“He set The Tempest in Nazi Germany!”

Early indications are, though some of us may be more optimistic (read: clinging to hope) than others, nobody really thinks the new “Will” show is all that great.  And we can forget completely about Still Star-Cross’d, which ran out of Shakespeare material in the first episode.

What would you want in a Shakespearean television show?  What could they have done, that would have made the show “must see tv” in your universe?

For my part, I think I wear it on my sleeve – give me the text.  Start with people saying Shakespeare’s words, and I’m already about 70% there.  It doesn’t have to be the actual character of William Shakespeare.  It could just as easily be high school students.  The important part would be in the delivery.  The words have to come from a place of sincerity.  It would be too easy (especially in the high school case) to go more for cliche and mockery. I don’t want that.  I want lightning bolts to shoot up my spine every time somebody drops a line I recognize.  

Beyond that, I love it when the meta story echoes the text.  Go ahead and tell a Romeo and Juliet story while actually reading/studying/performing Romeo and Juliet, I’m ok with it.  Granted it’s a little overdone.  So do it with King Lear instead. But don’t abandon the text for the story.

I think that Slings & Arrows is as close to ideal as I’ve yet seen.

I don’t really need the historical accuracy stuff.  Elizabethan England was not a glamorous era, based on what I’m learning.  The prettier you make the show look, the more people will tell you it looks like a Renaissance Faire.  The better looking your actors, the more discussion we can have about the lack of dentistry and personal hygiene, not to mention plague.  But who wants to look at sick ugly people every week?

What about you? What’s your must have ingredient for a Shakespeare show? Do you want the biographical stuff?  Or the more fanciful Dark Lady theories? Historical accuracy? You prefer Shakespeare as a character or would you rather see a story about Falstaff?

 

I suppose this was inevitable, what with “Will” on TNT premiering this week.  Somebody’s gone and created a list of the Sexiest Shakespeares.  That is, portrayals of Shakespeare as a character in television and movies.

Joseph Fiennes. Shakespeare in Love.

Any other questions?  Seriously, I was most curious about how many entries this list might have, after Shakespeare in Love and Will. Would the Black Adder version make the list? How about Upstart Crow?  Yes and no, respectively.

I didn’t know about half the movies in this list, and a couple of them look interesting.  An imagined meeting between Shakespeare and Cervantes? That could be cool. I wonder if Cardenio was a major plot point?

I don’t think it’s fair that Dr. Who gets two entries.  They didn’t even include Shakespeare in I Dream of Jeannie. I could swear there are other sitcom “conjured William Shakespeare by mistake” plotlines out there as well, aren’t there?

Aw, man – I started compiling a list (remember Robert Reed as Shakespeare in a Fantasy Island episode?) but it looks like somebody beat me to it.

 

 

Spent my daughter’s birthday wandering through Boston with the family, so of course I’m wearing my Mercutio Drew First shirt :).  “Gotta advertise when you get the chance!” I tell my daughter.  She laughs and says, “I think that every time when I’m running! I wear my shirt and I just imagine people seeing that it’s got Shakespeare on it and thinking, There goes Duane’s daughter.”

Anyway, we’re in the North End for lunch, and I’m waiting for the ladies when a man asks me, “Can I take a picture of your shirt?”

But of course!  I sit up straight, do what I can to suck in the gut and hope I don’t look too much like Comic Book Nerd from the Simpsons.  “Thanks,” he says, “I have to send that to my daughter, she’s really into Shakespeare.”

“I made it,” I tell him.  “It’s available on Amazon.”

He asks, “Really? Do you have a business card or something?”

I tell him no, but I’m easily googled as “Shakespeare Geek,” and that there’s a whole bunch of us, there’s a lot more shirts, we’re on Facebook,

 

Twitter, all of that.

He says he’ll have to tell his daughter about us, and thanks me again.  After he left my son, tells me, “Oh my god you have such a big smile on your face since he came up to you.  Your face wasn’t even in the picture.”

“Not why I’d be smiling,” I told him.  “I’ve always wanted somebody to ask me about my shirt, that’s why I wear it!  Not to mention that’s totally a blog post.  Just in case he does tell his daughter, and she does google us.”  So, if she happens to be here doing exactly that, hi there 🙂  Here’s the Amazon page with all the shirts currently available.  But check back in the fall because I’m adding more all summer!

That’s one for the bucket list.  The next two are:

• See a complete stranger wearing my merchandise.
• Have somebody actually recognize me as Shakespeare Geek.

Should either of those happen, you know I’ll be writing about it here!

 

There’s never a shortage of Top 10 lists I could re-blog, so I try to limit it to the ones where I find some unique value.  Here we get to talk about 10 Shakespearean Stories in Modern Fiction.

This one caught my eye because I can see that they’re using a photo from the recent Lady Macbeth movie.  From what I understood, there’s almost no actual Shakespeare in that one?  Does anybody know one way or the other?  I thought all it really took from the original was the name.  But extra special Easter egg points if you click through the book shop link where you’ll see that the translation was handled by a Mr. McDuff.  Love it.

I’m also intrigued by The Diviners, a Canadian novel from 1974 that’s supposed to be loosely based on The Tempest?  I’ve truly never heard of that one.

For the curious, the three I knew where A Thousand Acres, The Tragedy of Arthur and of course Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I feel like it’s cheating to even include that one. 🙂

I’ve heard a lot about Shylock Is My Name but never read it.  The others on the list are complete mysteries to me.  I’ve heard the term “Withnail and I” over the years but I’m not sure I ever knew it’s supposed to be Hamlet?

If there’s some gold in this list that I’m missing, enlighten me!

 

 

 

(Extra special thanks that there’s no f$%^&*ng Lion King on it, too!)

 

 

Ok, a site called Art of Manliness offers up an article entitled, “20 Classic Poems Every Man Should Read.” Will Shakespeare be on it?

That’s an easy one, because I wouldn’t be writing about it if he didn’t show up.  But which Shakespeare makes an appearance?  Any guesses? Let’s say it’s a sonnet (it is).  Which one shall be anointed “manliest”?

Sonnet 29, “a lamentation on the loss of fame and fortune [that] ends with a meditation on the love that he has for his beloved.”  Does it, as the article suggests, conjure up similar themes with It’s A Wonderful Life?  Never really thought about that.

I’m ok with it.  I don’t have strong knowledge of the sonnets in general, other than the most popular dozen or so that we always talk about – is there a better choice?

Also – this list is good.  It’s weird to see the juxtaposition of “manly” and “poetry” but it works.  There’s some stuff on the list that I’ve never read, but now I want to, and that’s about the best praise I can give a list like this. Whitman makes the list, but not with “O Captain My Captain”.  Longfellow’s here too, but not with the “Wreck of the Hesperus” or “Hiawatha”.  Kipling, too, without “Gunga Din”.  So it’s not like they just went through and picked the easy ones.  Some actual thought went into this list.