Whoa, Wait .. Is Disney Doing Midsummer Night's Dream?!

[Hat tip to Will Sutton of I Love Shakespeare for this one!]

The thought of a mass market animated Shakespeare has compelled me for years. I followed every story I could find while waiting for Gnomeo and Juliet to see the light of day (seriously - here's a 2006 post, and here's 2011 post when it finally came out). I've also been saying for years, you'll note, that I think they should do The Tempest.

But I'll take Midsummer, too!

It appears that Strange Magic will hit theaters January 23! Created by Lucasfilm (which was started by George Lucas and now owned by Disney), produced by Touchstone (who I believe did Gnomeo?) and directed by a Pixar veteran, the story is "inspired by" A Midsummer Night's Dream so we'll have to see what that might mean. The clip below has more, although I'm worried about the "battle over a powerful potion."

IMDB gives us no clue about characters, listing all the celebrity credits as just "(Voice)".

We'll be watching this one closely! I'm quite sure I'm just getting my hopes up about the amount of Shakespeare content that might make it into the final product, but I don't care.

King Lear and Sydney's Arcadia?

I received a request this evening from Hikari, who is studying at university in I assume Japan (from his .jp email address). Hikari asks:

I'm going to write an essay about King Lear's sub-plot and its source Sydney's "Arcadia"(the story of the Paphlagonian King). But I couldn't find secondary sources for my essay yet. Do you know any sources about it?

I had to go do my research to even understand the question, but I've never been shy to admit when I have no idea. The story of the Paphlagonian King refers to the Edmund/Edgar/Gloucester plot of Lear, which drew on Sydney's Arcadia as a source.

Some quick googling brought me here:

For the sub-plot of King Lear, Shakespeare relied upon a story from Arcadia, the epic romance by Sidney, published in 1590. We can see by examining Shakespeare's wonderful attention to the characters of Edgar and Gloucester, how much Sidney's tale of the king of Paphlagonia and his two sons sparked the Bard's own imagination.

I'm not quite sure what Hikari is looking for in his quest for "secondary sources". Does anybody else have some better sites to link?

The Divine Miss Macbeth

The other day we learned that Cyndi Lauper is really into Shakespeare. Today in another one of Reddit's famous AMA's, Bette Midler went ahead and dropped some Shakespeare into the conversation without needing an invitation:

Lady Midler as Lady Macbeth?

I don't know, what do people think? I'm trying to think of her most memorable roles, and I keep coming up with comedy. Could she handle one of the great tragedies? Or do we see her more in a comic role? What I don't see her in is any sort of supporting role. Whatever she does, it seems that she's got to be front and center.