William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the most influential playwrights in history, and his plays have been performed and studied for centuries. From the timeless tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to the hilarious antics of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s plays continue to captivate audiences around the world. Whether you’re a fan of tragedy, comedy, or romance, there’s a Shakespeare play for everyone. So why not revisit these timeless classics and discover the magic of Shakespeare for yourself?
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!
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:
A couple of weeks ago, Drew from Macmillan Publishers reached out to ask if I’d like a review copy of Twelfth Knight by Alexene Farol Follmuth. Specifically, the audiobook version. This was very serendipitous as, (a) I much prefer audiobooks and (b) I was about to go on vacation and needed something to read. I happily said yes. Now here we are! I say this by way of disclaimer – I may get a few details wrong here and there. I don’t have a text to doublecheck when I’m not sure.
Retellings of Shakespeare are a staple in modern young adult novels. Our buddy Bardfilm practically has a whole category for reviewing them. Twelfth Knight, perhaps obviously, is going to retell Twelfth Night with high school students. If you’re getting flashbacks to She’s The Man (2006) or Just One Of The Guys (1985) for the Gen-Xers , well, so did I. The natural question with most modern Shakespeare adaptations is how you modernize the, shall we say, less-than-modern aspects? The ghosts in plays like Hamlet and Macbeth are one obvious example. For comedies like Twelfth Night, it’s the “girl dresses like a boy and nobody seems to notice” thing. Not to mention the “I have a twin brother than nobody knows about” thing. You can only stretch the “suddenly I go to a different school where nobody knows me” thing so far.
Twelfth Knight doesn’t bother with any of that. Right from the start, Orsino/Olivia/Viola/Sebastian (“Bash”) all know each other as themselves. They’re all in the same classes together at the same school. Orsino is the football star, Olivia is his former girlfriend. Viola is unfortunately portrayed as the class bitch — and I say it like that for a reason, more on this later. Her brother’s a bit of an add-on, he doesn’t get much storyline unless he’s necessary for somebody else’s. Honestly at one point early in the story when I wasn’t paying attention I thought Bash was the name of Viola’s cat.
Here’s the modern twist that keeps it interesting, though — online videogames. Viola’s big into role-playing games, and as anyone with experience knows, the landscape for a girl trying to play videogames with the boys is just as dangerous as being unaccompanied in Illyria. Her interactions with the fellas come in one of three flavors — either they hate her for being better than them, they think she “owes them” whenever one of them so much as acts human toward her, or they just plain ignore her. See where this is going? Of course she plays online as a male character. (Cesario, in fact. In this world, Cesario is also the name of a character from a popular “Game of Thrones” ripoff that they all watch.)
What does this do to the plot? Orsino the football player / class president is injured, leaving him with only two things to occupy his time. First, he’s of course on the homecoming committee so he has to take part in those meetings, which also involve bitch Viola (again, trust me). Second, however, is when he’s introduced to online videogames as a way to burn off some of his unfulfilled need to compete and win at something. Where, of course, he quickly meets Cesario, a much better player than he is. With context clues it’s not long before he realizes that Cesario goes to his school, so Cesario admits to being … Sebastian.
From there I think you can see how it plays out. The fact that “Viola’s a bitch” plays heavily in the text. She’s called one all the time, by everyone, as if the word is a literal weapon straight out of one of her games. The story’s told primarily from her point of view, so we get the inside look at why she’s like that. She, like many women, lives in a world where standing up for yourself when you feel threatened gets you branded with that label. You get tired of trying to fight it, so instead you adopt it and wear it like armor. From that point forward it’s self-fulfilling, and the vicious cycle repeats.
But we know how this goes. Orsino gets to spend time with Viola (as Viola) via their committee meetings, and enlists her help to figure out why Olivia broke up with him. Olivia, meanwhile, is suddenly Viola’s best friend and confides in her a number of highly personal things that would absolutely give Orsino the answer he wants and are very much not Viola’s to tell. Meanwhile Viola’s playing the double life as Cesario, who Orsino thinks is Sebastian. Who, by the way, has no idea that he’s been pulled into this whole story. Orsino learns who the real (i.e. not a bitch) Viola is, Viola comes out of her armor and learns to trust people. Except there’s still that whole “I’m actually also Cesario” thing that she has yet to tell him. How will that work out?
I like this version. I like how it pretty seamlessly blends the double lives of these kids, going to school with one face and then getting behind the computer with another one. The author manages to tell a new story with new dynamics while still keeping many of the core elements of the original story.
Two things I didn’t love. One, it tries a little too hard to map to the original where it doesn’t need to. This story has all kinds of new characters – parents, best friends, etc… – yet the author still felt obliged to sneak in other football players like Volio, Curio, and Aguecheek. None of those names fit the story’s context (Orsino is borderline as it is), and it would have made the novel stronger to just change them to something unrelated or drop the characters completely.
Second, there are some reasons this doesn’t work well in audiobook. As part of creating an original story, the author has added diversity to the story. Fine. Orsino is black. Viola is Viola Reyes, who I believe is supposed to be Phillipino? Olivia is Olivia Hadid, and presumably Arabic? These details are part of the story. Time is spent with extended families, among other things. Parents’ expectations of their children is a driving force in the main characters’ growth. I’m ok with all of that (and, as I noted at the outset, I apologize if I confused any of the details). My point is that it doesn’t work in audiobook. With just two narrators, the voices all start to blend, and you end up differentiating Olivia and Viola by which one is perky and which one is nerd-bitchy, and not at all by the fact that they’re supposed to be from opposite ends of the world culturally. It ends up feeling like a disservice is done to their backstories. Why add cultural diversity if it ends up whitewashed?
Overall, I’d certainly recommend it. A lot of ground is covered that has nothing to do with Shakespeare. Orsino’s worried that a late injury has destroyed his chances of playing football in college. Viola is not the only girl who discovers the hard way that a boy being nice to you can suddenly turn very dark. All of these kids are in a constant battle of trying to figure out who they can trust (their parents included), while navigating all the obstacles that life’s going to throw in their way. All while trying to come to terms with the difference between the person they want to be and the person they’re projecting to the world, and when it’s safe to reconcile the two. Available now on Amazon (and not just in audiobook!)
Let me get this out of the way first – we need more movies like Ghostlight. It’s neither “movie version of Shakespeare” nor “modern adaptation.” It’s a regular movie, with a plot of its own, that happens to use Shakespeare as a backdrop to tell its story. I will always watch movies like this.
I only heard about this movie about a week or two ago, so I’m excited that I got to see it so quickly. All I knew was that it’s a family drama, where the actors who play the family are in fact a real-life family, and that a production of Romeo and Juliet is central to the plot. I’m in.
Something’s wrong with this family. Dan, the father, walks through his construction worker job like a ghost. His daughter, Daisy, has run out of chances at school and now teeters on the edge of expulsion. And Sharon, the mom, tries valiantly to keep the family together when it’s obviously falling apart. Something’s happened to these people. There’s talk of a lawsuit that none of them are sure they are ready for. They scream at each other for seemingly random reasons at the drop of a hat.
Through a series of fortunate(?) events, Dan finds himself unwillingly volunteered to help out the community theatre group that’s been practicing in the abandoned movie theatre across from the street he’s been jackhammering. They’re doing Romeo and Juliet and need a Lord Capulet, though as the story progresses and we learn the characters, roles ultimately shift.
From there, you probably know how it goes. This is a story about the healing, bonding, and cathartic power of not just Shakespeare but theatre in general. There are many scenes of silly rehearsals as Dan loosens up around his new adopted family. Most of them behave as if they’ve never done Shakespeare, admitting freely that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Dan even asks his daughter if she knows the play (the daughter, on cue, recites the prologue that she had to memorize for AP English) and how it ends. If this had been a movie about learning to express your emotions through art, Shakespeare would have been replaced with oils or pastels. He’s just the medium.
It’s being praised in places as one of the year’s best movies, but I won’t go that far. It’s disjointed in its plot, with some loose ends that don’t get resolved. In a movie where the best acting is done when characters are screaming at each other, the scenes where they’re trying to be funny come up short. Some important details are held back, but as soon as a little bit is revealed you can begin to put the whole story together.
The Shakespeare’s not great. Too often the script is cut, so if like me you’re there whispering along with the lines you’ll be frustrated at all the random cuts. If you do see it, I thought that literally the best moment of Shakespeare was when the mom asks the dad to recite some for her. It was hesitant and awkward and beautiful because of how honest it was. He whispered after, “I won’t do it like that on stage,” and I said aloud, “No, do it exactly like that.”
Ultimately, it’s where the story does not play into expectations that it’s at its best precisely because of how honest and real it is, and that’s where it gets the praise. This is a small group of over 50-year-olds doing a play about teenage suicide. The audience, right along with the other characters in the movie, has to get past the shallow physical aspect to the essence of what theatre is all about. Peter Brook had a famous quote like, “When a man walks across a bare stage, and another man watches him, that is all that’s needed for theatre.” This is what I thought as our construction worker first walked into the theatre. I thought, “Whatever he does and however he does it, that’s the story I want to watch.”
Parts are frustrating. I’ve never been an actor, never done the silly rehearsing exercises (“red ball! RED BALL!”), but even I threw my hands up in the air when the director invited a new member into the group and said, “Pick any role you want.” I only later realized that one of the existing members was doing something of a Nick Bottom, trying to claim every role for himself, who got continually frustrated as they were taken from him. But come on, these people presumably auditioned (it says so in the dialogue). You don’t insult them by telling a newcomer they can have whatever role they want.
See this one if you can. It’s no triumph of Shakespearean acting, but that’s the whole point. It’s not about the quality of the performance, it’s about the humanity that anybody can bring to the task whether they’re actually any good at it by some objective standard.
I’m thrilled to announce an exciting giveaway contest for our latest release, My Own Personal Shakespeare: Macbeth. This edition offers a unique experience, allowing you to engage deeply with the text while adding your own personal annotations.
How to Enter:
It’s simple! To participate, all you need to do is leave a comment answering one intriguing question:
Which Shakespeare play should I write about next?
I chose Macbeth as the first volume because my daughter inspired the entire project by coming out of her first college Shakespeare class and asking, “Can I get my own copy of Macbeth? I don’t care which edition, I just want one of my own that I can write in because I have thoughts.” Thus the idea was born for an edition of Shakespeare that strips away hundreds of years of other people telling you what to think, replacing it with plenty of room for you to discover Shakespeare in your own way and at your own pace.
But what should we do next? Hamlet? Romeo and Juliet? Twelfth Night, Much Ado? You tell me!
Two Winners Will Receive Free Copies of My Own Personal Shakespeare: Macbeth
I have two copies of my book to giveaway. (Amazon’s actually very good about “author copies,” so if this contest goes well, I’ll probably do it again soon!). All you need to do is answer the question in the comments and a few other necessary rules:
Submit your entry by the deadline: Friday, June 28, 2024
Provide a valid email address so I can contact the winner.
Be willing to provide me with a shipping address where I can send the book, of course.
Shipment to the continental US only. Sorry, international audience. Shipping costs take all the fun out of it.
Look Inside!
The whole point of our new series is about making it your own. There’s plenty of whitespace on every page, and blank note pages between all the acts. Check it out!
Enter Now for Your Chance to Win
Who doesn’t love free books? Free Shakespeare books, even better! We’ve taken the first step on what’s hopefully going to be a long and fruitful journey. Now you can help us decide the next step! Enter today!
