shakespeare

[Corpsey]

What did the bartender say to shakespeare when shakespeare misbehaved in his bar?

was I e'er this young?

 

[Corpsey]

Read 'Twelfth Night' this week and I give it an A.

I've started 'The Merchant of Venice' and so far I give it a B, but I'm only on Act II.

I never finished it.

 

[IdleRich]

What's a good place to start with this fella?

I thought that I had said this before but I can't find it in this thread so maybe not (if I've said it elsewhere then apologies). But, a few years ago, I saw this performance of Macbeth for a load of primary school students. They had kinda adapted it to be for kids, but really they hadn't changed it that much, just cut or shortened a few scenes (cos probably you can't expect them to sit there for three hours plus). Amazingly they kept the language pretty much as in the original and all those blockbuster soliloquys and lines were there just as Willy had intended and they seemed to land with real effectiveness on the children just as they ought with adults.
They did it with such enthusiasm and over-acting and, yeah, maybe a few little gimmicks (I think that they had a few of them as kinda extras and background stuff who had to shout out catchphrases or whatever in response to certain lines) but the whole group was absolutely caught up in it, watching it with concentration and real excitement right to the end.
Of course the way that they did it had been tweaked by people experienced in the field to make it more exiting and so on, and it was done by a really fucking good group of people. But the point is... well, I 'm not sure exactly what the point is. I think it's either a) Macbeth is one that can be readily grasped and enjoyed by primary kids if it's presented with the right amount of zest and enthusiasm so why not start with that one or b) any of the half-decent ones can be appreciated and enjoyed by primary school kids so just pick one of the ones you've heard of.
Honestly, as a guess, I would say it's most likely b) but if you pick Macbeth then it satisfies the conditions of both a) and b) so it's bound to work, plus for me, it's really one of my favourites - so what have you got to lose?

 

[IdleRich]

Also, i remember when I was a kid Mum would say stuff like "Double double toil and trouble" while she was mixing up a cake or whatever and "By the pricking of my thumbs, something evil this way comes" for some reason or other and these lines really fascinated me. Maybe she quoted other plays too but the lines from Macbeth .seemed to leap out at me somehow and stick with me.

 

[jenks]

I thought that I had said this before but I can't find it in this thread so maybe not (if I've said it elsewhere then apologies). But, a few years ago, I saw this performance of Macbeth for a load of primary school students. They had kinda adapted it to be for kids, but really they hadn't changed it that much, just cut or shortened a few scenes (cos probably you can't expect them to sit there for three hours plus). Amazingly they kept the language pretty much as in the original and all those blockbuster soliloquys and lines were there just as Willy had intended and they seemed to land with real effectiveness on the children just as they ought with adults.
They did it with such enthusiasm and over-acting and, yeah, maybe a few little gimmicks (I think that they had a few of them as kinda extras and background stuff who had to shout out catchphrases or whatever in response to certain lines) but the whole group was absolutely caught up in it, watching it with concentration and real excitement right to the end.
Of course the way that they did it had been tweaked by people experienced in the field to make it more exiting and so on, and it was done by a really fucking good group of people. But the point is... well, I 'm not sure exactly what the point is. I think it's either a) Macbeth is one that can be readily grasped and enjoyed by primary kids if it's presented with the right amount of zest and enthusiasm so why not start with that one or b) any of the half-decent ones can be appreciated and enjoyed by primary school kids so just pick one of the ones you've heard of.
Honestly, as a guess, I would say it's most likely b) but if you pick Macbeth then it satisfies the conditions of both a) and b) so it's bound to work, plus for me, it's really one of my favourites - so what have you got to lose?

My experience with kids is that they get more than they are given credit for - Shakespeare's audience didn't all read Montaigne, most couldn't read at all. I firmly believe it is the power of the visual metaphor in Shakespeare - he gets us to literally see what they are saying and once this is connected to action (hence my banging on about seeing it rather than just reading it) then it flies. Macbeth is pretty much bomb proof - hence it is regularly a GCSE text.

 

[catalog]

i quite wanna read hamlet after reading ulysses, i've never read a shakespeare play. another one that was unfortunately ruined for me a bit at school

 

[Corpsey]

I find reading along to Shakespeare plays a good way to approach them. Obviously quality of performance differs (and interpretation too) but it's a quick way to make things more comprehensible from the POV of which character is which etc.

I think beyond the density and obscurity of some of the language what makes Shakespeare a little challenging to read is the extremely minimal stage directions. He never tells you, for example, if a character is saying something "angrily". Sometimes characters will speak in response to some sort of action that hasn't been flagged up.

It's not hard to figure these things out, but you sometimes do have to figure them out. Listening to/watching a performance does some of that work for you.

 

[IdleRich]

My experience with kids is that they get more than they are given credit for - Shakespeare's audience didn't all read Montaigne, most couldn't read at all. I firmly believe it is the power of the visual metaphor in Shakespeare - he gets us to literally see what they are saying and once this is connected to action (hence my banging on about seeing it rather than just reading it) then it flies. Macbeth is pretty much bomb proof - hence it is regularly a GCSE text.

Yeah that's exactly my experience.... right down to doing Macbeth at school in fact.

 

[version]

Titus in Space

Steve Bannon’s obsession with Shakespeare’s goriest play. Here’s the pitch: Titus Andronicus in outer space. You might have forced a smile, sitting through a meeting with Steve Bannon during his Hollywood years in the early nineties. Today, as Trump’s chief advisor, the world’s...

www.theparisreview.org

 

[version]

Having only ever seen him after the booze had taken its toll, I'd never realised how sharp O'Toole was.

 

[Murphy]

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper that did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.

Underland

From the best-selling, award-winning author of Landmarks and The Old Ways, a haunting voyage into the planet’s past and future. Hailed a...

www.goodreads.com

 

[Corpsey]

Read 'Twelfth Night' this week and I give it an A.

I've started 'The Merchant of Venice' and so far I give it a B, but I'm only on Act II.

Need to read a Shakey or two soon. Thinking of Troilus and Cressida and Romeo and Juliet.

 

[jenks]

Just about to start teaching Julius to Y9, one of my favourite times in the classroom. Like Macbeth it’s bombproof and invariably a big hit.

 

[Corpsey]

I was listening to a version of that with James Mason in it earlier on Spotify.

 

[luka]

this is GENIUS

 

[...]

I've always wished I'd been able to see Peter O' Toole's Macbeth:

The Observer observed that “the chances are he likes the play, but O'Toole's performance suggests that he is taking some kind of personal revenge on it.”

Wrapping up the weighty parcel of criticism, the Sunday Times told its readers: “Don’t trust those reviews. The spectacle is far worse than has hitherto been made out; a milestone in the history of coarse acting.”

O’Toole was well aware of the bad luck traditionally associated with a work that many actors would refer to only as “the Scottish play”. He insisted in rehearsals and interviews that the title of the play should not be mentioned.

According to Leonard Downie, writing in the Washington Post: “It turned out that O'Toole's fears were well-founded. During the first night he and Lady Macbeth walked into a wall on stage, a sword was bent in a clumsy, unintentionally comic sword fight, and the audience roared with laughter at what were supposed to be shocking scenes of Macbeth and Banquo's ghost dripping and spurting blood.”

In exchange for a nominal salary O’Toole had been given complete control of the production and early on he told Timothy West, Artistic Director of the Old Vic at the time, that he intended to use inflatable scenery (which turned out to be made from black dustbin bags).

West later recalled: “The time came for a demonstration and the curtain rose to reveal a dimly lit collection of black plastic phalluses swaying in the wind. Our ears were assailed by the noise of an air compressor, which was like a giant vacuum cleaner operating at full-tilt. The general effect was of a blustery day during a refuse collection strike.”

That idea was abandoned but West’s doubts and fears remained. When the production got under way he joined the chorus of criticism and said in an interview: "I'm afraid I have to disown it.”

Tragedy of Macbeth Brings Fits of Laughter

Lawrence of Arabia star Peter O’Toole returned to the stage on this day playing Shakespeare’s Macbeth in London. Critics savaged the production but the fans?

www.onthisday.com

 

[boxedjoy]

I always wished Romeo & Juliet had had a happy ending and I was so glad when Taylor Swift re-wrote the plot in "Love Story" so it had one

 

[sus]

Debating reading Othello and Tempest. Othello seems juicy. But the Tempest is a pastoral! Big conundrum

 

[luka]

ive never managed to get through Othello i find it too upsetting. as a psycho you'll probably love it. read the tempest.

 

[Corpsey]

Othello is so great.

I could be wrong but unlike the other tragedies it has this sense of dread hanging over it as you see this one horrible thing unfolding like clockwork.