“Romeo and Juliet”: The Quiz:

About.com’s got a new quiz up. I got 8 out of 10. I always falter when they start asking questions beyond the context of the play itself, like who wrote the ballet entitled Romeo and Juliet. (Yes that’s a question but no I’m not giving you the answer :))

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be writing movies. So starts this great Swans.com commentary on the history of Shakespeare’s plays in film.
(Did you know that the very first Shakespeare-on-film was actually King John, a silent film in 1899?)

Some choice quotes tell you where the journalist’s heart lies: “Film directors continually talk about ‘opening up’ Shakespeare for the big screen. To me, this always brings to mind Jack the Ripper opening up the innards of his East End victims in order to slice out their entrails.” He picks a number of adaptations including Prospero’s Books, Brannagh’s fulltext Hamlet, and Iam McKellen’s Richard III and dissects their attempts — too literal from stage to screen? Too liberal?

My personal rule has always been that if you keep the text in tact, then you can visually present it however you want. I don’t have to like it, but you can still do it and get away with calling it Shakespeare. But once you get rid of the original text, then forget it, you’re doing your own thing.

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Beep. It’s from Hamlet. 2B? NT2B?=??? – Yahoo! News:

Dot Mobile has a plan to offer SMS-ified versions of the classics in order to keep kids interested. “bothLuvrs kill Emselves” sums up Romeo and Juliet, while “MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus” is the climax of Jane Eyre.

Kill me now.

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In the final scene of Macbeth, the hero enters asking, “Why should I play the Roman fool, and die on mine own sword?”

In the final scene of Julius Caesar, Brutus tries to convince one of his soldiers, “Good Volumnius, Thou know’st that we two went to school together: Even for that our love of old, I prithee, Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it.”

Anybody got another spot where it looks like one Shakespeare play references another?

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http://www.theroyalgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051114/NEWS/111140126

I think some of us would like to hang out with this guy. Don Kramer may only be just another guy starting a business in the Bermuda insurance market, which sounds like a sleeper, but he’s named his company “Ariel”, a direct and deliberate reference to the Tempest.

He’s not even been particularly sneaky. This is his second business, you see – the first was indeed named Tempest, back in 1993.
Both companies are “property-catastrophe reinsurers”, whatever that means.

I like how simply the article (in a Bermuda newspaper) calls the Tempest “Bermuda based” as if that was agreed upon fact. 🙂

What do you think — if Mr. Kramer had perhaps grown up in my generation, with today’s education, maybe he would be calling his companies Gilligan and Skipper?

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