http://lachesis.english.uga.edu/cocoon/borrowers/current_index I found this link via Bardolatry far more interesting once I realized that I’m in it.  Be sure to check out the link to Erin Presley’s “Ol’ Billy Shakes: Shakespeare In The Blogosphere” article for numerous references to myself and all our friends from the blogosphere, including Bardolatry, Shakesper Random, and others.  I would like to know, though, what she means by “although more interested in discussion than practical feedback”.   That doesn’t sound fair.  Not sure what practical feedback I wouldn’t be interested in.

Found via Shaking the Shakespeare Blues is this TV Viewer’s Guide To Shakespeare, where the plays are all wrapped up in one or two sentence fragments each.  Some of the better ones:
HAMLET.  Displeased by mother’s second marriage, prince becomes addicted to soliloquies.  Origin of a Broadway malady. KING LEAR.  Father gives heritage to children before his death and lives to regret it.  What else? ANTONY and CLEOPATRA.  Cleo meets snake and gets stung.  She asped for it. THE WINTER’S TALE.  Estranged wife returns disguised as statue.  Reconciliation the hard way. JULIUS CAESAR.  Marc Antony rises to power on borrowed ears.  Eerie.

Did I mention how much I enjoy a good pun? 🙂

So it dawned on me after making my wife sit through a three+ hour production of King Lear that, from a casual fan’s perspective, the last scene of a Shakespearean tragedy must seem a huge bore.   Here’s the pattern:

1. Almost everyone, including the hero, will die.  All deaths might occur onstage, but if they occur offstage, someone will surely come in to announce it. In some cases, such as the Lear I saw last night, the bodies will actually be dragged back onto the stage in case you missed it.
2. Someone will be left to explain what happened.
3. Someone will be the guy who just walked in and says, “What the heck happened here?”
4. Leftover person will now retell almost the entire play that we’ve just watched to new person, to catch him up.

Take Hamlet.  The only one left standing is Horatio, who tells the story to Fortinbras when he arrives.  Or Romeo and Juliet, where Friar Laurence is left to explain things to the Prince.  In Lear, Edgar and Edmund catch Burgundy up in a hurry (and if they’d spent a little less time doing so, they might have saved Cordelia!)  Othello doesn’t totally fit the pattern, as Othello is still alive and learning the story himself when Cassio and Lodovico arrive.  But there is still that whole “tying up the loose ends” thing. My question is, why?  Was this some sort of requirement of the audiences at the time, that they would only go home happy with the show if they felt that it was all neatly packaged up like that?  Why is it so important that the Prince learn the details of Romeo and Juliet’s death, for example?  The audience knows.  Why not just end it right when they die?  All you really get after that is an announcement that Romeo’s mother has died (offstage, of course, see rule#1), a promise of statues, and the prince’s wrap up.  What was it about the fashion of the time that made Shakespeare end his tragedies this way, and not on the death of the hero?  It’s the same with Hamlet – why is “And flights of angels sing thee sweetly to thy rest” not the last line of the play?  (Although for that I’m sure  there are Fortinbras fans who are ready to tear me a new one :))

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/108994.html As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not exactly thrilled that my local free Shakespeare in the Park is doing Midsummer, a play that I’ve seen almost as many times as I’ve seen Hamlet.  Don’t get me wrong, all Shakespeare is good Shakespeare, and “free Shakespeare in the park” might darned well be 5 of the most beautiful words in the English language.  But come on, the man wrote a good 38 plays or more, why do we have to keep doing the same ones over and over again? How about a nice Anthony and Cleopatra?  Never actually seen that one live, and it’s one of the “big ones”. Anyway, the linked Playbill article shows all the casting information, in case anybody is up on their local theatre talent and recognizes any names.

For the umpteenth time today I saw that old cliche about how Shakespeare’s works were intended to be performed, not read. I don’t, quite frankly, care a whit was Shakespeare intended.  He’s long dead.  So, newsflash.  Every performance of Shakespeare does not imply that he intended it to be performed in that particular way. Do we think that he intended Oberon to speak in Klingon?  Or Lady Macbeth to drag Macbeth across the stage by his ear?  Or Hamlet to jump in a child’s wading pool, complete with goggles and swim fins?  Yes, I’ve seen productions that included all those things.  When you see a performance of Shakespeare you are separating yourself from the original (what Shakespeare did actually mean, to the best of our ability to figure it out) by a few dozen other people’s opinions – the director, the actors, the costume designers, the set builders, the production company…  At any time, any of them could make a decision that would have Shakespeare spinning in his grave.  You could see ten productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, each substantially different from the rest, and have no closer clue about what Shakespeare intended for you to take away from it. That is unless, of course, you read the play.  Even then you’ll have no idea what Shakespeare meant, but at least you’ll be able to make up your own mind.  Then, go see it.