humble bragging. Honestly, I think they were annoyed that we were there and taking up space. They’re probably used to having the place 90% empty. I don’t care. If there’s an opportunity to talk about Shakespeare, I’m going to take it.