Category: Uncategorized

Most of the posts in this category are simply leftovers from a previous era before the site had categories. Over time I plan to reduce that number to zero and remove this category. Until then, here they are. I had to put something in the box.

Did You Watch Shakespeare Uncovered?

~ duane ~ Leave a comment


So, did you watch Shakespeare Uncovered?  I’ve got all 6 episodes (there were 6, right?) on DVR and have been trying to find the time to watch them, because I don’t want to miss anything.

I find my attention span with stuff like that does an interesting thing.  Here’s the way I put it in conversation earlier today:

They have this weird effect on me where a single line – or, hell, pretty much David Tennant on screen at all – is overwhelmingly spine tingly.  But then they switch to the narrator/host/expert who talks *about* Shakespeare and my mind tends to wander right out of the room. When it comes to the “about” Shakespeare part it’s in a different league.  “Oh, Shakespeare wrote The Tempest while he was dealing with his daughter’s controversial engagement to a man who’d impregnated another woman,  I never made that connection before….”  is interesting, but not in the same way that watching performance is.

Does that make sense?  I like learning about Shakespeare.  I do.  But Trevor Nunn talking about directorial choices in staging the shipwreck just doesn’t hold my interest the same way that the actual shipwreck does.

If you missed Shakespeare Uncovered, the entire series is available (or maybe coming soon?) to DVD.  Attached is the press release I received this morning:

PBS’ latest and greatest salute to the Bard — the six-part series “Shakespeare Uncovered” — has left the airwaves, but the critically acclaimed show and a variety of great Shakespeare-related content is available online.  HD-quality streaming versions of the six “Uncovered” episodes can be found here, along with character quizzes, two colorful (and quite helpful) infographics that lay out key plot points from Hamlet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as links to full broadcast versions of plays from the PBS archive, and lesson plans for teachers who use Shakespeare in the classroom.
Produced by Blakeway Productions, 116 Films and THIRTEEN in association with Shakespeare’s Globe, Shakespeare Uncovered combines history, biography, iconic performances, new analysis, and the personal passions of its celebrated hosts — Ethan Hawke (the episode on Macbeth), Jeremy Irons (Henry IV & V), Derek Jacobi (Richard II), Trevor Nunn (The Tempest), Joely Richardson (the comedies), and David Tennant (Hamlet)— to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.
“If the marvelous ‘Shakespeare Uncovered’ had been around when all of us were first introduced to the Bard, the world might be a better place, or at least a happier one. Here, in fresh and exciting ways, some of Shakespeare’s greatest works are examined and, yes, revealed, in ways that will make all but the expert fan rush to read or see them again.” – The Wall Street Journal
Bard lovers can find all the content at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/.  For more information about the “Shakespeare Uncovered” digital offerings, contact us atShakespeare@goodmanmedia.com or call 212-576-2700.

Heigh My Hearts! Cheerely, Cheerely My Harts! Yare, Yare!

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

So I’m home today for Presidents’ Day, catching up on Shakespeare Uncovered, and from the other room I hear this line (the subject line, that is) come out of my television…

…and I’m *there*.  A storm.  A ship going down.  A sailor shouting orders to his shipmates, urging them to put their backs into it to keep them all alive.

I’m reminded of this quote by Peter Brook: “Each line in Shakespeare is an atom. The energy that can be released is infinite—if we can split it open.”

My question is this, though.  Is it all in our heads?  How much of that energy is in our own minds and interpretation of what we’re hearing?

Think of it like this.  Imagine someone has never read The Tempest. The first thing we ask ourselves is, “Why am I hanging out with this person?” but we can get past that, because he stands his round at the bar.  It’s come up in conversation after talking about the Olympics closing ceremony and your friend has asked you to explain the story.  So you start here.  You quote this line, and you try to explain how those words in that order paint the picture that you felt above.

Can you do it?  This line isn’t particularly famous. Brook didn’t say “Certain lines in Shakespeare,” he said “Each line.”  I get it (I think).  I feel it.  I’m not kidding with the above description, it crashed over me like a tidal wave.  One line.  It was awesome.  And I found myself wondering if it was something in the line itself (and, of course, the delivery), or if it was really little more than conjuring up a memory of what I’ve seen in the past, something that I would be hard-pressed to ever explain to another person who hadn’t also seen it.

Thoughts?

(* PS – Since it’s come up, the subject line spelling comes from First Folio. Eagle-eyed readers will spot that the URL is different from the subject, because I did alter it when I found a typo.)

Geeklet 1, Geek 0

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Been a long time since I posted a geeklet story.

I’m in the kitchen tallying up girl scout cookie money when my wife calls in from the other room, “What year did Elizabeth I ascend the throne?”  I realize that she has picked up one of the kids’ Shakespeare books and is quizzing me.

“Umm….” I say.  History was never my strong suit.  “Since Shakespeare was really young.  I’m going to guess 1560’s.”

“Wrong!” she tells me.  “1559.”

“I was close!” I call back, “I was within 10 years. That’s not bad.”

But then geeklet in the other room hears half the conversation and says, “What’s Mommy need, Daddy?”

“Mommy was just asking me when Elizabeth I became queen.”

So geeklet tells me, “1559.”

Very nice.

UPDATE – I’m told that the actual date is 1558.  Blame the book – the one that my wife was reading from is the one that my kids already read.

Shakespearean Pick-up Lines for Valentine’s Day

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

You all know that Shakespeare Geek has produced a great book (Hear My Soul Speak: Wedding Quotes from Shakespeare) on how and why to incorporate Shakespeare into a wedding. But how do you get to that point? Can Shakespeare help you get a date so that, sometime in the future, you can use Shakespeare (and Shakespeare Geek’s book) when you tie the knot?
You have to start somewhere, and Bardfilm has come up with a list of classy lines (with considerable additions and emendations by Shakespeare Geek himself) to enable you to introduce yourself to that special someone—just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Shakespearean Pick-up Lines
If I said you were the most beautified, would you say that beautified was a vile phrase?
Can I just tell you, your eyes are nothing like the sun. And what’s up with that wiry head of hair you got going on? Wait, where you going? Come back, it gets better! Your breath reeks! Call me!
You’re like a good production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  You both have a nice Bottom.
To be or not to be? With you, the former. Without you, the latter.
Hey, that guy de Vere wrote you this sonnet and told me to put my name on it. No, wait, no he didn’t, he’s dead. 
Now is the winter of my discontent. Won’t you make it glorious summer by going out with me?
I noticed you hitting it off with that fair youth. Care to make it a three-way?
You look like an angel. Or at least a minister of grace. 
You must know Shakespeare ’cause my heart just did a swan dive. Because he’s, like, called the Swan of Avon sometimes. Get it?
Ever seen a beast with two backs? Want to help me make one?
If you were a statue, I’d wish I were Leontes and you were Hermione, who was pretending to be dead for sixteen years. And not really a statue at all.
If I start behaving like an ass, will you start behaving like Titania?
I bet your phone number ends in 1599 because that’s the most probable date for the composition of As You Like It.
Hi. My name is Julius, and when I saw you, I said to myself, “Julius, seize her!”
God hath given you one face, but you made yourself another. You didn’t need to. I mean, the first one was fine.
Let’s go back to my place and tear some sheets, Doll!
O, somebody bring me a bucket of water ’cause I just found my muse of fire! Hey, baby, did you ever ascend the brightest heaven of invention?
You. Me. Dance floor. Now. Don’t give me no ado about nothing. 
The fault is not in our stars but in your eyes. I mean, the stars are in your eyes. Or something.
They must have left the gates of purgatory open—look who walked out! Besides Hamlet’s dad, I mean.
There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so – and I’m thinking you look good.
I’d LIKE for YOU to PLEASE go OUT with ME. Ever been picked up in iambic pentameter before?
I’d rather compare thee to a summer’s NIGHT, if you don’t mind and if you get my meaning.
I don’t want to brag, but I did once hear my last girlfriend referring to our sex life as the “sound and the fury.” I didn’t catch what she said after that. Or immediately before.
Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

Poetry By Heart

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

I love this story about the difference between memorizing things “by rote” versus “by heart”.  Although I don’t see much reference to Shakespeare in the text, it’s not hard to extrapolate.  How often do we use the tired old example of your high school English teacher who forced you to memorize, just for the sake of memorization, the balcony scene?  And the generation of students that can recite it but still hate it, or worse, hate it all the more because of that?

So there’s a thought that if you learn by heart it means you take the poem right into yourself, it becomes part of you. And it remains with you, probably for the rest of your life. I think a lot of us can remember bits of poetry that we learned when we were very young. So it’s something that lives with you forever.

What bits of Shakespeare have you memorized “by heart”?  I can do some rote bits of Dream or Macbeth or even the dreaded balcony scene, but other than as a “go to” bit of text when I need it, there’s no love for those passages.  I know Sonnet 18 by heart because for years I sang it to my children at bedtime.  I know Sonnet 17 by heart because I recited it to my wife during our first wedding dance.  I’ll admit that I don’t know “by heart” many longer passages, just some turns of phrase here and there that truly resonate just right where you need them.

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/19/169731110/u-k-asks-students-to-learn-poetry-by-heart-not-by-rote