Honestly I never thought I’d ask this question.  Part of the life of this blog has been spotting every random tv commercial and sitcom that decides to mix in a Shakespeare storyline (hello, Cosby show…) and, in general, we come away with a “Hey, any exposure to Shakespeare is a good thing” feeling.

But lately I wonder.  I’ve been reading the Giver series with my daughter lately. There’s a scene in one of the later books where two children, both poor children in impoverished communities who were never given the chance to read, grow up in different villages.  Both learn to read independently.  When they meet up again after several years, the boy shouts, “I can read Shakespeare!” and the girl shouts back, “Me too!’

Come on, the author’s not even trying there.  I think I’d like to see Shakespeare’s name invoked for a reason beyond just some generic “I’m smart now” measuring stick.

“Hey, see that 6 year old over there, he’s really smart.”
  “Really, how smart?”
“Oh, he reads Shakespeare.”
  “Wow, that is smart!”

It’s not really all that different from an episode of Cosby where Theo and his buddy don’t want to do their homework, so they try to skip out on Julius Caesar by getting the Cliff Notes.  The difference comes in the fact that the episode in question was full of the text, as well as Christopher freakin Plummer doing a guest spot pretty much solely so he could do some Shakespeare.

In The Giver books I see no use of Shakespeare other than the aforementioned “Look how smart I am” checkbox.  Yes there’s a quote about Macbeth, but it’s thrown in so randomly that I can barely tell you which quote (something from Lady M, I believe) or even where it came up.

In a thread today on Reddit someone asked about your “Forever Project.”  That idea you have that on the one hand seems impossible, like the kind of thing that you wish existed but know never will…but, at the same time, it’s the idea that won’t go away, and you’re always (at least, as an engineer/programmer/hacker) thinking, “Hmm….could I build that?”

It was only then that I thought of how to describe mine.  I call it The Shakespeare Matrix.

We’ve all seen the movie The Matrix, right?  All of humanity have been enslaved by aliens, hooked up to a giant virtual reality world so perfect that most of them spend their entire lives never realizing that they’re inside a computer simulation.  That is, except for Keanu Reeves and his band of … pirates?  Rebels?  Who have discovered how to hack the system and program it to do the things they want it to do.  Need to know martial arts?  No need to spend years training – just alter the program so that your character simulation knows kung fu.  I bring up this example as an excuse to link one of the best movie fight scenes ever filmed.   (Everybody knows that this is the best movie fight scene ever filmed.  WHO’S DA MASTER?)  Once Keanu masters his talent he begins to see the world around him *as actual source code*.

Anyway, I get off topic.  What I want is a Shakespeare Matrix.  I want a virtual reality world where you can walk around and watch the plays in any number of ways – maybe as the audience, maybe as a character, maybe you interact directly with the characters.  At any time you can summon Shakespeare himself and have a conversation with him as well.  You can also pull up the  original text, much like pulling up the source code to the matrix.  And when I say original text I mean all of it – easy access to Folio and Quarto versions alike, along with all the glossary and reference materials that you might need.

There’s been a whole bunch of people talking about this over the years.  I notice that “Hamlet on the Holodeck” was published back in the late 90’s.  I’m not a big believer in the holodeck idea, I don’t think that will ever meaningfully happen.  But I do know that the Second Life universe had a Shakespeare group.  And then there was the abandoned massive multiplayer universe “Arden” that I had high hopes for, but gives you an idea about the realities of a project of this scope.

Anyway, not really a question in this one, I just wanted to brain dump a little about the Matrix idea, because I just thought of it and I really like the comparison.  As I think of the different kinds of software that could be used for browsing Shakespeare I always teeter back and forth between “Make something light and easy for the everyday user, like students doing their homework…make a game!” and “Make the ultimate reference guide so that the experts who need access to boatloads of very specific Shakespeare information have a single place where they can get it.”  Technically the latter is easier because manipulating pure information like that is easier than the visual work that needs to be done to make even the most basic game.

I love it when I trip over stuff.  While searching my TV Guide for Shakespeare stuff today I spotted that on January 19, on the FOX Movie Channel, Prince of Players will be on. Richard Burton plays Edwin Booth during his stellar Shakespearean career, while his brother John Wilkes plots to …. well, we all know that story.  This is, in many people’s opinions, one of Burton’s best performances (see JM’s comments on the original review!) and one of the best interpretations of “A movie with Shakespeare in it” (as opposed to “A Shakespeare movie”) that I’ve yet seen.

If you’ve got a DVR and you’ve got that channel, don’t miss the opportunity.  This one is rarely shown, not available on DVD that we know of, and you really should see it.

So for Christmas this year I got “The Shakespeare Handbook : The Bard in Brief” because the catch phrase “The essential bluffer’s guide” caught my attention.  People are always looking to get me Shakespeare things, so I told my wife to show this to the kids and then wrap it and give it to me. 🙂

The book takes an in depth look at individual scenes from the plays.  Specifically 50 scenes from less than 40 plays, which means some get doubles.
(First thought — 37, actually. Noble Kinsmen left out, as is Double Falsehood / Cardenio).

It’s a very nice book, well made.  Hardcover, big (8.5″x11″ sort of big).  Each play is accompanied by pictures, such as Elizabeth Taylor’s Kate, or Al Pacino’s Merchant.  Each play comes with a summary of what it’s about, why Shakespeare wrote it (context, if nothing else), and then sidebars and insets describing little trivia tidbits like what “gleek” might have meant.

I’ve only just started flipping through it, but I thought it would be fun to look at what scenes the author felt were crucial to the ‘essential bluffer’.   Does Midsummer, for example, have the final play-within-a-play?  Puck’s “If we shadows have offended?”  Oberon’s “I know a bank where the wild thyme grows?”  Decisions, decisions.  Let’s see, shall we?

Two! Two scenes.  Act II Scene i right off the bat, with Oberon’s “I know a bank…” quote highlighted on the section cover.  And……(flip flip flip)…..Act III, Scene i, the translation of Bottom into an ass.

I like it.  There’s lots of content to read through, and I don’t have time at the moment to truly dig into every individual decision the author made, but I hope to periodically pick and choose a section for us to discuss.

Until then … name a play, try to guess what scene or scenes he included, and I’ll let you know in the comments!  Hamlet’s an easy one.  Who wants to guess what scene is included from M4M, or maybe Pericles?