Author: duane

Review : The Shakespeare Deck by Robert Myles

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

I’m no actor, I think I’ve made that abundantly clear over the years. So when I first saw Robert Myles’ “The Shakespeare Deck,” described as an “actor’s toolkit”, I thought that’s not for me. Then Rob wrote to me directly and asked if I wanted a copy. I may not act but I am a fan of the text, and any tools for the toolbox that help dig deeper into the text, I’m all for. So now I happily have a copy 🙂

He’s got a great video explaining exactly what it is so I won’t try to copy him:

But I can tell you my own experience. It’s a very nice product, well made with sturdy, glossy cards. If anything I find the cards just a bit too slippery, it’s a little tricky holding the whole deck in your hand to shuffle through them, they want to go scattering on you if you’re not careful.

Each card is multi purpose. They are colored coded, numbered, “short coded” (my term not his), and double sided. That’s a lot of information packed into 45 cards. I’ve pulled one at random to use as an example:

Here we have a green card, which means it is from the “Rhetoric” section of the deck. Other sections include Forensic Linguistics, Working the Text, and Engaging the Audience. The D in the lower right corner tells us this is a Definition card, focused on explaining the technique used and its purpose. Some cards might have an E, for an exercise that actors can attempt to reinforce the idea. The 11 in the other corner reminds us where in the deck this card belongs so we can keep them in a particular order for developing round-robin or circuit training practice.

And here’s the other side – an example (in this case, two) of reframing. This the part I like. If I didn’t particularly get the first part, I understand the example.

Grabbing another card I find the orange Believe Your Eyes card, which tells me to “look for opportunities in the text to play a physical action that contrasts with the text,” referencing Richard III and Lady Anne (though not the actual text) as an example.

A random yellow card shows me “Antithesis”, offering up several text examples:

  • “What he has lost, noble Macbeth has won.”
  • “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

I just realized that, although I grabbed those at random, all three represent juxtaposition or opposites in one form or another. “move me to stir / move me to stand”, “physical action that contrasts the text”, “what he has lost Macbeth has won.” Shakespeare played with that idea a lot.

I think I like the green cards best, mostly because they map directly to examples from the text while also teaching me something new. I may have already known about simile and exaggeration, but “topos” and “kairos” were new to me!

Definitely a neat product, quite densely packed with information about the text. Hopefully it’s the kind of thing that my kids can use as well when they go through their own Shakespeare courses.

Does the name Rob Myles ring any bells yet? Right now he’s having his moment in the spotlight as the director of The Show Must Go Online, entirely virtual performances of Shakespeare’s complete works. Check it out if you haven’t yet, highly recommended! Getting more impressive every week!

Thanks Rob for the deck and for everything you’re bringing to the Shakespeare Universe.

It’s A Puzzle (A Shakespeare Dreams Story)

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Every once in a while I dream in Shakespeare. That ever happen to anybody else? I always think it’s very cool.

This time there was a production of Hamlet. I can’t tell if I was in it, or directing it, or watching it. But the stage was littered with giant jigsaw puzzle pieces (it helps, of course, that in these quarantine times our house like so many others is busy doing puzzles). As he soliloquized he would pick up a piece, contemplate it, and then find where in the giant puzzle – because the stage itself was a giant puzzle – it fit.

I didn’t get to see the end but upon waking I thought that a great ending would be him reaching the end of the play without finishing the puzzle. But then the scene closes with Fortinbras, or maybe Horatio, picking up a puzzle piece and contemplating it.

This is Not The Worst

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

Hi Everybody.

I’m still here. Everybody in my world is still healthy. I’ve felt guilty about leaving the blog untouched for so long. But, as I said recently on Twitter, everything going on in the world has just felt so overwhelming that unless I had something important to say, everything just felt too trivial to bother. There’s actually lots of Shakespeare going on right now, but everything’s happening so fast and furious that by the time I got a useful blog post up it would already be old news.

If Shakespeare can survive, so can we.

Unfortunately, not everything is super here. Amazon has temporarily shut down its merchandise centers, which means no more t-shirts for awhile. This means that income stream dries up, right at the time when we all need whatever we can get. Though my wife and I are both lucky to still have our jobs, both of us have been impacted economically by everything that’s going on.

So you’ll notice a few small changes around here. The merchandise links are still up – only now they point to Redbubble. Redbubble’s not as big as Amazon, which means the volume isn’t there to help keep the prices down. But on the upside, Redbubble offers all kinds of merchandise that Amazon does not, including phone cases, stickers, and tote bags. I put up a new design, Have Patience and Endure, to mark the occasion.

Additionally, you may see that Google ads have come back. I’ve experimented with those over the years, as every blog did, and came to the same conclusion that most do – it’s just not worth it. But if there’s a number greater than zero to be had in there, well, I’ve got to give it a shot. I will try to keep them to a minimum. I’m sure that most folks these days are running ad blockers anyway. But I like being honest with my readers. When we get “back to normal” I’ll take them off again, believe me.

On a more positive note, I made a thing that I hope people will like and share. I call it Blank Verse and it’s pretty much Shakespeare Mad Libs. I made it a long time ago but for various technical reasons, I brought it back down again. I’ve rewritten it to be pure Javascript so it’s easier to host here. Right now it’s just version 1 so it doesn’t have many features, but I wanted to do *something* for people to enjoy and share. Please let me know what you think! I hope you like it.

Ok, that’s my brain dump of an update for now. I have stuff to talk about, products to review, links to share. I just have to get back into the mindset of making all that happen.

Take care, and be safe. Have patience and endure.

They Grow Up So Fast (A Geeklet Story)

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

I feel awkward now telling these stories, knowing that my kids’ friends might be reading them, so I’ll do my best to keep personal info out of it.

My oldest is tutoring someone right now, and the assignment they worked on was a sonnet.

“I’m sorry,” I ask, “Did you say sonnet?”

“Yes.”

“Very cool. Continue.”

She continues, “So I’m trying to help with his iambic pentameter, so I’m reading out a line, showing him the emphasis on the right syllables, you know, da DAH da DAH da DAH and why are you looking at me weird?”

“Because I’m listening to you talk about explaining iambic pentameter to other people like it’s the most natural thing in the world to you, and that makes me very, very happy.” That weird look you see, my darling child, is something every parent dreams of, that moment when you see this creature you’ve molded and shaped and guided since the day she was born, hoping each day that you’re doing it right and one day it’ll all fall into place, and realizing that someday is right now. That’s what that weird look was.

Never Miss An Opportunity (A Geeklet Story)

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So my daughter has a friend over the other night, who happens to be involved in local theatre. Over dinner conversation, I ask, “Which play is next?”

“Musical?” she replies. I can’t tell if that’s the name of a play, or if she’s asking me to clarify which musical they’re doing next or just any play. “Oh but I guess we’re doing Shakespeare too.” This friend knows she’s in a Shakespeare house, for context.

“Which one?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Give me the smallest clue,” I try.

“Something underground about Henry IV?”

“Well, there are two plays called Henry IV.”

“That’s probably it, then! I bet it’s one of those.”

Never one to miss a teaching opportunity I proceed to explain Henry IV in my no doubt highly inaccurate but hopefully compelling way: “So at the start of the play you’ve got the old king, Henry IV. And he’s got this son, Hal. And Hal’s being groomed to take over when his father dies, and become Henry V. Like William and Harry, from the Royal Family? Same idea. Oldest son has to live his life a certain way because he’s going to be king someday. Well, Hal has no interest in being king. Hal just wants to party with his friends.”

“They partied back in Shakespeare’s day?”

“Oh my yes. So Hal’s got this best friend, Falstaff. Falstaff’s much older than Hal, and he ends up being more like a father figure. They do everything together, they party, they get drunk, they wake up late, they get into fights. But all the while Falstaff knows that one day, one day this kid is going to be king. And that’s going to be a big day, that’s going to be everything they ever wanted.

And then one day it happens. Falstaff’s sleeping late as usual when his friends wake him up and say, “It’s happened! The king is dead! Hal is the new king!” And Falstaff goes running through town to find him and celebrate that the day has finally come. And you get this big huge scene when Falstaff comes into the coronation and bursts through the crowd shouting “My boy! My king!”

I pause and see if I’ve still got her attention. I very much do.

“And Hal turns to him and says, “I know thee not, old man.” And banishes him.”

Her jaw dropped.

Who says Shakespeare is boring? I will teach you Shakespeare in my kitchen while I clear the table. Do I get some details wrong? Probably. Does my captive audience learn anything about themes and symbolism? Nope. But are they interested now? Definitely.