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?
Over the centuries it’s been common practice to spin a happy ending on Shakespeare’s tragedies. Romeo and Juliet live, King Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after.
What if you went the other way? The comedies are known for their happy endings. Can you spin your favorite comedy and give it a dark ending?
Twelfth Night is the obvious choice, with Malvolio’s ominous, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!” How does he not show up at the wedding with an AR-15?
How about A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The lovers wake up, the love potion has now worn off Demetrius, who sees Theseus and Egeus and immediately goes right back to the character he was in the first scene. Seeing no change in anybody’s feelings on the matter and with Hermia refusing to budge, Theseus has her executed. I was going to write that Lysander tries to protect her and gets executed for his trouble as well, but it’s more fun if he’s a coward who absolutely doesn’t do that. 🙂
Can we count The Tempest? I know, not technically. But it’s so easy to envision the entire play as the ravings of a poor old man alone on an island making up the whole thing.
The other day I saw a discussion about how you think a modern Hamlet’s ghost should be staged. My first thought was, “I was the ghost popping up randomly, in the audience, in a way that makes them think it’s impossible for that to be happening.”
My first thought was, “Hologram?” But I put that off as too expensive, but also because the evidence about what was to happen (such as a mini pedestal/stage where he’d appear) would ruin the effect.
Then I thought, “Just have multiple actors dressed as the ghost, so when one exits, another one can appear elsewhere.” But if they don’t look identical, the effect isn’t the same.
Twins! Comedy of Errors had twins. Ok, fine, maybe Shakespeare didn’t actually have twins to work with (did he?) I know that I’ve yet to see a Comedy of Errors with actual twins.
But that brings me to our question. What if you did have twins in your group? How would you use them? On the drive in to work today I was thinking about the difference between doubling an actor (Theseus / Oberon anybody?) versus how you’d do it with twins. If you never have them on stage at the same time there’s no point, so how would you change the staging to take advantage?
How about two Hamlets? One that devolves slowly into madness (complete with costume change), while the other remains his normal self, silently watching the proceedings. Until at some crucial point late in the play the good Hamlet disappears. (I saw a high school production once with five Hamlets, all on stage at once, all delivering the lines. It was weird.)
King Lear where Goneril and Regan are twins? Not sure how much that really changes the story, but it strengthens the bond between them versus Cordelia, and later shows how big a deal it is when they split.
A Tempest where Ariel and Caliban are twins? I saw a production once where they were handled like conjoined twins, and at the end Prospero separated them.
I’m clearly no director, but I know many of you are. What better ideas can you come up with? Assume that you can have access to a set of twins of whatever type you need, young or old, male or female.
‘Still Dreaming,’ a documentary that in many ways is a sequel to another film I (Hank, not Duane) directed called ‘Shakespeare Behind Bars,’ will premiere on PBS starting this Saturday, April 14.
STILL DREAMING is a multi-award winning film about the powers of creativity, and how engaging in art-making can deeply enrich our lives at any age.
Filmed at The Lillian Booth Actors Home just outside New York City, where a group of long-retired Broadway entertainers dive into a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and find that nothing is what it seems to be. With a play that is usually about young love and sex farce, this ensemble finds that for them, the themes of perception, reality and dreaming deeply resonate.
This wistful, honest, and frequently hilarious documentary follows the rehearsals as opening night approaches. Tempers flare, health concerns abound, and disaster seems imminent. But as these former entertainers forge ahead, they realize that creativity is a magical force of renewal.
This whole film journey started back in 2009, when I went to the Lillian Booth Actors Home to meet with the Shakespeare group there to discuss the possibility of their doing a play and my filming that process. The residents and staff were all very supportive of the idea right away, so the discussion quickly turned to which play they would do. The residents in particular were very enthusiastic about the possibility of re-connecting with their craft, for it was as one put it, “This is my whole life inside, and this is a way of getting all of that back.”
My co-director, Jilann Spitzmiller and I went in with the idea of Romeo & Juliet, but that was met with very little enthusiasm, and so a discussion ensued mostly around comedies, since as one resident jokingly put it, ‘There was enough tragedy in their day to day lives already.’ They did discuss Macbeth, King Lear of course, with its theme of old age, and one point someone suggested The Tempest, but I quickly rejected it since it was the play done in ‘Shakespeare Behind Bars.’ The residents kept coming back to comedies such as Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was Midsummer that seemed to gain the most backing since it was a comedy, and had an ensemble cast with no real leads. This was good they felt since it wouldn’t fall on one or two actors to carry the whole production, which seemed like too much pressure at their age.
Still, there was quite a bit of resistance from the residents. How the heck would it ever work? A fantastical moonlit forest in a sterile nursing home environment with fairies and sprites leaping around all played by 80-year-olds, and 80-year-olds playing young lovers. How in the world would that work, they wondered. (Jilann and I wondered too!)
At one point in the discussion, a long time pro from film, tv, and theater, who was by far the most experienced actor in the room, spoke up and added, “We have no sets, no costumes, no lights or tech crew. How would we ever do this? And to do it half-ass-ugh, no thanks.” This was met by a prolonged and sinking silence, and it felt like the entire idea of the production was going down right before us. I could sense many of the seniors in the room thinking, “Well if she doesn’t want to do it, then how could we ever go on without her…”
Then another resident broke the quiet and said, “We don’t need a set, we have the outside. Just stand beneath a tree, in a field, and we have spaces indoors in which to work.”
To this, another added, “Yes, all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
A tangible, visible energy moved through the room, a collected sigh of relief that the group could go on, and that this opportunity ‘to get it all back’ might still happen.
And it did.
You can tune into your PBS stations starting this Saturday to watch, or you can stream the film at www.stilldreamingmovie.com.
When you heard that the sequel to Gnomeo and Juliet was Sherlock Gnomes and that it would still be the original cast of characters, you probably had the same thought I did. Is there going to be any Shakespeare in this?
The short answer is, “Yes, actually.” But it’s in a way that most people will find funny, and Shakespeare geeks will groan and eye roll at.
Gnomeo has gone missing. Dr. Watson has gone looking for him. “Gnomeo! Gnomeo!” he cries. “Oh, don’t make me say it.” Heavy sigh. “Wherefore art thou Gnomeo?”
It’s at this point that my entire table (we have a local movie theatre where you sit at a table and have dinner) turns to look at my reaction. I throw my hands up in the air, roll my eyes and say, “Well, at least now I can justify getting a blog post out of it.”
With Easter approaching, what do you say we go hunting for eggs in Shakespeare’s work? I’m not going to list them all here (since it’s easy to hunt them down with a search engine where’s the fun in that?) but I’ll hit the most famous ones. Add more in the comments!
“Give me an egg, nuncle, and I’ll give thee two crowns.”
Why, after I have cut the egg i’ th’ middle and eat up the
meat, the two crowns of the egg.
When I first tried to read King Lear I couldn’t understand Fool at all. After many readings and watchings, I think the scenes with Lear, Fool and Kent are my favorite (even if I don’t always understand what he’s saying). He’s one of the few people (perhaps the only one?) who can say to the king, “Hey genius, how smart was it to split your kingdom down the middle and then give away both parts?”
Falstaff
Take away these chalices. Go brew me a pottle of
sack finely.
Bardolph
With eggs, sir?
Falstaff
Simple of itself; I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.
Ok Falstaff, eww. How am I supposed to look at my kids’ Easter eggs the same way ever again? (Courtesy Merry Wives of Windsor, for those that don’t remember this charming lesson in animal husbandry showing up in the Henry plays.) I actually googled this to see if I was missing something and saw it turn up in a list entitled “Why Aren’t These Shakespeare Quotes Famous Too?”
What, you egg! [Stabbing him]
Young fry of treachery!
Students love this quote, I regularly see it posted when people reading Macbeth for the first time stumble across it. There are web pages and apps and even books dedicated to Shakespearean Insults, but calling somebody an egg just has a special sort of “What did he just call me?” flare to it.
My favorite part is the second line, where he calls him a young fry of treachery. You know why, don’t you?
Because now he’s a fried egg.
On that note, I’m out of here before anybody gets the pitchforks. What other egg references have you found?
Over the centuries it’s been common practice to spin a happy ending on Shakespeare’s tragedies. Romeo and Juliet live, King Lear and Cordelia live happily ever after.
