Most of the posts in this category are simply leftovers from a previous era before the site had categories. Over time I plan to reduce that number to zero and remove this category. Until then, here they are. I had to put something in the box.
When I first heard that Marion Cotillard would replace Natalie Portman as Lady MacBeth in the upcoming Scottish movie, I was disappointed. I don’t really know anything about Ms. Cotillard, and I don’t really care all that much about acting ability(*) – I just think that Natalie Portman’s presence tends to bring a very large young adult male following into the theatres, and I thought Macbeth would be a good place to do that.
Apparently Ms. Cotillard is a big fan of Shakespeare already, and dreamed of playing Lady M — just not in the original text.
“Horrors!” you say, “What’s she want to do, a modern language adaptation? Sacrilege!”
That’s an angle I’ve never imagined. English is not your native language, and yet you still grow up with a love of Shakespeare so strong that you dream of playing his greatest characters. In *your* native tongue, rather than his. As if that’s how they were intended to be played (insert obligatory “heard them in the original Klingon” reference here). How is that different from reading just a plain old modern translation? After all, either you’re reading Shakespeare (or what you’ve always come to think of as Shakespeare), or you’re not. So isn’t the “not” version always just a shallow copy? Does that mean that Ms. Cotillard will be disappointed in the English version of the works?
To read, or not to read…..that is the age old Shakespeare question. I hang out on many Shakespeare forums, and whenever the question comes up about “Which Shakespeare play should I read first?” there’s always somebody quick to jump in with, “They’re not meant to be read, they’re meant to be seen! Go see one!”
Long time readers know that this drives me crazy. The only answer to this question is, “Do both. If you have a chance to see it, by all means see it. But if you want to read it then by all means you get in there and you read it, every chance you get. And then go see it again. Repeat.”
In my continuing quest to put an end to this argument, I used the following analogy with a coworker this morning:
You go to a restaurant, you order a dish. You like the dish. Some time later, you are at a different restaurant, and you see that they offer the same dish. You try it. It’s different. It’s the same dish, but it doesn’t taste the same as the first one. Maybe you like it more, maybe less. Maybe they added something that wasn’t in the first one, or left something out that was.
This cycle repeats. The dish becomes a favorite of yours, and you begin to seek it out at every opportunity. You pay attention to the details, you learn whose version you like and whose you do not, and why. You develop a fine sense for what goes into making the best version of this dish.
Do you know what else you could do? You could get the recipe for the dish and make it yourself.
That’s when you get the true appreciation for the dish, because you understand all the parts that went into making it. You can invent your own interpretations because you see what you have to work with. The next time you visit a restaurant and try the dish you understand immediately what they left out, and why, and you have a strong opinion about whether you feel this was the right decision. You explain to your companions why you’re not crazy about this version of the dish, and what the restaurant one town over does that makes it better.
So, there you go, that’s the new analogy I’m going to start using. Do you have to know how to cook a dish yourself before you go to a restaurant? No, of course not. You’re also unlikely to sit down to cook the recipe for every dish you might encounter in a restaurant. On the other hand, maybe there’s a dish you had once and you can never find it again no matter how hard you try. Maybe there’s a dish that your friend raves about and says you must try, but you never see it on the menu. The analogy works both ways. You can’t just stroll into the theatre district and watch whatever Shakespeare play you want, just like you can’t walk into any restaurant and order any dish you want. You’re restricted by the choices available.
My point is that there is a level of appreciation and understanding beyond just going to experience what other people did with the raw ingredients. You can and you should experience them for yourself by getting your hands and your eyes on the text. If you go down that path, you will be infinitely rewarded.
2013 was a very big year for Shakespeare in my personal life. I spoke, I wrote, I created, I had an existential crisis, I taught, I saw. Who knows what 2014 will bring? Let’s get started…
Party on, Shakespeare.
As loyal readers know, there are always Shakespeare facts, trivia and references flying around my house. Just search “geeklet” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Well, in February of this year I learned first hand that everything their geeky dad is telling them doesn’t just go in one ear and out the other in Geeklet 1, Geek 0.
Then in March I got to scribble “speak publicly, in person, on the subject of Shakespeare” off ye olde bucket list when Bardfilm asked me to participate in My First Videoconference with his Modern Shakespearean Fiction class. Thanks KJ!
Then came the bombing of the Boston Marathon. I live about 20 minutes outside of Boston, and knew many people there (thankfully, none of my friends or relatives were injured). Even then were we able to take comfort in what Shakespeare offered us.
But April is not a time for sadness, it is a time for great joy because another Shakespeare Day was upon us! Every year I celebrate with my own personal Shakespeare marathon, trying to post more stories in a single day than ever before. This year? 28. That’s more than a story an hour (assuming I didn’t sleep!) And I’ll have you know I don’t cheat and schedule those ahead of time, I monitor and post throughout the day. That’s part of the exhilaration that comes along with it!
Shakespeare is Universal
This year I also tried something different, something of a “putting other people’s money where my mouth is” campaign, when I launched Shakespeare is Universal. The idea was simple – if you make a real world product, can you get 100 people to buy it? After doing this for eight years I really and truly hoped so. I didn’t let it all ride on some “Prose before Hoes” gimmick, either. I put my faith in a message that I’ve been preaching all this time, and deeply and truly believe.
…and quickly after that to my own personal existential crisis as my deadline approached, I did not hit my goal, and I began to question the whole to blog or not to blog thing in All Good Things… (which I admittedly stole from the Star Trek : The Next Generation finale). But! I’m still here, because we did hit our goal, because there are that many people in the world who think that Shakespeare is Universal, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I’m also almost certainly going to make a followup shirt this year, so be prepared 😉
Ok, now back to the good part! As the school year came to a close in June, my perennial attempt to teach Shakespeare to my kids’ elementary school classes paid off double this year. Every year I offer, to every teacher, to bend a Shakespeare lesson into however they think it will fit their curriculum.
For my 10yr old daughter (fifth grade, US) I came in for Shakespeare Geek Teaches The Sonnets. I thought this would be a fairly dry topic for this age group, but I ended up staying nearly two hours. Brace yourself, that’s a very long post that might well take you as long to read as I did to experience it in the first place.
For my 8 yr old daughter (third grade) I fulfilled a lifelong dream by actually getting the kids out of the seats and reciting the text in My Directorial Debut! If you thought the last story was long, this story is divided into three parts (#1, #2, #3) This one was particularly special, because after all these years this marked the first time that one of my kids got to “perform” the text, on stage and in front of people:
And now comes the next big highlight of my day, as my daughter wakes from her slumber and begins, “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again. Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape; I swear, I love thee!”
This marks the first time that one of my children has performed Shakespeare. In public, on a stage, reading original text. I damn near wept. I am thankful that it turned out to be a small part because I think that the longer it went, I might well have exploded. And you know what? She was good. She woke up on cue, and actually got up while reading her lines, which she did not stumble over. Definitely one of my better performers, duly noted for future reference.
Loyal readers may want to go make themselves a snack, maybe do some quick stretches, because we’re only in June here people.
Ok, with July comes Shakespeare on Boston Common! I’ve gone every year for 9 years, the memory of the year I missed Hamlet still haunts me, and 2013 would mark my 10 year anniversary. Even though they were doing Two Gentlemen of Verona (truly one of Shakespeare’s “meh” plays), neither rain not sleet nor snow nor dark of night was about to stop me.
Fast forward now October, and a quick story involving my 7yr old son and Richard Burton in Why I Love My Shakespeare Life.
You know what else fall brings? Parent Teacher Time once again, and another opportunity to do my volunteer thingie. This time I got two very enthusiastic responses (my oldest daughter has graduated to middle school so her story will come later). I have yet to get into the classroom, but it’s a start!
You know what else else fall brings? Why, a Red Sox / Cardinals World Series, of course! I’m sure you know that your Shakespeare Geek is a Red Sox fan, but did you know that his arch-nemesis Bardfilm is a Cardinals fan? And that the Red Sox / Cardinals have a World Series history? A wager! There must be a wager of Shakespearean proportion!
As the year draws to a close we move on to November and my own “National Novel Writing Month” challenge. The local high school did Hamlet this year, and I decided there’d be no better time to put words to paper and instead of just explaining the play to my kids before they saw it, I’d write it down. Even better, I’d write it down and then hand it over to my daughter’s middle school teacher, where she’d have her entire class of 11yr olds read it! Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 (and my review of the Hamlet, for the curious).
Well, that about wraps it up for the year! Happy Holidays Everyone!
As another year comes to a close I thought it would be fun to go back and pick the biggest posts of 2013. I’m happy to discover that the top 5 are, in fact, original content produced by Bardfilm and myself.
I’m presenting these in chronological order, because the older a post is the more chance it’s had to get traffic (so it’s not really fair to compare a January piece to a November one).
January 24, 2013 The Complete Works of William Shakespeare — in Haiku This piece is amazing because when he said Complete, he meant it. KJ does a haiku rendition of 39 Shakespeare plays. We should print and bind this.
February 22, 2013 Shakespearean Hip-Hop Lyrics The trickiest part of this mashup is deciding on a genre of hip-hop! It has been around for a little while, and changed quite a bit over the decades.
July 30, 2013 Game of Thrones? That’s cute. When I saw that someone had do a meme where all the Star Wars characters say patronizing things to Game of Thrones characters (well, and vice versa) I knew I had to mash it up with Shakespeare. I think my job was far more difficult, though – it’s not like Viola from Twelfth Night is instantly recognizable like, oh, Darth Vader.
Today I Learned that Shakespeare’s little brother Edmund (born 1580) followed him to London to become an actor.
Who wants to speculate on connections between little brother, and Shakespeare’s most famous bastard from King Lear? Edmund had a bastard child of his own, though the child was born four months before Edmund’s death in 1607, making the event too late to have any connection to King Lear, which was written prior to 1606.
How cool would it be if Edmund went to London and actually stayed with his brother during that time, maybe even acting in one of the plays? No records exist, but does that mean it didn’t happen?
