Shakespeare Teacher Is Trying What Now?

http://www.shakespeareteacher.com/blog/archives/907

Shakespeare Teacher owns the "Shakespeare anagram" marketplace (what there is of it :)). Well maybe he's looking for more of a challenge, because now it's going to write plot summaries for five of the plays each using a different target vowel. In other words and entire review only using A as the vowel, then E, and so on.

The idea comes from the book Euonia, a five chapter book where each chapter uses only a single vowel.

Good luck! There's a famous novel or two written using just the vowel E, if I recall. I'm sure similar experiments have been done with other vowels. But putting the Shakespeare twist on it should be fun, especially watching what he does with the character names.

Playing Shakespeare

To my 4yr old, Daddy being unemployed means Daddy is home to play with her more, especially when her older sister goes off to school in the morning. "You want to play the Shakespeare game?" she asks me.

"How do you play?" I ask.

"You find a doll to be the Prince, and then I find a doll to be Miranda, and we are on the island. Wait, I'll get the book." I'm not kidding. She runs into the family room and comes back holding my copy of Manga Shakespeare's Tempest, which I did not even realize she knew I had.

So we begin acting out the story. I am using my Shakespeare action figure, although he is actually playing Ferdinand. Miranda is played by a blue Tinkerbell fairy. Ariel is a stuffed unicorn, and Caliban is the dog from the Simpsons that she got in a Burger King Happy Meal.

But soon I'm shaken from my private little world when the reality of playing with a 4yr old comes down around me.

"So Ferdinand is chained up by Prospero's magic and forced to carry the firewood to prove his love for Miranda," I read. I turn up little Shakespeare's arms and make him carry a Lincoln Log.

"But then her mommy comes and breaks his chains and sets him free!" my daughter says, waving a stuffed ballerina doll.

"Wait, whose mommy?"

"Miranda's mommy."

"Miranda's mommy is not in the story, sweetie."

"She's been in the garden out front. She breaks the chains and Ferdinand is free!"

Oh, of course that's where she's been. :)

Review: Will, By Christopher Rush

A few weeks back the good people at Overlook Press sent me a copy of Will, which imagines Shakespeare on his deathbed dictating his last will and testament to his lawyer.

Given the prominent role the mystery of the will plays in the authorship question, what with talk of second-best beds and no mention of books and theatre things, such a task is quite daunting to begin with. When you open to the first page and realize that Rushmore intends to tell Shakespeare's story in first person, well, to borrow a phrase from the vernacular let's say the man has some serious grapefruits on him. Know what I mean?

And what does the voice of Will say? Well, he quotes and references himself quite often. Not in a bad way, not like Rushmore can't think of anything better to have him say. Instead we get a man who spent his life crafting a phrase and now mocks his own talent at doing so, borrowing his character's words to express his points, those words having come from his own brain in the first place. Very believable for a playwright recounting his life. He even puns on his own work, such as referring to a particular term as a "brave new word." I particularly got a kick out of him working the word "groatsworth" into the narrative, I can only imagine how small a portion of the audience gets that reference.

What else does grumpy old Will tell his lawyer? Well he swears a lot. Talks about bodily functions in graphic detail, obsesses about death. That second bit is pretty interesting. Lots of undiscovered country talk. A fascinating digression on Lazarus and why nobody bothered to ask him any questions about the Great Beyond. In Rushmore's version, Will spent his childhood haunted by ghost stories and visits to haunted cemeteries. He does
Not paint a pleasant picture of life for young Will.

I won't lie, the narrative is hard to follow. Shakespeare is the narrator, speaking to his lawyer. So 80% of every page is supposed to be conversational, but never with a quotation mark or a "Shakespeare said..." Between every few paragraphs the lawyer interjects with typically a single sentence, and it's almost like the author does that just to make sure we don't forget Will isn't just talking into a tape recorder.

And then periodically it switches to third person, which leaves me wondering if that is an editor's mistake. You'll get a line like (paraphrased), "Then Frances took a bite of his meal." Ummm... The narrator Shakespeare is speaking to Frances the lawyer, so who is talking there? It happens infrequently enough to be jarring when it does.

What of the big questions? The second best bed and all that? I'm not done with the book yet so I can't spoil it for you. I can tell you that I'm anxious to find out for myself!

Posted with LifeCast