Do people remember Rain Main (1988)? Given the subject matter—Tom Cruise discovers that he’s got an autistic older brother, played by Hoffman, and immediately kidnaps him to go scam casinos—and the time period (1980s), I wonder if it’s one of those movies that, as they say, “didn’t age well.”
That doesn’t mean some stuff isn’t funny, though. I’d forgotten all about this scene until I tripped over it in one of those movie trivia “improvised scenes that made the final cut” lists. Cruise has Hoffman, his brother, trapped in a phone booth with him so he doesn’t wander away. Dustin, ever the method actor, needed to fart. So he went with it. Cruise’s response is about what you’d expect. It’s cinematic gold like this that surely helped Hoffman score the Best Actor Academy Award that year. He’s been nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award 7 times and won twice.
But why, may you ask, am I suddenly writing about it? Here, now, on a Shakespeare blog? Because what I didn’t know is that Hoffman himself has given interviews where he claims that he’s more proud of this scene than his Shakespeare work!
“And it’s one of the high moments of my life. I have done Shakespeare, and I have done plays by Arthur Miller, but nothing can touch the fart scene.”
Among other works, Hoffman played Shylock in Peter Hall’s 1989 Merchant of Venice, for which he was nominated for the Best Actor Tony.
There you go, all you Shakespearean actors out there looking to break free from the pack. The next time you want to play a little prank on a costar, especially if you find yourself trapped in tight quarters, go ahead and let it happen. It’s Dustin Hoffman approved.
Al Pacino’s almost mythical King Lear project draws closer to reality! We have a cast now for “Lear Rex”, the Pacino / Jessica Chastain project that, by my calendar, has been buzzed about for almost 15 years.
Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) has attained a status in his career where you hear his name and you assume whatever he’s about to do has got to be good. So when I saw him attached to a King Lear I immediately started wondering what role we might see him in. He’s a presence, so no minor character. He’s also typically a good guy, though I’d love to see him play the villain. Edgar? He might make a great Cornwall. But alas it’s probably going to be …
Fool. He’s playing Fool.
I guess it makes sense, and I’m sure he’ll kill it. I just think that at the end of the day Fool is minor to the action, and that’s not where we’re used to seeing Dinklage. A character who literally just disappears, with no ending? I guess we’ll have to wait to see what they do to the story. Other productions have given Fool a more pronounced ending.
Let’s see who else we’ve got?
Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) as Cordelia. I have no idea how I feel about this. There’ll (hopefully!) be no singing and dancing here. Can she carry such a lead role here? Does she have any Shakespeare experience?
Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel) as Regan is fine, but Jessica Chastain is playing Goneril. That feels a bit lopsided, no matter how much I enjoyed Brosnahan’s performance in Mrs. Maisel.
Stephen Dorff, who has been around so long that I can’t pin a particular credit on him, is listed as playing “Poor Tom.” What exactly does that mean? I have no idea. Edmund gets a specific credit, and Gloucester, but not Edgar? Is that just the way it’s written, or is that some indication about the story? A character of Poor Tom makes no sense without him being Edgar in disguise, unless he’s been reduced to just a random crazy person that Lear befriends, and they’re leaving out Edgar’s whole story.
A number of other names are listed in the linked article, though I admit that I do not recognize them enough to have an opinion (no offense to intended). Let me know in the comments if you’re excited about any particular casting!
First, we have Tom Hiddleston and Haley Atwell taking on Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. “You had me at Tom Hiddleston,” as the saying goes. If that’s not a saying, it should be. I don’t know if Haley Atwell (perhaps most well-known as Peggy Carter in many of the Captain America movies) has much Shakespeare to her credit already, though I do see a short Cymbeline in her IMDB history (as Innogen).
AI-generated version of Signourney Weaver as Prospero
But what really caught my eye was Sigourney Weaver as Prospero?! Nice. The last time I saw a female Prospero was Helen Mirren in Julie Taymor’s movie adaptation. I assume they’ll do a similar thing where they gender-swap the role and make “Prospera” the mother figure, which, for my money, drastically changes the family dynamic of the play. But maybe that’s just because I’m a father.
I’m excited about the potential here because I never thought of Weaver as a Shakespearean. But apparently she’s got some credits to her name. She played Goneril in a 1979 King Lear while in college, and then Portia in a 1986 off-Broadway Merchant of Venice. What I found really neat, though, is her quote about bringing some Shakespeare to her break-out movie role in Alien:
The star once revealed that she pretended “I was doing Henry V the entire time” she was playing Ripley in Alien. “I thought, ‘Well, as a woman, I’ll never be cast as Henry V, so this is my Henry V,” Weaver told New York magazine in a 2012 interview.
I’m fascinated because that movie came out in 1979. When presumably she was either just out of college, or even still in. Shakespeare must have been completely new to her. But she still saw it as the source to build her character.
I hope she crushes it as Prospero. I also hope that the trend of taping these silly things continues. It’s not like all of us can just zip on over to the West End and get a ticket, especially when big celebrity names are the draw.
I probably last saw the rom-com classic When Harry Met Sally when it first came out in 1989. As a Gen-X nerd, I go back to a lot of “classics” from that era, but I’m more into stuff like Wargames and Short Circuit.
Well that changed recently when we were reminded of the movie in the presence of our now college-aged daughters and we thought, oh, we have to watch that again. Long story short they’d still rather play Minecraft with their brother – no amount of calling them back into the room to laugh at the funny 80’s hair or to not miss the iconic lines would catch their interest. No matter, my wife and I sat and re-watched it anyway.
And what’s this? Where exactly do they bump into each other? I pause and rewind. Because, unlike in 1989, I can do that now. Something about this scene looks familiar …
They’re actually in Shakespeare & Co! In New York, of course, not Paris. I would never have recognized that on first watch. But it leapt right out at me almost 40 years later.
What I also didn’t realize is that this scene is the inspiration for the whole “You’ve Got Mail” movie, where big box stores like Barnes & Noble shoved little indie bookshops out of existence. Now I’m going to have to go re-watch that one for Shakespeare references. Guess it’s Meg Ryan Week at Shakespeare Geek’s Place!
I want to say our Commonwealth Shakespeare streak continues, but we actually missed a show in 2019 when my mom was sick. Cymbeline, which I’ve never seen, but have no real personal feelings for. Other than that hiccup, the 2024 show marks 19 shows we’ve seen by this group at this location. We also missed back in 2005. Hamlet, which I’m still salty about.
I have no special love for The Winter’s Tale, a later and therefore lesser-known play, filled with difficult to pronounce characters (Autolycus? Perdita? Polixenes?) and the usual kitchen-sink of Shakespearean comedy switcheroos. I tend to only refer to it to make a rapidly aging joke about how it’s Shakespeare’s Maury Povich Show. Leontes, you are the father!
Seriously, though, quick plot summary for those who need it. This is really two plays smooshed together at the end. Leontes and Polixenes, kings of neighboring nations, are long time best friends. Leontes becomes paranoid that Polixenes got Leontes’ wife, Hermione, pregnant. Polixenes flees the country, Leontes jails his pregnant wife for treason. The Oracle says that Leontes is wrong, they’re innocent, Leontes still clings to his paranoid belief even after his son and wife both die of grief. He refuses to take care of his new baby daughter and demands that she be left somewhere to survive on her own if that’s what the gods want. That’s our first story.
The second half leaps forward 16 years — Shakespeare literally makes “Time” a character who comes out to talk to the audience — and we meet teenage Perdita, whose been raised by the kindle shepherd that found her. Perdita’s in love with Florizel, son of Polixenes. Polixenes is having none of it, however, as he will only allow his son to marry a princess. See where it’s all going? This is a Shakespearean comedy, so as I always tell people with a handwave, “hijinx ensue.” All is straightened out in the end, Perdita reunites with her father, she gets to be with Florizel because now we know she’s a princess … and oh hey look, Hermione comes back from the dead. That’s Shakespeare for you.
So how was this particular production? Let’s start with some pictures! Click on individual pictures to expand.
A very pregnant Hermione pleads her innocence to her husband LeontesI loved Camillo, he gave some real Gonzago from The Tempest vibes.Hermione on trial.Poor Antigonus was caught between a paranoid and vindictive king, and a bear.Time, who is supposed to make the second half less confusing?I didn’t understand surrounding Polixenes in mirrors but it looked cool.Perdita and Florizel looking like we borrowed some costumes from HAIR.
I quite loved it, honestly. I was afraid that my family would not be able to follow it very well, for all the reasons I listed above. You can barely figure out from moment to moment who is who, much less what’s happening. But from the opening scene, they had it just right. Leontes was clearly a jealous man driven to near insanity as his paranoia consumed him. It’s quite dark. We’re at a comedy, this king has been presented with his baby daughter, and he’s literally screaming, “Throw it in the fire.” The music was ominous. It was scary, as it perhaps should be, to set up the second half.
The women – Hermione and her friend Paulina – pretty much stole the show. Both did an outstanding job of standing on a stage full of men, knowing full well that they’re entirely powerless, and yet speaking their minds in full voice, with heads held high. You knew that they had been wronged, and waited for the men to get what was coming to them.
The longer I go with these the more uncomfortable I get because I don’t want to misrepresent anyone, or leave anyone out. So what I’ll do this year is leave a link to the play info so people can explore the individual artists’ stories in their own words rather than mine:
