Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Natalie Portman as Lady Macbeth? And the geek universe explodes!

First we had Patrick Stewart who is equally at home as Captain Picard, Professor Xavier, or Macbeth.

Pretty soon we'll have the world of Joss Whedon jumping from Buffy and Firefly to Much Ado About Nothing.

And now, now we have the queen of the geek universe Natalie Portman signed up to play Lady Macbeth?!

I hope the legions of fans she picked up from Star Wars (and even going so far back as The Professional) appreciate what they're about to get themselves into. This is almost certainly going to be firmly in Black Swan territory - and more in a dark and twisty way, not so much with the sexy bits.

UPDATED Is Shakespeare Universal? Show Your Support!

The Universal Question

UPDATE #2: We're drawing to a close, with little less than a week to go. As of this update we're at 57 and heading for 100 and truly need your help. People have begun telling me "Oh maybe everybody's just waiting until the last minute." Well I'm pretty sure the last minute is a Sunday night which is not exactly prime time for everybody to be online so you might discover Monday morning that your opportunity's missed.

If you haven't kept up on the news, more languages have been added and all known questionable translations have been fixed. The shirt is also now available in four colors (grey/black/red/blue) if that helps convince you.

UPDATE #1 : I am going to keep updating this post, keeping it sticky at the top of the page, until the campaign has run its course. This will help assure that newcomers see it, by keeping it on the homepage. We are at 15 out of 100 reservations, and need more people to see this!

Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world.

In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been! Available for a limited time only!

Yes! I Believe Shakespeare is Universal! Sign me up!

Proceeds from this campaign go toward funding the mission of ShakespeareGeek.com, which for the last eight years has been dedicated to proving that Shakespeare makes life better.

Teespring is "Kickstarter for t-shirts". We need a certain number of people, by a certain date, to commit to purchasing a shirt. If we reach that number (or exceed it!), everybody wins. If we don't, nobody is charged. This method allows the price of each shirt to be greatly reduced, while keeping the quality of the product very high. (The graphics are all cleaned up by designers before printing, so they're never pixelated or speckled like you sometimes see on traditional "upload and go" print on demand sites.)

If you are at all interested in owning one of these shirts (and possibly seeing other such campaigns) I strongly encourage you to sign up and help us get the word out through all your social media connections. Thanks as always for supporting Shakespeare Geek!

Monday, April 29, 2013

CONTEST OVER - Signature Series Winners Announced

Hello everybody,

Just a quick administrative note since I was asked, the winners of our Shakespeare Signature Series giveaway have been chosen and emails have been sent. Thanks to everyone for playing, and I hope you all had an outstanding Shakespeare Day!

- Duane, your Shakespeare Geek

Friday, April 26, 2013

Solved! How I Got Mel Brooks In My Shakespeare

Ok, this story is too fascinating not to share.

You're probably sick of me hyping my Shakespeare is Universal campaign, which features a t-shirt depicting "To be or not to be" translated into languages from around the world.

This morning, Twitter follower @JulietWilliams3 wrote to me, "Your Japanese says 'Mel Brooks running away', is that what you meant?"

For a moment I thought she was kidding. Then my stomach turned as I realized that she was in fact correct, or at least as far as the Mel Brooks went. Yikes. I flew back to my original document, and that sequence of Japanese characters was not there. What the heck? The version that I've been using was produced by my graphic designer who did admit to having re-generated much of text. So now I'm left with the choices of a) a bug in the translation engine, b) designer made a copy-and-paste error of some sort (maybe he was in IMDB?) or c) designer did that on purpose.

I immediately write back to him - a former coworker I haven't spoken with in 3 years. I don't expect a response.

I then turn to Reddit and see that they have a translations group specifically for this purpose. So I post up my image and ask for validations of the translation. Someone who does not know the story tells me that the Japanese reads, "Mel Gibson's Great Escape."

And then it all falls into place with this post from swarmtactic:

Yes, Mel Brooks's "To Be Or Not To Be" was rebranded to be "Mel Brooks's Great Escape" in the Japanese market, and that is what it says here (I'm guessing silverforest just had a typo with "Mel Gibson")

I can confirm silverforest's translation is accurate. In your graphic designer's defense, www.alc.co.jp[1] , which is a popular online japanese translation dictionary, lists the Mel Brooks movie as the first entry for the phrase "To be or not to be", god knows why.

I confirmed this myself - type "to be or not to be" into that engine and you get back the characters which, out of context, would simply tell you "Mel Brooks' Great Escape." (Making this even more confusing? The Mel Brooks movie The Producers has a song called Run Away! So at first I thought this was a Producers reference!)

So it appears that the engine I was using at the time had a pointer into this service and parroted back whatever it was given. Amazing that we found that!

I've got edited artwork in with the t-shirt people, so this and a couple of other errors will be fixed before the shirts are printed. Plus I took the opportunity to add Chinese and German ( I learned last night that I forgot German!) so now there's even more language. Please, if you haven't already, consider supporting the movement and showing the world how much you believe in the power of Shakespeare.

Kinderbard

I think that Daeshin Kim would be fun to hang out with. We have a lot in common. We both think that it's never too young to expose our children to Shakespeare. We both think that music is a key component in doing that. I sing lullabies, never met a pun I didn't like, and post stories of my geeklets wisdom here on the blog.

And then Daeshin goes off and produces Kinderbard, and we're in different leagues. Clearly a labor of love for him and his family, Daeshin and his 5yr old daughter Sherman wrote and produced a collection of nursery rhymes - including Sherman singing them! - that they call "A Horse With Wings" (Imogen, from Cymbeline). Each rhyme is sung from the perspective of a Shakespeare character, and attempts the dual task of teaching a lesson (or dealing with an issue) while providing some context about the character doing the singing.

Example? Juliet's song, "It's just a name." If you know the story of Romeo and Juliet you'll immediately recognize the idea behind Juliet's "What's in a name?" speech. Here, sung by Sherman, it's a song about dealing with teasing when your perhaps your own name is on the more unusual side.

Or maybe Cordelia's "I don't know what to say" song, encouraging shy children to speak up for themselves.

Of course there are the silly ones, too. Two Gentlemen of Verona's contribution is the "Smelly Dog" song, and let me just tell you now, the dog doesn't smell because it needs a bath, it smells because of what somebody's been feeding it. If you get what I mean.

And then there's Falstaff's dirty laundry song, where he comes face to face with something so disgusting I'm not going to blog about it (but it will no doubt have younger children in stitches).

Honestly there's not a great deal of Shakespeare in this. The coverage is impressive, with contributions from 16 different plays (not just "the big ones"). Where possible they sneak in direct references (Yorick sings about giving piggyback rides, and As You Like It's Jaques pretty much sings a simplified version of his entire ages of man speech), and there is some artwork with original quotes. But I don't think that a child is going to come away from any of the songs with any long term understanding of Shakespeare. Although I've often said that at the youngest age, the most important thing is recognition of character and maybe plot. So if the kids who work through Kinderbard learn about Ariel and Yorick and Cordelia and remember those names? It's a good start!

Disclaimer - Daeshin and I have discussed this, and he's clear that his goal is "a songbook that happens to have Shakespeare as its source", and that he is not primarily attempting to teach Shakespeare. So I don't feel as if I'm throwing him under the bus by going here. This is, after all, a Shakespeare blog so I have to take the logical angle. If I saw this on a shelf I'd want to know how much Shakespeare my kids are going to get out of it.

My kids are too old for the collection now, but I'd like to think that if it had existed when mine were still young enough that I was popping nursery rhyme CDs into the car stereo when we drove around town? That I would have picked it up. If nothing else Kinderbard shows what can happen when you've got the kid of passion for a project that Daeshin has demonstrated.

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Another #ShakespeareDay Is Done

*phew!*

So, how was your day?

This year I succeeded in publishing a new record *28* stories. And you know what? I'm pretty sure that a silly picture I tweeted in the middle of the day got more traffic than all of those stories combined. But that's ok. Tweets are temporary, posts are forever.

Here's a quick recap of the day's action, since so many posts will have scrolled into the archives before most people get to see them:

This year I'm trying something a little different. I'm running a fundraiser that I'm calling "Shakespeare is Universal." In the style of Kickstarter, this company Teespring produces a much higher quality product at a lower price than any other outlet I've yet found. The trick is that you need to get a minimum number of people to sign up for the campaign (i.e. reserve a shirt) by a certain time. By working in bulk quantities the prices stay low, without sacrificing the quality.

I am hoping that loyal readers who have enjoyed the blog and everything I've done for the cause of Shakespeare over the years will do me the honor of joining the campaign. There's three good reasons I'd really like to see this latest effort of mine succeed. First, there's the obvious practical reason that if I have money I can spend it on more cool Shakespeare things. I don't believe in lying about that or trying to hide it.

Second, I think it's a nice shirt. I made this image awhile ago by taking "To be or not to be" and translating it into as many languages as I could find, and had a graphic designer friend help me with the layout. When you look at the patterns and realize how you can tell what it says even when you can't speak the language you begin to see Shakespeare as this Rosetta Stone that enables communication between people all around the world. I think that's a very cool idea. When we talk about "Shakespeare for everyone" that doesn't just mean English speakers.

Lastly there's a reason of personal importance to me. If the campaign succeeds, that will mean that there's at least a hundred people out there who'll be wearing shirts that identify them as fellow Shakespeare geeks. One day I will bump into somebody in the wild who is wearing one of them, and that will be an amazing milestone for me, because my bond with that person will be deep and it will be instant, yet again confirming that power that Shakespeare brings out in all of us.

Why Should I?

I promised to speak more about this after I did a video conference with Bardfilm's students. It's a topic that we cover frequently, but it's important to revisit it from time to time so that we're all on the same page.

Why should you read Shakespeare? (* Let's not argue "read" versus "see", that's not what this is about. I mean why should people expose themselves to Shakespeare. Moving on..)

When you are in school someone will tell you to read Shakespeare. If you're unlucky enough not to get a better answer you may spot a trap -- he's famous because we all study him, but we all study him because he's famous. You make us read him because he's important. Why is he important? He must be, everybody reads him. Those aren't answers.

You may go into theatre, in which case you will likely seek out Shakespeare on your own on the path to perfecting your craft.

Or you may go the scholarly route and choose to study the body of his works down to the last punctuation point, coming at it from history or spectral analysis or statistics or any possible angle. And that's fine too. Over the years I've met many people from programmers to physicists who have brought Shakespeare with them into their profession.

I'm not talking about any of those people. I'm talking about that other 99% of the world who, once they leave the academic world of being told what to read and why to read it, will have to decide whether to voluntarily expose themselves to more of Mr. Shakespeare.

Why should they? Take that literally. Assume that you've just been introduced to someone at a party, and you make a Shakespeare reference. The person says, "Oh, I've never read Hamlet."

"Oh, you have to!" you say.

"Why should I?" says she.

What's your answer?

I know what we *feel*. I want to communicate that, logically. I want to find the vocabulary to have this discussion, because I think there are a hundred chances a day to have it if only we knew how to do it.

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Cover Songs and Sampling

I once wrote, "All Shakespeare is cover songs." That post is sadly overlooked, I really which it had gotten more traffic.

My analogy has grown, however, and I'd like to bring it back up for discussion.

When you perform Shakespeare (and by that I mean using the text, not writing your own adaptation), you have no choice but to interpret it through your own creative vision. Shakespeare had his, you have yours. This is the essence of a cover song. You both start with the same instructions (recipe?) but then within those constraints you can go in whatever direction you can imagine.

Adaptation is different. Adaptation is more akin to sampling, where you look at an original and think, "I like a piece of this. I will use a piece of this to make my creation more powerful." Sometimes you take the underlying beat of the entire song and just put a shallow new layer on top of it (the Vanilla Ice / Queen controversy comes to mind). Sometimes, though, you find a piece of one original work that comes and boosts your own work, producing an entirely new thing. Consider Primitive Radio Gods' Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand, which everybody knows for the B.B. King sample.

In the second case everybody said, "Wow, that's a great song!" In the first everybody said, "Dude, you completely ripped that off." Big difference. You have to bring enough of your own stuff to the party, and you have to acknowledge the contributions from the original, or you're going to get busted trying to ride somebody else's coattails.

Covers and samples are entirely different things with different points to make. It drives me nuts when people make lists that combine the two, putting She's the Man next to Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. Please stop. Each can be artwork in its own way, but they are two very different things.

Playing Against Type

A little while back I saw a conversation on Reddit started by someone who'd directed Julius Caesar. He'd chosen to cast a ... what's a good word ... corpulent gentleman as Cassius. His motivation was probably 90% practical (i.e. the big guy was the only choice) but he'd convinced himself that the casting really drew attention to Caesar's famous "yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look" line, making people think that well duh obviously Caesar doesn't really mean he wants to be surrounded by obese dudes. You can have a "lean and hungry" look that has nothing to do with whether you are undernourished.

I'm into a book right now that looks to be painting Gertrude as an alcoholic (at the very least, she enjoys her wine a little too much). That's not the first time I've seen that, by a long shot. I wonder if somebody's ever played a tea-totalling Gertrude who won't touch the stuff? What if we took the whole wine thing right out of Hamlet and had the final bottle of Gatorade poisoned instead?

I've been thinking about typecasting in Shakespeare. Some roles seem like they have to be cast a certain way. Does Cassius have to be a beanpole? Does Gertrude have to demonstrate her fondness for wine before we get to the final scene? Does Hamlet have to dress all in black? Does Don John have to hold the cape up to his face and twirl that handlebar mustache?

Ok, I've never seen that last one, but it's what I always think of when I see that play. "There's to be a WEDDING?! I must RUIN it, because I am so very EVIL!!! Grab the girl, tie her to the railroad tracks!"

Does anybody know what I'm talking about? What character interpretation has become such a go-to move that you're left wishing somebody would stand the idea on its head just to shake it up a bit?

Deconstructing Shakespeare

I've been thinking about adaptation lately, and not just because Bardfilm keeps dumping homework in my lap. This idea has been a recurring theme here on the blog all the way back to the Lion King / Hamlet debate.

(For the sake of terminology, when I speak of "adaptation" I refer to telling the story using modern language. Kenneth Branagh's work, using original text in a modern setting, is what I'd call "interpretation". 10 Things I Hate About You or She's The Man or, yes, even Lion King are adaptations.)

When you take this approach, a new telling of Shakespeare's stories, what you're really doing is deconstructing the story and building it back up from its elements. Start with a king, have his brother kill him and take over his kingdom, and the son is left to avenge his father? Is that all you need to be Hamlet? What about Lear? If you start with a powerful landowner and his three assumed heirs, and add a misunderstanding and a falling out with the one good one, do you have a Lear story?

I don't mind modern adaptation. When people talk about Shakespeare no longer being approachable or relevant the first thing they trot out is how it's all about kings and ghosts and swordfights and we don't have any of those things in any meaningful capacity, so you have to switch it out. Instead of a king we have the president of a company. Instead of Montagues and Capulets with swords we have Jets and Sharks with guns. Lear's "heirs" don't have to be his children, and Claudius doesn't have to be Hamlet's uncle. You can work at the edges of those relationships (you want approachable Shakespeare? How many young people out there right now do you think have to call mom's new friend "uncle" and it drives them insane?)

So how far back can you take it? Is there a minimum where, if you don't take at least that much, you no longer have the story? You'd think there must be. If King Hamlet isn't out of the picture at the start of the play, it's a different play. If Macbeth doesn't make his move on his superior officer, it's a different play.

Of course there's no rules for this, so what I'm really talking about it something between being recognizable, and "getting a bump" as they say in political/media circles. Whether something is recognizable as having elements of X is entirely dependent on your audience's familiarity with X. Only recently did somebody point out to me that Lion King has elements of Cymbeline. I don't think that the recognition factor is something that writer/directors can control. They can hope, but they can't control.

It's the "bump" thing that's more interesting, and it's very similar to how people quote random things on the internet and stick "-Shakespeare" at the end. It makes people think twice, and think better. Oh you wrote a love story? Big deal, there's lots of those. Oh you wrote a Romeo and Juliet story? I know that story, that's a great story! I'll check out your version.

Did Tommy Boy or Strange Brew ever market themselves as Shakespeare remakes? Maybe if they did, they'd have been more critically received. Or, worse, maybe they would have been crucified as terrible Shakespeare adaptations.

In the drive in to work this morning I thought of something. In Lion King, Simba doesn't realize that his uncle Scar killed his father until the very end. This is entirely different from the world of Hamlet where his father *tells* him that, and he first has to prove it, and then has to do something about it. Yet another reason why I will continue to argue down the "Lion King Is Hamlet" theory to the day I die.

Theme Song Shakespeare : And The Rest!

It's been awhile since we did these. Have some Shakespeare TV Theme Songs!

A Band of Brothers

(sung to the tune of "Where Everybody Knows Your Name", the Cheers song)

Fighting the Battle of Agnicourt
takes everything you got.
A few of those men lying a-bed in England
sure would help a lot.

Wouldn’t you like to run away?

Sometimes the fewer men, the greater share of honour:
Harry the king, Bedford, Exeter.
You want to go where Crispin knows
You’re not like all the others.
You want to be a part of a band of brothers.

A New Dane In Town (the "Alice" theme song)

I used to be mad—a really glum guy.
Funniest thing—a rogue and peasant slave am I.
Melting my solid flesh down was my favorite sport.
I gotta grab Claude & start revenging ’cause life’s too short.
There’s a new Dane in town, and I’m drinking blood!
Hell itself breathes contagion to the . . . neighborhood.
There’s a new Dane in town. Now I’ll do it pat.
And this Dane’s here to say
With a sword and cup revenge is gonna be . . .
. . . so sweeeeeeeeeet!

A Game! Novel Perspective

Here's a game. Let's pretend that you're reading a novelization of one of Shakespeare's plays. A literary adaptation, if you will. I'm in the middle of Undiscovered Country, to provide an example.

When you write in this style you need to choose (and I'm sure I'll get my terminology wrong), a narrative voice. Will this story be told in first person, third, or other? The story I'm reading is told from Hamlet's first person perspective and I found myself thinking, "Is he crazy at this point? Would I the read know he's crazy at this point, if he doesn't think he is?"

The closest Shakespeare's got to this is the soliloquoy, where the audience gets some insight into the inner thought processes of a particular character. But those are few and far between. I'm talking about a literary angle on the play where the entire story is told from a single character, to the point where if something happens that doesn't include the narrator might as well not have ever happened (except second hand, if the narrator is told about it).

So the game is this. Pick a play, pick a character, and tell us how the story would be told differently if you saw things through that character's eyes. It's not even limited to the big questions from the great tragedies. What would Dream be like told from Bottom's perspective? Or Shrew from the perspective of the Shrew?

Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music

Why have I just heard of this now?

While cruising some "Shakespeare quotes" pages I noticed a citation to this work dropped in there amid Venus and Adonis, the sonnets and the plays just like it was no big deal. Stuck out like a sore thumb!

The wiki seems to have the truth of it -- people lump the whole collection under Shakespeare's name, but in reality it's a collection of sonnets from other sources and authors. Shakespeare's contribution comes from Love's Labour's Lost, while Marlowe's is "The Passionate Pilgrim To His Love."

Is there more to this? Should I pay more attention? Or does this about sum it up?

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

A New Sonnets to Music Collection

I'm a fan of using music to teach and memorize Shakespeare. I think long time readers know that. My kids learned Sonnet 18 because David Gilmour's rendition was my ringtone. Heck, I learned Sonnet 29 because of the way Rufus Wainwright sings it.

A new collection is coming out next week, this one by Thomas Magnussen & Bjørn Palmqvist. Here's a video sample of one of them (no idea which one :)) doing Sonnet 18.

Their interpretation is clearly more in the "spoken word" category, with music underneath. In all honesty it's not my cup of tea - I think that it's the matching of words to the rhythm of the music that helps with learning and memorization. But they did write me and ask if I could help get the word out about their new album, and I've always said that Shakespeare is for everyone so don't let me stop you!

Good luck with your effort, gentlemen!

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Review : Undiscovered Country by Lin Enger

It's always an amazing experience reading a Hamlet adaptation. How much of the original story will be kept? What will be cut, and what new material will be added? How will the author make the transition from Shakespeare's world to the new setting? Will the final result be little more than a "modern language" novelization of Shakespeare, or a legitimate literary work?

All of these questions floated through my mind when Bardfilm recommended Undiscovered Country to me. Jesse Matson is hunting in the woods of Minnesota when his dad, Harold, dies from a seemingly self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. That is, of course, until Harold's ghost appears to Jesse and claims that Jesse's uncle Clay is actually the one that pulled the trigger. Uncle Clay, of course, quickly makes the moves on Jesse's mom Genevieve and we get the whole backstory about jealousy between the brothers, Harold's position of power over other men in the neighborhood (he's some sort of local politician? I lost that thread in listening to the audiobook).

There's a girlfriend character, but is she Ophelia? Her dad is certainly not your normal Polonius if this is the case. What about Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? There are a variety of supporting players but I couldn't draw you a map.

Once upon a time (bear with me for a moment) Stephen King wrote two books pretty much simultaneously - The Regulators and Desperation. These two books are in a parallel universe to each other, where all of the characters appear in both stories, just in completely different context. Steve is a sheriff in one who dies in the first few chapters, but in the other book Steve is a married insurance salesman with kids who ends up the hero (I made up all of that, as a non-spoiler example).

Reading Shakespeare adaptations like Undiscovered Country always makes me think of that King experiment. Jesse's girlfriend Christine shows up and I spend the rest of the story thinking, "Ok, is she going to betray him? Go crazy and kill herself? What about her father, where is the Polonius character?" The great thing is that all or none of that might be true, and I have no idea. None of it *has* to be true. I haven't actually finished the book yet, so I have no idea which parts are and are not.

One interesting angle leaps right out at you from the first chapter -- this story is written in the voice of Jesse from ten years down the road, writing about what happened to him when he was younger. So, right off the bat, you know that whatever's about to happen, our Hamlet survives. How does this change the story? DOES this change the story? I haven't finished it yet, so I have no idea whether the rest is silence for our narrator or not.

Completely outside all of our Shakespeare baggage, this book works as the story of a young man coming to terms with the death of his father. By telling it from his perspective we see that *he* thinks he's the one in complete control while everyone else either falls to pieces around him (his mom), is just an innocent who doesn't understand (his girlfriend), or is in on it (uncle Clay). There are several great scenes where the author manages to knock Jesse entirely off his game and make him question just how much control over his situation he really has, and I love those scenes. At one point he bursts in on the sheriff with some "evidence" of Clay's guilt. The sheriff calmly hears him out, then asks patiently, "Do you feel better just getting that out, or do you need me to be the sheriff now?" When Jesse informs him that of course he needs to be the sheriff now, he learns very quickly that he's not the one making the rules here, and that everything is not going to go his way. The famous "Hamlet and Gertrude bedroom scene" also plays out similarly, where Jesse barges in with complete confidence about what he's going to say and what's going to happen next, and gets another that he is a child dealing with adults.

I've not finished the story, as I mentioned. So far I love it. I love that I have no idea how closely we'll follow the Hamlet story - whether Ophelia will go insane, whether her father will play a role, whether our Hamlet is still going to end up dead even though he's narrating the story. I can't wait to find out.

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Synetic Shakespeare

Imagine Shakespeare without the words.

Now go watch this video.

That looks like one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And it also gets to the theme of universality in Shakespeare's works. Someone who is familiar with The Tempest will recognize everything that happens in the clip - oh there's Stefano and Trinculo! Oh, Caliban looks cool. Yup, there's the scene where Prospero casts a spell on Ferdinand... But what if you haven't read that one? Then it's all on the physical acting ability of the cast to convince you of the story. Even if you "get" the story, are you any closer to Shakespeare? Or is it now a completely new work of art?

"Shakespeare" by Jaden Smith

Truthfully this story has little to nothing to do with Shakespeare, but it was all over the headlines recently so I feel obliged to at least open up the discussion.

Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith (both of whom starred in The Pursuit of Happyness) has released a new music video for his song, Shakespeare. Your first thoughts are probably the same as mine - what's this got to do with Shakespeare? Is there Shakespeare material in this? Go check it out, I'll wait.

Ok, did you watch? I'll be honest, I got about 19 seconds into it before I tried to give up. "The truth is Jaden Smith is probably the coolest making these jokers lose it"? Is that what he said? Are those supposed to be rhymes? The complete lack of facial expression or attempt at annunciation made me just completely bail out.

But then I decided to give it another chance. I don't have to like it to experience it. Maybe I'm just not the audience. I still want to figure out what it's got to do with Shakespeare. So I kept going.

He appears to call himself the "reincarnation of Shakespeare" at about 2:20 or so. The best I can figure that's the only Shakespeare connection. Other than that the song appears to be about the wonderful life of being Will Smith's kid (*), travelling the world while surrounded by beautiful women.

(*) Or maybe it's supposed to be that everybody loves him and wants to hang on him because of his mad rap skillz. But it's probably the Smith thing.

I did give it a chance. I still don't like it. It's not that I don't like this style of music - my regular playlist is loaded up with Eminem. I just don't like Jaden Smith's offering here. Other than his ability to speak very fast while slurring all of his words together, I don't see what it brings to the table. The beat is redundant, the rhymes are weak, and the lyrics are just a variation on "I got hoes in different area codes."

Oh my god .... maybe he's the reincarnation of Edward de Vere?

Romeo & Juliet Trailer

Let's talk about the new trailer that was released for Julian Fellowes' adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, starring Hailee Steinfeld (which we first reported back in 2011).

First of all, as far as trailers go, I really liked it. I think it's paced well, I think the soundtrack is excellent, and I think it does a good job of capturing what your typical audience knows of the "greatest love story ever told." Special note of attention to Paul Giamatti as Friar Laurence at 2:00, by the way.

Now, let's talk about the Shakespeare. This is not a true interpretation of the original source. Fellowes has gone off on his own in some places (and I'm not always sure how far or how frequently). I'm pretty sure Tybalt never said, "Romeo! Come settle with me, boy!" Nor did Romeo say something about "I have murdered my tomorrow." Is all the dialogue Fellowes' creation, and not Shakespeare's? Not necessarily. The trailer also has Juliet's "cut him out in little stars" speech, which appears to stray not too far from the original (although it is acted pretty poorly).

What do we think? Are you going to be in line for this one? It feels like it's going in the same bucket as the 1996 Romeo+Juliet did - namely, you either hate it as an interpretation of Shakespeare, or you love it for its attempt to bring Shakespeare to a modern young audience in the way that their receptive to. Personally I'm for that. If a movie like this comes out, and I hear random people talking about Shakespeare because of it? That's a win.

Drive By Earl of Oxford Jokes

I had no other place for these!

How many Earls of Oxford does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. Shakespeare does it and Oxford just takes the credit.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Earl of Oxford.
*shhhhhh! Maybe he'll think we're not home!*

Why did the Earl of Oxford cross the road?
He thought maybe people on the other side might actually believe he wrote Hamlet.

Anybody got more?

Review : Shakespeare Shaken

I enjoy the idea of Shakespeare as graphic novel. The medium allows a huge amount of interpretation, from how you edit (or rewrite) the text to how you represent your story visually. Then you need to decide whether you're actually retelling Shakespeare's story in this medium, or if instead you're merely drawing on Shakespeare for your inspiration and taking the story in a completely different direction.

Shakespeare Shaken, an anthology from Red Stylo Media, is firmly in the latter camp. Thirty "graphic works" are presented, each taking a slice of Shakespeare's work as inspiration to produce a wide range of work from single page vignettes to comic pieces to lengthy murder mysteries.

This is a pretty violent collection, I have to say that up front. I'm not normally a follower of graphic novels (if they're not Shakespeare) so I'm not sure what the standard is in this regard, but many of the stories I found uncomfortably gory with heads blown off and blood spattered over multiple panels. I thought some worked, some didn't. Is it an audience thing? The regular readers of a collection like this want their blood, so the artists deliver? I suppose that also explains all the nudity :)

There's a fair share of comedy as well. How about Falstaff as a professional wrestling manager? And I loved the idea of a Romeo and Juliet who survive the final act and are now struggling as a young dysfunctional couple (Romeo keeps texting Rosaline, and Juliet keeps pretending to kill herself to test whether Romeo will join her).

What I like is the amount of imagination that's gone into the whole "inspired by Shakespeare" premise. There's plenty of Hamlet/Macbeth/Romeo+Juliet to go around, but also a number of attempts at the sonnets, the Dark Lady, and even the authorship question. Some pieces rely heavily on original text, and some deal with the meta idea of Shakespeare as a person and a writer, taking place in his world rather than the world of his plays. A few appear to have nothing to do with Shakespeare or his works at all, and the reader is left to figure out where the inspiration came from. There's a science-fiction gladiator story that takes Sonnet 130 as its inspiration that I wanted to like, I just didn't understand it.

If I have one major disappointment with the collection it is not the blood and gore. I get that this is not for everybody. My problem is that many of the stories seem to stop so short I'm left wondering whether I skipped or missed some pages. A great example is the piece that would otherwise be my favorite, "Brave New World," which is told one page at a time and spread out through the rest of the book, like serialized installments. I liked the visual style, I liked the pacing, I liked how the story was progressing...and then it just stopped. I know I didn't miss anything because in this particular piece it said on every page 1/8, 2/8, 3/8 ... and I kept thinking "How is this story going to progress in just 8 pages?" Well, it doesn't. Not much.

There's a lot here, and I admit that I haven't had the attention span to read every single story yet. First I flipped through looking for those inspirations that interested me (such as The Tempest / Brave New World). Then I started working back and forth through different pieces, looking to see which would catch and keep my attention.

There's something for everyone in a collection like this. There's steampunk, robots, reality tv, murder mysteries, zombies...you name it. It's a little short-attention-span for my taste, but I suppose we need to think of it more as a sampler of each artist's work. Find the style and vision that works for you, then go hunt down more by that author?

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Review : So Long, Shakespeare!

When news came out a few weeks back about a new "Star Wars in the style of Shakespeare" book, Bardfilm and I were alerted to another author's existing effort in this space. Tom Brown's So Long, Shakespeare was pitched to me as a book about Star Wars crossed with the authorship question, and I made the author promise me that it ended the right way before I'd review it. True story. :)

I enjoyed the book, and there's at least one moment where I swore, loudly and repeatedly, at my car's stereo speakers as they played the audiobook at me, I was that upset with something that was said. That either says something about how well Brown knows how to push buttons, or how easy mine are to push.

The story starts with Joe Seabright, an obvious George Lucas clone, who made his fame and fortune penning five space opera films heralded the world over as the greatest space saga ever conceived. Legions of fans buy the merchandise, attend the conferences, and see his movies over and over again. His company JoeCo has invented new ways to film and present his movies, and his fortune has allowed him to build his own city, JoeTown. Every time one of his films come out he's a shoe-in for the best special effects award and best musical score, but the best picture award eludes him.

So far it screams George Lucas / Star Wars, and you don't even have to suspend your disbelief that much. Even when the story opens with Seabright in tears, so upset over yet again failing to win his Oscar, you can imagine Lucas doing the same thing.

Then it gets crazy. I'm not going to say you need to suspend disbelief for this one. You need to lock up disbelief in a glass case with David Blaine and Kris Angel and suspend it a half mile above New York City, without airholes, for the duration of this ride.

Everyone who works for Joe has an intervention to let him know that the weakest part of the stories has always been the writing. He sucks, worse than he could ever imagine. No fear, however! There's a solution. JoeCo has enough brainpower on staff that one of their scientists has managed to extract the "muse" gene from DNA and replicate its function (in pill form, no less). So you get the DNA of the person whose creative streak you wish to emulate, take your pill, and you can immediately write (or sculpt or paint...) in the style of that person.

Bring on the Shakespeare! Why not? The guy that made his fortune writing space battles naturally thinks that he's almost Shakespeare anyway, and just needs a little boost. Oh, of course you have to accept that in this world there's a DNA database of all the greatest people in history, Shakespeare included.

Let's just say the results do not go as expected, and it's not long before the authorship question (and an entire committee of people who've made it their lives' work to have the debate) comes up. In response to the DNA method of reproducing creativity comes a mathematical formula for measuring creativity, and a quest to find not merely a replica of history's greatest creative mind ... but the greatest *living* creative mind. Shakespeare vs ... who? [ Hey, Disbelief, how you doing up there in that cage? Can you breathe? Is David Blaine annoying you yet? ]

This is science fiction first and foremost, it's not Shakespeare scholarship, and you have to approach it that way. I found it fun. I did figure out the mystery before it was revealed, but there were plenty of times that I thought it was going to go one way and it didn't. Most importantly, it all works out. There are plenty of times when you'll think the author took the easy route, or is going to follow the story through to a particular conclusion, and you're almost always going to be wrong.

I still refuse to legitimize the authorship question, even after discussing it with the author (who is probably listening and may jump in on the comments :)). I did not come away from this book thinking, "Yes, I have new insight into the question." Nope. I was a Stratford man when I started that book, I was a Stratford man when one of the book's characters used the expression "Stratford half-wit" and I let out a stream of curses that only stopped when I reminded myself that this is a fictional character saying this, that no real people think that :), and I'm a Stratford man at the end. That doesn't mean it's not a fun book that I think Shakespeare geeks who are at least part science fiction geek would enjoy.

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Willie "Shakespeare" Joel's Greatest Hits

by Shakespeare Geek and Bardfilm

A Matter of Trusting Iago

Scenes from an Italian Mercantile

She's Always a Woman Dressed Like a Man To Me

Captain Jack Falstaff

Goodnight, Agincourt

We Didn't Start The Fire ( But A Cannon During Henry VIII May Have)

Bottle of Red, Bottle of Poison

Two Innocent Men of Verona

It's Still Iambic Pentameter To Me

You May Be Right, Hamlet May Be Crazy

I Love You Just The Way You Are (But I Love My Husband More)

Dreaming in Shakespeare (A Continuing Series)

I love it when you're so deeply involved with something that you start dreaming it. This often happens to people in my day job (writing software) where you spend so much of your waking time thinking in code that you dream in code. It is amazing. That reinforcement that you're so intensely focused on a subject that even your subconscious has gone that way? Great feeling.

Even more so when a Shakespeare dream shows up!

I've blogged about this phenomenon before (here in 2005, here in 2010 and here in 2012). Here's the latest installment in this series:

It's late, it's snowing, and I'm out on my back porch when I clearly hear what sounds like someone reciting Shakespeare. I try to place the sound and I see my neighbor walking around his yard (his back to me), definitely speaking what, in my dream, I recognize as "the crowd scene from Romeo and Juliet." Suddenly my neighbor turns around and I realize that he appears to be snowblowing his front yard (yes, his front yard, not his driveway or something) and speaking on a bluetooth headset to someone at the same time (while it is snowing). The snowblower is not making any noise, all I can hear is Shakespeare. He then wraps up with some sort of professorial something or other and I realize that he's been presenting on some sort of conference call. Shortly after, I wake up.

Upon waking my first thought is to capture what scene that was, but it's too late - it's already gone. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of dreaming to me, that I never dream in specifics. If I'm reading a book in a dream? I'll have the knowledge that I'm reading a book, but I never get specifics about seeing the words on the page. Same here. I have a very strong memory still of hearing my neighbor reciting what I clearly recognized as Romeo and Juliet, but for me to say "It was probably the opening where the Prince disperses the crowd" would be me trying to fit the dream to what I know to be the text, rather than any direct evidence that this was the scene.

My second thought is to wonder, "Ok, did I somehow hear some Shakespeare in my sleep and my brain inserted that into a dream?" I fall asleep with headphones (typically listening to the Pandora streaming service). But that hasn't happened -- I put the phone in "airplane mode" during the middle of the night so I don't stream music all night long that I can't listen to. My nightstand radio is not on, although it would be awesome if I had a device that randomly played Shakespeare without me telling it to.

So, I have no idea where this particular dream came from. I was speaking to that neighbor yesterday so that probably explains his presence. But everything else? No idea.

Tales from Shakespeare : Illustrated!

I'm always on the lookout for "children's" versions of the plays that don't lose the essence of the original or dumb it down to the point that my kids will barely realize that it's Shakespeare. So I was more than pleasantly surprised when Bardfilm sent me a scanned page out of Tales from Shakespeare by Marcia Williams.

Unfortunately I do not have pictures from inside the book (I don't feel that I have permission to republish the single scanned page that I do have), but I can point you to this other blog that reviewed this series, with pictures.

Imagine a simple novelization of the play, first of all. Maybe half a dozen small paragraphs per page. Now, for each paragraph, you get an illustration of what's going on. But wait, it gets better! Within the illustration, the characters are speaking lines from the original! Very cool way to do the whole "original text side-by-side with modern translation" thing.
But then it gets better! Decorating up and down the margins of each page are an audience, each sitting in their own box seat, shouting over the "performance". Sometimes it's just random color ("This is too spooky, tell me when it's over!" someone shouts from the side of Macbeth), or actual hints about context ("That's not Aliena, that's Celia in disguise!" is shouted at As You Like It).

When they arrived, my older geeklet jumped right in (to Antony and Cleopatra, no less!) "How do I read this?" she asked, overwhelmed by the amount of text on the page.

"Read the paragraph parts," I told her, "Like you're reading a story. The pictures will show you what's going on. Once you understand the story, you can see what they were saying to each other in the original Shakespeare."

"What about the people up and down the side?" she asked.

"They're there for hints," I told her. "As you read down the side, you may catch them asking the same questions that you're asking yourself, like how come the Duke doesn't recognize his own daughter, even if she is disguised, in As You Like It. You can ignore them if they're not helping."

She read A&C in a matter of minutes. I like that each book has seven plays, so there's lots of opportunity to experience plays they might otherwise never get to enjoy. Many times I'll find a single play done like this, or a "great tragedies" edition. In this volume alone we got Romeo and Juliet, Dream, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, Winter's Tale and The Tempest. When I write it out like that I realize that my kids know all of those stories, except Julius Caesar. ;) More Tales provides us with As You Like It, King Lear, Much Ado about Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night, Merchant, and Richard III. More there to work with.

I'm very glad I found these. The illustrations are nothing to write home about, but I'm very excited about the format.

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

WIN One Of The Beautiful Shakespeare Signature Series! FREE!

Loyal readers may remember a post I made last summer called "Illustrating Shakespeare with Paper" about the new "Signature Shakespeare" series from Barnes and Noble. Well the kind folks at Sterling Publishing (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes and Noble) were generous enough to send me all *4* different editions (Hamlet, Much Ado, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth) and I'M GIVING THEM AWAY!

I've got Romeo and Juliet here in front of me. These are serious volumes, hardcover, weighing in at almost 400 pages. These are the kind of books that make you think about the old days where you'd have an entire bookshelf with nothing but volumes of the encyclopedia. How cool would that be, just a shelf consisting of beautiful hardcover illustrated editions of all the plays? Want.

Do you know what these are? These are essentially textbooks you might carry around in support of your college class. There's a good 50 pages of introductory material to lead off, and then we dig patiently into the play itself, spread out with one page of notes/glossary for every page of text (where there's not enough to note, you get illustrations ;)) The scenes themselves are presented patiently, with ample wide space for easy reading. Act 3 Scene 1, as a random example, spreads itself out over 20 pages.

Over and above the ample notes distributed throughout the text, there's an additional "Longer Notes" section in the appendix, as well as essays on how the text has been edited over the years. (These are of course notes about a single edition, but I am assuming that the series all take a similar structure).

What catches everybody's eye, however, is the illustrations. It's not even fair to call them mere illustrations, because what they've done here is to take the artwork of Kevin Stanton and produce laser-cut multicolor versions that really have to be seen to be appreciated (there are images at the above link to the artist's web page). Haven't we all folded up a piece of paper, make a few cutouts, and produced snowflakes? Now imagine that a snip here and a snip there and when you unfold it you've got the balcony scene, or the nightingale scene, or the swordfight. Honestly I'm scared to keep these for myself, because I'd never let my children touch them. I do wish that they'd come up some some tougher stock for the cutouts, they feel as if they could rip at the slightest page turn.

Which poses a dilemma, because earlier I said that these would make perfect college textbooks. But the wear and tear that such use would put on them would almost certainly destroy the artwork. I almost want a coffee table book that truly showcases Stanton's work, something that I can put out for my guests to enjoy. That way I can feel comfortable about the textbook portion, flipping pages at will, making notes in the margins, without feeling like I'm destroying a piece of art.

HOW DO I WIN ONE?

As I said I have 4 books to giveaway. Since it is Shakespeare's Birthday today and I'm going to make several dozen posts, here's the rules:

Make a comment on any of today's (April 23) posts. The more comments you make, the more entries you can have into the contest (up to a max of 1 comment per post!) Since this contest no doubt will go up earlier in the day don't forget to come back and make more comments as more posts go up!
Email me with your username (so I can find your comments) and your preference for which book you'd like. I make no promises that I'll be able to satisfy first choices, so please provide your first and second choice.
Entries must be in the continental US, I'm afraid. As always I'm shipping these out of my own pocket, and this time in particular it's going to be a strain on ye olde piggy bank. These things are heavy!
Contest ends midnight eastern standard time on Sunday April 28 (which happens to be *my* birthday).
I'll choose 4 winners at random, and try my best to get everybody their first choice.

Any questions or clarifications please feel free to contact me! As always I must reserve the right to modify the contest in the event of any stupid mistakes, oversights or ambiguities on my part that require clarification. That's never been a problem in the past, though I feel obligated to say it each time.

Ok, we good? Get commenting!

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

The Master

When Rogert Ebert passed away, I found myself particularly touched when regular contributor JM signed off a comment with, "Say hello to The Master for us."

It got me thinking. What's Shakespeare to you? I don't mean that in a grand philosophical or religious way. I mean specifically what word do you use to describe your relationship to the bard? Is he your muse, your idol, your inspiration?

I don't know how to answer this question (which typically makes for the best questions). Shakespeare is my ... comfort? Doesn't do it justice, but that's close. I won't say muse or inspiration or anything like that because I do not look upon my own creative endeavors and think, "I wish I was more like Shakespeare."

Shakespeare is what I point to when I feel something and can't adequately express it myself. I know Shakespeare's been there, and has my back. Whether it's grief or romance or anger or sarcasm or ambition or wisdom or any other infinite emotions, I can pull from Shakespeare and think, "Yes, yes, there it is. Precisely."

When I say he is my comfort I do not mean it in the sense of, "I am trying to communicate with a person, and Shakespeare has saved my bacon (ha!) by making sure that I'm not at a loss for words." I mean, "I'm feeling something and I'm trying to explain those feelings to another person who may or may not understand what I'm feeling ... but I know that Shakespeare knew."

Why Are Some Plays Better Recognized Than Others?

I tagged this blog post because I wanted to see how seriously the author took the question. Is it one big self-fulfilling answer? Plays are popular because we learned them all in school, but we learned them in school because they are more popular? We recognize them because we've heard the quotes and seen the movies - but they're quotable because they're popular, not popular because they're quotable.

There doesn't seem to be a "right" answer. There are certainly many contributing factors:

* Some plays, just like some books and movies, are better than others. Everybody's seen Star Wars, but only hardcore George Lucas fans have sought out THX-1138. And before James Cameron had The Terminator, he had to deal with Piranha 2 : The Spawning.

* The reasons that some plays are taught more than others has nothing to do with their popularity. Julius Caesar, for instance, is often found in the school system primarily because there's no sex humor in it for teachers to deal with (unlike Romeo and Juliet).

* Some plays are harder to produce (be it on stage, or screen). Isn't Antony and Cleopatra famous for having literally dozens of characters onstage at a time?

I know that there's no single answer, but I wonder if one side contributes more to the equation than the other. There are certainly practical issues that cause some plays to be more accessible than others, which in turn will result in more people knowing about those plays, which will result in stronger reinforcement of references from those plays. That might be about 90% of the reason that we can all do large parts of Romeo and Juliet from memory. It's because we've been beaten over the head with it since high school.

So then what about King Lear? It's not as frequently read in high schools. You don't see as many movie adaptations. There is no balcony scene or dude dressed in black talking to a skull that stands out as the iconic scene from this one. But if you know what the play is at all, you're likely to agree that it's the Mt. Everest of Shakespeare's work.

I've always thought that (this will sound cheesy) Shakespeare comes to you when you're ready for it. Julius Caesar is an early starting point when students are already studying these real characters from ancient Rome. And oh hey look at that, Romeo and Juliet pops up when you're most likely to be your own lovestruck teenager. Hamlet and his existential crisis hits around college age when you ask your own "Why am I here?" questions. And Lear? Lear takes a lifetime to understand. I know that I couldn't appreciate it 20 years ago. Now, as a father (of daughters especially) I can begin to understand it. Only much later in my life as I approach my retirement and ultimate death will I see it from an even deeper angle. But there's no way that your average high school student will *get* that. Am I making sense?

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Pen Us A Play You're The Stratford Man

Stratford Man

by Willie "Shakespeare" Joel, Shakespeare Geek, and Bardfilm

It's a pretty good crowd at the Globe today

The groundlings aren't throwing their food.

It's William Shakespeare that they've all come to hear

When they want to see tamings of shrews.

Chorus:

Pen us a play you're the Stratford man

We'll hear a show tonight.

A comedy or maybe a tragedy,

When you write them they come out right.

Now Marlowe's a well known playwright

Who also might be a spy.

It's been rumored that he's writing your histories

But the thing is, he's already died.

And Oxford's a second-rate nobleman

Who really likes sheep—so I hear.

But one glance says he can't write poetry,

So forget about Edward de Vere.

Oh, la la la, di da da

La la, di da da da dum

Pen us a play you're the Stratford man

We'll hear a show tonight.

A comedy or maybe a tragedy,

When you write them they come out right.

Well, Burbage is theatre manager—

He also snags all the good parts—

And he’s half full of sack lying there on his back

Bitter cold, and quite sick at heart.

He says, “Will, can you do that soliloquy?

I’m not really sure if it’s there,

But it starts with ‘to be’ and says ‘to die; to sleep’

And it asks who would these fardels bear."

La la la, di da da

La la, di da da da dum

Pen us a play you're the Stratford man

We'll hear a show tonight.

A comedy or maybe a tragedy,

When you write them they come out right.

My Shakespeare, Rise!

If you want tributes to Mr. Shakespeare you need to start with Ben Johnson's "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us" :

TO draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
’Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind Affection, which doth ne’er advance
The truth, but gropes and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty Malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seem’d to raise.
These are as some infamous bawd or whore
Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.
I, therefore, will begin. Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;
I mean, with great but disproportion’d Muses.
For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers.
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe’s mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence, to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund’ring Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone, for the comparison
Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
Sent forth; or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm.
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joy’d to wear the dressing of his lines,
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of Nature’s family.
Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the Poet’s matter Nature be
His art doth give the fashion. And that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
(Such as thine are), and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses’ anvil, turn the same
(And himself with it), that he thinks to frame;
Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn!
For a good Poet’s made as well as born;
And such wert thou! Look how the father’s face
Lives in his issue; even so, the race
Of Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shines
In his well-turnèd and true-filèd lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance
As brandish’d at the eyes of Ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza, and our James!
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanc’d, and made a constellation there!
Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage;
Which since thy flight from hence hath mourn’d like night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light.

What's your favorite part? Every time I read it I spot something different. This year my eye is drawn, as you could perhaps imagine from my chosen subject line, "My Shakepeare, rise!" It feels to me like a testament to the Master's immortality, the idea that in death he became something even greater than he'd been in life. (Perhaps not what Mr. Jonson meant, but I don't claim it is).

Monday, April 22, 2013

Geeklet Explains Why The "Glossary Method" Fails

When my 6yr old spots a word he does not understand, he asks me what it means. No context, just the word. He then inserts my definition into the original sentence and tries to work it out. Two actual examples:

<watching "Despicable Me"> "Daddy, what does despicable mean?"
"It means the bad guy."
"So....The Bad Guy Me?"
"Kind of."

...

<wandering through Home Depot> "Daddy, what does depot mean?"
"Actually it's the place where the train stops."
"Oh, so Home Place Where The Train Stops?"

This is what I fear happens when students - particularly those that have already come into Shakespeare with that "I have no idea what this means and I never will" confusion - are given the text and a glossary and told to get started. You point one at "Not a whit. We defy augury. There's special providence in the fall of a sparrow..." and he pages and flips and goes back and forth and comes up with "Not a small amount. We defy interpretation of omens. There's special protection of God in the fall of a sparrow."

Is this helpful? Sure, he's a little closer to understanding what's going on. And, remember, I'm not talking about the students who already get this stuff who are deliberately using the glossary to aid in their understanding. I'm talking about the first timer who's been handed a text with a glossary.

I don't think that this method ever generates the "Aha!" moment you need, where you finally realize that Shakespeare's not speaking in a different language and doesn't need to be deciphered. You need to step back from individually understanding it a word at a time and look at the big picture. And then you end up with Hamlet saying to his friend, "Don't worry about it! I don't pay attention to that superstitious nonsense. God's got a controlling hand in even the most trivial thing, like a dying bird."

The "line by line translation into modern English" is hardly any better. You're just doing the work for them and saving the page flipping. You destroy the poetry, and end up with text that makes little sense because it has none of the natural flow you started with.

Shakespeare is not something to be "decoded" like a foreign language. You don't swap out one phrase for another, repeatedly, and expect the new version to make sense, anymore than you can do that with English into French back into English.

(For fun, I took that last paragraph and "babelfished" it, piping it through Google's English->French->Spanish->English translator, and got this:

Shakespeare is not something that is "decoded" as a foreign language. You do not have to re-word the other, on several occasions, and wait for the new version to make sense, nor can with English to French to English again.

I imagine that this is a little like what Shakespeare ends up sounding like to first timers relying too heavily on the glossary. Sure, it kind of makes sense? But it's more awkward than necessary.)

This year's Shakespeare Day Celebration is sponsored in part by Shakespeare Is Universal: Shakespeare truly is for everyone, and nothing demonstrates that sentiment better than his most famous quote of all, translated here into languages from around the world. In celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, show that you believe his works are just as relevant, powerful and important as they've ever been!

Review : The Wednesday Wars

Think back to when you were a child. Surely at one point or another we all dreamed the hero daydream, where bullies backed away from us in the halls, teachers and adults praised our genius, teammates carried us around on their shoulders after we singlehandedly won the big game. You know the drill. All that stuff that would never happen, we just hoped that maybe someday. I remember, and this will seriously date me, that I would someday appear on Johnny Carson because I was just so very precocious, and Johnny would be amazed at how smart I was at such a young age.

The Wednesday Wars plays out like a Shakespeare geek's version of the hero daydream. Our narrator, seventh-grader "Holling Hoodhood", has to read The Tempest ... and takes away from it the knowledge that most of Caliban's lines are Shakespearean curse words. So he spends the rest of the book muttering "toads...beetle...bats!" when he's angry at the situation, sometimes going so far as to shout "The red plague rid you!" at his enemies.

And you know what happens? Do the bullies of the school all point and laugh and call him an even bigger nerd, knock his books down and give him a wedgie? Oh no, patient reader! In this our hero's daydream the bullies think that these newfangled curses are cool, and it's only a matter of time before Shakespeare is heard up and down the hallways. I wish!

There's an even funnier scene when our hero needs a favor from a grownup, who just happens to be in charge of the upcoming Shakespeare show. "What I need," says the grownup, "What would really save the day? Is to find a 12year old boy that knows his Shakespeare!" Because, you know, that happens. :) And then there's the scene where he gets to play ball with the Yankees. Yeah.

Much of this story's structure has been told before. A middle school student growing up in the 60s, having to deal with the teacher that hates him, the bullies that want revenge after he "takes one out", an older sister who threatens death if he ever comes into her room....you know, the usual. If that's all it was, I'd have no interest in this book. It is still a young adult book, narrated in that voice, and I found it overly redundant in many points. It's cute in places (like when Holling's most pressing concern over his Shakespearean debut is the fact that his costume has feathers on the butt). But his obsession with these things, while right in character for a 12yr old, tried my patience on more than one occasion.

What makes this book special is Holling's relationship with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, who has him working through Shakespeare as part of a special extra assignment. There are bits in the beginning (as noted with Caliban's curses) where it's amusing to watch him get into Shakespeare, but it's not long before they're taking on bigger and more important issues like "The quality of mercy is not strained" from Merchant. All this is set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War (Mrs. Baker's husband is missing in action, and Holling's older sister is considering becoming a flower child).

It's here that we go from "hero's daydream" to "Yes, yes, I wish life was more like this." Everything that happens to Holling has happened and will continue to happen to all young adults at the stage of life. I'm jealous of him because he's got Shakespeare (and Mrs. Baker) by his side. I mean, come on, he takes a date to Romeo and Juliet ... and she likes it! In middle school!

All kidding aside there is a wonderful story being told here, in particular as the narrator's relationship with his sister evolves. I've heard that there might be a sequel in the works, and I'll definitely put that one on my list as well. I want to live vicariously through this kid.

Rocky Shakespeare III

What if Rocky Balboa and Clubber Lang beat the holy stuffing out of each other not with their fists, but in a Shakespeare slam? They're still in a ring, still dressed in boxing gear, and Mickey's still in Rock's corner screaming at him. There's just a whole lot more Shakespeare.

Watch about the first 5 minutes (you'll know when to stop). I was wondering how they were going to keep the bit up for almost 10 minutes and the answer is they don't. Not even close. It's like they got bored with it right in the middle and went off in an entirely different, and unfunny, direction. But I got a kick out of some parts in the first half. Mostly the Clubber Lang / Mr. T character (who throws down far too little Othello for my taste).

All plays are on the table. There'll be no calls for lines, and absolutely no sonnets. Is that clear?

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Your Shakespeare Geek Lives In Boston

I live just outside of Boston. No, I was not in town when the unthinkable happened. I did have family and friends there. My sister-in-law's brother (and his wife, whatever that makes her to me) were there. My daughter's 5th grade teacher was there. A parent from my daughters' Irish step dancing class was there. A cub scout father was there. My young coworkers have many friends at colleges throughout Boston, all of whom were there. To the best of my ability to track them, all are safe (although each of them, in turn, has friends and acquaintances who were affected more severely).

In an upcoming post you'll hear me refer to Shakespeare as my comfort. Shakespeare's words are what I turn to when I am unable to otherwise express what I might be feeling at any given time.

What words does Shakespeare have for Boston at a time like this? I'm honestly asking. I don't want grief over the fallen. I know that. I want something more, something that speaks to our strength, that we will rise up out of this chaos stronger than we were before.

Help me.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Shakespeare Day is Coming

I'm sure everybody knows we celebrate a very special day on April 23. I long ago got tired of alternately referring to it as Shakespeare's Birthday and The Day Shakespeare Died and decided to make it my own personal holiday. Around here we call it Shakespeare Day.

I celebrate by posting all day.

In 2009 I had 9 posts.

In 2010 I had 12.

In 2011 Shakespeare Day was a Saturday, which made it impossible to meaningfully celebrate online.

So I made up for it in 2012 with *25* posts.

I plan on breaking that record again this year. I've already begun queueing up the posts, and I encourage people to come back to the site frequently throughout the day because they will scroll into the archives rapidly at that rate and if the past is any indicator there'll be a whole lot of conversation going on in many different threads.

If you don't see me around between now and then it's because I'm catching up on my old requests, queuing up new posts, thinking about new topics, and researching interesting links. If you've ever wanted to get a link in front of me, hint hint, now's the time to do it.

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Since June 2005, dedicated to proving that Shakespeare makes life better.

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