Oh, is that what "Roman fool" means?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070831/ap_on_fe_st/odd_et_tu_brutus A man playing Brutus paused and excused himself, saying “I seem to have stabbed myself” in Aspen during an outdoor performance of “Scenes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar” on Wednesday. “Actors normally don’t use real knives…but I hadn’t thought an actor might stab himself,” the director said. Brutus was taken to the hospital by Portia (nice wife) for stitches.  Who knows, maybe while she’s there she can be treated for the whole “swallow’d fire” thing.

Shakespeare Comes To McDuffie. How Quaint!

http://mirror.augusta.com/stories/083007/com_141764.shtml I’m sorry, maybe I’m the only one that finds this article amusing.  It’s about the director for a little community theatre somewhere in Southtown (it never says the state — South Carolina, maybe?) putting on some Shakespeare. It starts out with a quote from The Tempest, but they’re actually doing Midsummer’s.  Perhaps the author could have started out with “What fools these mortals be” instead? 🙂 Reasons why they chose this play (direct from the article):

  • Since it’s Shakespearean, it’s public domain and she doesn’t have to pay royalties.
  • It’s a comedy.
  • “It really hadn’t been done before around here, so people wouldn’t be too sick of it.”
  • It was a favorite of Mr. Holubar, a college friend of hers, who died their freshman year.

(So glad that the #1 reason is the royalty thing, and the last one mentioned is the whole “honoring a dead friend” thing :)) I like how the article quotes the Washington Post, that Dream is “filled with love and laughter, mischief and matrimony and a whole lot of magic spells.”  It really does give you the feeling that these people have never actually seen a Shakespeare play before. Perhaps funniest of all, of course, is that the town is called “McDuffie” and nobody saw fit to pun on that.  Just imagine if they’d done Macbeth?  Everytime somebody mentions the name on stage, the audience could scream like a rock concert: “Lay on, Macduff!” “WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, wait, he’s not talking to us.  NEVER MIND!” (The entire plot of the 1980’s movie Porky’s II revolves around the conservative southerners trying to shut down a school Shakespeare production, which I believe is also Midsummer.  There’s a classic battle between principal and priest comparing who had more dirty words, Shakespeare (“what, with my tongue in your tail?”) or the Bible (something something book of Solomon).  But for the life of me I can’t find anything online. )

Summarizing Sonnets The *Right* Way

Found via Samizdat blog, this e-book entitled Threading Shakespeare’s Sonnets makes me wishI could run around to all of those other sites on the web that claim to do a paraphrase / summary of each sonnet and say, “No, you fool, this is how you do it.”  Instead of trying to paraphrase word for word, Professor Bennett instead starts a conversation about what Shakespeare is trying to accomplish in the whole – the “threads of thought”, so to speak.  Most of the commentary is in the form of questions, backed up by references to the text.  What you end up with is a commentary that assumes you already know what you’re talking about, while at the same time reminding you.  Doesn’t treat you like you’re stupid, in other words. Example (from Sonnet 17, a favorite of mine): Here he looks to the future and the possible survival of the youth despite all-powerful time. Initially he questions what “the world” will think. Will it believe the speaker’s account of the youth’s worthiness (“high deserts,” l. 2)? If there are doubts, heaven (which by rights is more just than time or the world) knows that the speaker’s verses are like a tomb or monument that conceals the youth’s real life by not showing half his good qualities. (Note the change from the treatment of the grave and tomb in Sonnets 1 and 4).
After this pat on his own back, the speaker reveals more concern with appearances. He praises the physical beauty of the youth, especially his face and eyes (which will later prove to be deceptive)….
Also nice is the regular reference back to common themes (threads) in the other sonnets. The work is presented as PDF / ebook, rather than HTML, but I’m not sure why he could not have chosen to dynamically link such references.
Still, an excellent resource and I’m glad I found it.  Go browsing for your favorite sonnet and see what it has to say.  (Rats, I’m a little disappointed in the short treatment that 130 gets!)

My Plan Is Working

Today I heard my 5 yr old singing at the lunch table.  Soon, her 3 yr old sister joined her.  This is a common occurence. What they were singing, however, caught my attention.  They were singing “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”. I said, “Katherine, what did you just say?” so fast that she thought she was in trouble.  “It wasn’t bad, sweetie, it was a good thing.  I wanted to hear you say it again.” “I was singing Shall I compare thee,” she said like she didn’t fully understand the significance.  Because, well she doesn’t.  🙂 They know that line because it is the ringtone on my phone.  My 3yr old calls it “The song your phone sings”.  My 5yr old knows it as Shakespeare.  I am anxiously awaiting the day that they can recite even more of it.  I realize the words mean nothing to them, but the memorization is a powerful tool.  After all, they can both do the Catholic Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary, even though most of the words are gibberish to them. If one of them manages a full stanza, I’ll make sure to record and post it for posterity :). Anybody needs me, I’ll be over here beside myself.