So this story is only vaguely related to Shakespeare, but anybody that knows me will appreciate it.

See if you can follow this.  I have a “work wife”.  This woman and I had worked closely on a team of just three people and it didn’t take long for the usual workplace flirting to get kicked high enough into the stratosphere that everybody just started referring to us as a work couple.  No biggie.  I’m married, she’s not, my wife knows about my work wife.  It’s fun.  Work wife meanwhile has started dating one of the new employees.

Yesterday, out of the blue, one of my coworkers forwards me an event notification for a Shakespeare Open Mic night.  She apparently missed that it happened a month ago.  The particular event was at a cafe in Salem, MA, for Shakespeare’s Birthday (I’ve been to it).  I appreciate the notification.  Like I’ve said before, I like that people spot Shakespeare things and send them to me.

Anyway, this new employee, who is dating my work wife, suddenly pops his head over the wall and says, “Wait, what’s this you’re talking about?  Really?  That sounds cool.”

I try to decide if I’m being mocked.  He assures me that no, he’s into Shakespeare.  He’s one of those “really didn’t like it in high school until I finally got a teacher that showed us how awesome he is” kids. Now he wants to talk about Shakespeare and asks about where in town he can see a good show.

I give him my usual warning – “You sure you want to open this door?  You’ve heard what happens when you start me talking about Shakespeare, right?”

At this point along comes work wife to see why the two men in her life are chatting.  I let her know that yes, we’re talking about Shakespeare, and I’m not giving him back.  He’s mine now.
We start talking about the obvious option, Commonwealth Shakespeare in the Park (doing Coriolanus this year).  I tell him that I go every year, we make a picnic out of it, get some PF Changs, couple bottles of wine, hang out on a nice summer night.  He decides that now it sounds even more convincing.

I came home and told my real wife that this summer we’re double dating. 🙂  How’s that for awkward?  Maybe my real wife and my work wife can hang out and chat while I talk Shakespeare with my work wife’s boyfriend. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Something for the horror fans was waiting in my inbox this week – “Shakespeare v Lovecraft: A Horror Comedy Mash-Up featuring Shakespeare’s Characters and Lovecraft’s Creatures
.”  From the product description:

Take a controversial line from a controversial play, and then look at how that line is interpreted in 100 different languages.  That’s the goal set by Dr. Tom Cheesman of Swansea University.

The play?  Othello.

The line?  “If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black”.

Perhaps somebody can explain to me the controversy in that line?

I suppose the idea is interesting, and it brings to mind that old Hamlet in the Bush story (which, until now, I thought was a real thing) where a researcher attempts to demonstrate the universal appeal of Shakespeare by reading the play to a bunch of African natives.  They don’t get it.  They don’t see the big deal of Claudius marrying Gertrude, because of course the wife of a deceased man marries his brother.  And why did Hamlet even think about listening to the ghost? The only concept of ghost in their language is “demon”, so of course it would have been up to no good.  And so on.  Does anybody know if that piece is legit, or was done as a joke?  I’d always assumed it to be real but when googling for it I found it linked on a April Fool’s Day site, so now I’m not so sure.

On a related note that combines both those stories I’ll point out my own little experiment in this arena.  I ran “To be or not to be” through a translator into a whole bunch of different languages to see how it differed, then made a poster out of it.  I think it came out pretty cool, and it’s been one of the better sellers in my shop.

Here’s an interesting project up in my neck of the woods (Boston) : a staged reading of Coriolanus by local chief executive officers.