Hurray!  Free Shakespeare returns to Boston next week!  They’ve begun setting up the stage, and my path to work each morning walks me right past it.  I don’t know when I became such a geek for this stuff (never stood on a stage in my life), but part of me each morning wants to walk over and just kind of touch it a little bit.  In just a few days there’s going to be something beautiful there.  I may be pissed off that it’s such a short run this year, and I may be bummed that it is Midsummer’s again, a play that’s done in every high school in the land.  But you know what?  It’s Shakespeare, and it’s free, and it’s so close I can touch it.  I do so love this stuff. My wife and I have already worked out the plan, I’m basically going to just camp out one night next week on my way home from work.  I mean, come on, I’m going to walk right past it, how can I not take the opportunity to just plunk myself down on the grass and get a choice spot?   Ooo, maybe I’ll bring a camera?  We’ll see if we can arrange a sitter during the weekend so that she can come in and catch a performance as well.  The only thing I haven’t figured out is getting home, I’m not thrilled about walking back to the train station at 11pm or so.  But I’ll worry about that later.   

My father in law is a lawyer.  As such he tends to be a very good debater, and is rather forceful in his arguments.  In other words, when he talks I basically listen.  As I’ve pointed out to my wife, “Your dad is a defense attorney, and defense attorneys don’t win cases by saying Hmm, you know, you’ve got a point there, I never really thought of it that way.” Anyway, we’re hanging out in the pool over the weekend and discussing family trips to Disneyworld.  I point out that there’s lots of other places in the world I still want to see, such as, “Going to England to do the whole Shakespeare thing.” “There’s a Shakespeare theatre in Connecticut,” he counters.  “You can go down there, see the recreation of the Globe, all that stuff.” “Not good enough,” I said.  “I’d want to visit the church where he’s buried.” “Where somebody is buried,” he said.  “They don’t even know who he was.”  Pause. Disbelief. I’m sorry, did my father in law just say what I think he did? “I’m confused,” said my mother-in-law. “I thought Shakespeare was Shakespeare.” “They think that some nobleman of the time wrote everything,” he continued, “And just signed the name Shakespeare.” “You’re probably thinking of the Earl of Oxford,” I said, “And there are just as many theories that it was Francis Bacon or even Queen Elizabeth. ” Mother-in-law : “So there’s no such person as Shakespeare?” Father-in-law : “Not really.” “Not true,” I said, “There most definitely was an actor named Will Shakespeare, he was born in Stratford and is buried there.  We know that.  The question is whether there’s evidence that he wrote the plays.  People believe that because there’s no evidence of his education that he couldn’t possibly have written was most people consider the greatest literature of the last 400 years.  You don’t really want to get into this with me.” I then gave my mother in law a crash course in Shakespearean history while my father in law got bored and hung out in the pool.  Man, I enjoyed that.  Beats the holy heck out of arguing about George Bush any day.

Hey, is anybody out there a member of the Shakespeare Association of America?  I just came across their site in my travels and it looked somewhat intriguing.  The dues are modest – around $100/year dependent on income level.  I’m wondering if anybody’s a member who can fill me in on whether it’s worth it to  a guy like me to join up?  As I’m sure you all know I’m far from a stuffy old academic when it comes to dear Will.  I’m not at all interested in reading ancient tomes and comparing notes on how the meaning of “sullied” was different in 1599 than it was in 1587.  Is it, to put it simply, any fun? It’s probably not for somebody like me.  Part of the registration for the yearly program says, “Registrants in Shakespeare Association programs are expected to complete significant work in advance of the meeting: research papers, common readings, and bibliographic compilation, in the case of seminars; and pedagogic, scholarly, or theatrical exercises or exchanges, in the case of workshops. Seminars and workshops are appropriate for college and university faculty, independent scholars, and graduate students in the later stages of their doctoral work.”  Yeah, not really me.

Yesterday I got a question from Sara, a university student from Italy, who asked for my help.  She’s going to be translating Theobald’s The Double Falsehood (sometimes known as Shakespeare’s Cardenio) and wanted to know what print editions were in existence — available for purchase online —  that had a particularly good “critic preface.”  I’m not sure exactly what she means by that, but I think she means that she doesn’t mind an edition that is more on the academic side with lots of editorial comments.  Not a mass market thing. Does anybody have experience in this area?  Fiona, I know you’re out there someplace and you mentioned that you’d be teaching the text.  Do you have a favorite version you’ll be using? Thanks everybody!  

Ok, this has the potential to be insanely cool, and I hope they film it.  Are you familiar with Penn and Teller?  They’re the magic act that’s famous, really, for three things:

• It’s “the little guy who never talks, and the big guy who never shuts up.”  You know, those guys.
• Part of their gimmick is “there’s no such thing as magic.  We’re con artists.”  Some of their popular tricks start with the premise “Look, we’re going to show you how it’s done”, and they do, and yet you still walk away not really sure how they did it.
• They do a very violent show.  Lots of blood, bullets, knives.  Good stuff.

What could be more perfect than taking their talents for magic and illusion and bringing them to Shakespeare’s supernatural horror story?  To be fair, I should say that this appears to be Teller’s project – he’s the quiet one.  I don’t see much reference to it being a team effort, it’s just force of habit to refer to them as a set.   According to the essays they’re taking it very seriously – read all about the specifics of how they’re going to create the witches, what special effects they’re using to create vanishing blood, and even what Greenblatt thinks of their efforts. They’re setting up for a 2008 show in New Jersey (and Folger, I see – that could make for a road trip :)), which is why I said earlier I hope they film it.  Highly unlikely that I’m going to get to see it live.