I’m on vacation this week, down Cape Cod.  And as we’re trolling the center of town we (my wife, mother in law, myself, and 3 kids in tow) wander into one of those shops that’s loaded with street signs, movie posters, lunch boxes and all sorts of other random kitschy goofy stuff that, well, no one in their right mind would buy. And then I saw the Shakespeare bobblehead. I took him reverently down from his shelf and walked over to my wife like I was 7years old again about to ask for a new bike.  She told me it was silly. I told her of course it was silly, that’s the point.  My mother in law told her to get it for me.  While they debated, I put it back and kept looking.  Then I saw a collection of what looked like Fisher Price Little People, only they were all classic geniuses – Picasso, Freud, Beethoven, Einstein, and Shakespeare.  My 3yr old is at a phase where she’s a total packrat, always carrying a little toy in her hands.  The thought of her carrying a teeny Shakespeare around the house just thrilled me to no end.  But alas, I showed it to her hoping I could come up with an excuse to buy it for her, you see, but she just said, “Where are the princesses?” so I decided not to blow the $20.  At last I saw the action figure.  I knew it existed, I’d seen it in the Archie McPhee catalog.  Not quite as goofy as a Shakespeare bobblehead, but still fun, and half the price.  Apparently I’m getting him for Christmas. 🙂

http://geek.shakespearezone.com/?p=2529 Tad Davis, in what appears to be his first post on a new blog, merits a link for the depth of his analysis of Romeo and Juliet while still remaining actually readable.  It’s not a small novel, it goes maybe 10 paragraphs, but he manages to touch upon the loneliness of Juliet in the second act, points out a few of the more overt sexual references, makes a comparison of Lord Capulet to King Lear, offers some thoughts on staging in the Globe, and even hypothesizes parallels to Shakespeare’s own children. I’m not sure I agree with his opening line that the play “has to be his most heartbreaking one.”  It’s certainly his most popular and approachable (who hasn’t been in love with someone that society told them they couldn’t have?)  But I think that both Cordelia and Ophelia both die more tragic deaths than Juliet.

http://redshoesonathuuursday.blogspot.com/2007/08/shakespeare-rules-instilled-in-dench-by.html I’m guessing that “The Dench” refers to Dame Judi Dench.  I’m no actor, but I found the rules interesting.  I think we often assume that the greatest actors we see have some sort of natural instinct for it and everything just happens.  It’s nice to be reminded that they have to work at it as well.  The greatest actors still take direction.  

http://mirroruptolife.blogspot.com/2007/07/mirror-duped-boston-theatre-head-gets.html The “Mirror Up To Life” blog, a blog on Boston Theatre, has a reference up to the whole question of CitiGroup’s funding of Commonwealth Shakespeare.  As we locals know, the production run was cut crazy short this year, a mere 1 week instead of the usual 3.  When it rained on Saturday, we all thought we were done for.  I don’t know about anybody else, but I certainly was clapping when it came time to “thank our sponsor” for screwing us out of 2 weeks of theatre. Say what you will about budgets and finances and where the money went.  According to the article linked, the CEO took a salary cut of 100k this year, but still got a $1.265 million bonus.  Shakespeare’s budget, meanwhile, was sliced in half, to $480k.  Hey,  I rented my chairs and put my cash in the hat when it came around.  I wonder if the CEO wants a piece of that action, too?   

Once upon a time I found some audio of John Gielgud reading the sonnets, but complained that it was streaming only, not downloadable, and thus I never got to listen to it. Chris Hughes just sent me this pointer to his LibriVox recordings of the sonnets, which are indeed in MP3.  I’ve downloaded a bunch (they are grouped 10 to a file) but not yet had the chance to listen. Thanks, Chris! Also in Shakespeare Audio news I found an intriguing link to Shake5, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it is.  Among other things it’s 84 hours of recorded Shakespeare, which is cool.  But it also appears to be some sort of CD-ROM hosted database complete with the text of the plays all synced up to the audio?  It looks like it may have been for sale at one point but is now transitioning over to be a free download.  Anybody know more about the project?