Shakespeare Is Elementary

This looks pretty neat – Shakespeare at the elementary school level. I love the opening picture, just the idea of kids that young drawing Shakespeare is very cool to me (much like my 14month old daughter playing with one of my Buddha statues like a toy and learning how to say “Buddha” :)). Makes it real.

They have a timeline of Shakespeare’s life, and summaries of a number of plays. It’s interesting to see Hamlet explained in about 5 or 6 sentences. (Poor Laertes doesn’t even get a credit, he’s just known as “Ophelia’s brother” :)) Even then, you could take exception to some of the assumptions — “Ophelia goes crazy because Hamlet says he doesn’t love her and she drowns herself.” There’s at least two debatable ideas in that sentence.

Hey, whatever. If it’s working and giving kids an appreciation of the Shakespearean characters and stories, I’m all for it. I hope that it inspires them to learn more about each play and just how deep everything really is, and not just to quote back what they memorized.

Ophelia’s a person, after all. Maybe there were a few other factors involved then just “Oh no he doesn’t love me.” And if she was crazy, could she really drown herself?

See, get me started and I can’t shut up…

Tag: Shakespeare

Scooby Doo Meets Hamlet. And I would have, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!

I want somebody to do Hamlet in the style of Clue. “It was King Claudius, in the garden, with the lead pipe!”

In my morning’s browsing I found this excellent (and positive!) review of Luhrmann’s famous Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps I should say “infamous” as there are plenty of purists out there that would take the Zeffirelli version over this one anyday. This reviewer, however, reminds us just how good a movie this is (as opposed to how exact an interpretation) by pointing out the homage to classic spaghetti Westerns, John Woo, and Shakespeare’s other works scattered throughout the movie (“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Hot Dogs”?)

I’ve always been a believer that whatever it takes to make Shakespeare accessible to the masses — without sacrificing the original! — is worth encouraging. If Leonardo DiCaprio screaming his lines at John Leguizamo is what it takes, then so be it. At least they’re not rapping.

This review makes me want to watch it again. What more can you ask from a review?

Tags: Shakespeare

I found the Puck Building’s entry on Wikipedia this morning in my batch of Shakespeare links. I recognize the place from the opening of tv show Will and Grace (which is noted in the article, gotta love Wikipedia). But I never knew it was supposed to be Puck. Guess I never really pictured him in that sort of hat.

Tags: Shakespeare

3 hour play too long for the attention span of your typical 11-15 year old? Wish Merchant of Venice was about 30 minutes instead? Better call in Tom Stoppard to make it happen. A BBC documentary follows the staging of Stoppard’s shortened play by the National Youth Theatre.