Shakespeare

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I guess we all have different ideas about what's funny.

Lear's and Kent's overreactions do get a laugh out of me every once in a while... In general I like Lear the least of the "Great four tragedies". I actually like Timon of Athens (which possibly wasn't entirely from his pen) and Two gentlemen of Verona, which are often neglected. I'm bit unsure whether The Winter's tale counts as neglected, but in any case I like it very much.

[Karl Henning]

I guess we all have different ideas about what's funny.

Funny you should say that . . . .

[jochanaan]

Funny you should say that . . . .

Everyone thinks he's a wit.  Karl actually is.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Everyone thinks he's a wit.  Karl actually is.

Touchstone in "As You Like It" to the simpleton William, whose girlfriend Touchstone is stealing from under his very nose:

TOUCHSTONE: Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?
WILLIAM: Five and twenty, sir.
TOUCHSTONE: A ripe age. Is thy name William?
WILLIAM: William, sir.
TOUCHSTONE: A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here?
WILLIAM: Ay, sir, I thank God.
TOUCHSTONE: 'Thank God;' a good answer. Art rich?
WILLIAM: Faith, sir, so so.
TOUCHSTONE: 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
WILLIAM: Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
TOUCHSTONE: Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying, 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'

[SimonNZ]

One of my favorite bits of humour in Shakespeare - Harry Hotspur brings Owen Glendower down a notch in Henry IV, pt.1:

GLENDOWER
      At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets, and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward

HOTSPUR
   Why, so it would have done
At the same season if your mother's cat
Had but kittened, though yourself had never been born.

GLENDOWER
I say the earth did shake when I was born.

HOTSPUR
And I say the earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose as fearing you it shook.

GLENDOWER
The heavens were all on fire; the earth did tremble.

HOTSPUR
O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseas—d nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam earth and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

(done particularly well in the Hollow Crown series, I thought - along with the rest of Hotspurs bits, and in fact everything else, except maybe the Falstaff)

[(poco) Sforzando]

Great stuff, that. Actually my favorite exchange in that scene comes a little later:

GLENDOWER
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

Of course, Glendower's failure to appear at the Battle of Shrewsbury (whether deliberate or not) is a major factor in the rebels' defeat. My own favorite filmed versions of the Henry IV-V plays, besides Orson Welles's incomparable "Chimes" (with Gielgud as Henry IV), are the largely uncut Globe Theater productions with Roger Allam as Falstaff and Jamie Parker as Prince Hal. There's also a good older BBC set from 1960 called The Age of Kings that features a young Sean Connery as Hotspur. Agree that the Hollow Crown Falstaff is pretty lame.

[SimonNZ]

There's also a good older BBC set from 1960 called The Age of Kings that features a young Sean Connery as Hotspur.

I've had Age Of Kings sitting at home unwatched for a while now - I'll have to try and make the time.

I knew Connery was in it, but didn't realise he was Hotspur.

[SimonNZ]

Has anyone read James Shapiro's 1599?

I've heard good things and have had it at home unread for far too long now, but might have to put it to the top of the pile as I've just been shown by the Faber rep the follow-up 1606:

[(poco) Sforzando]

Has anyone read James Shapiro's 1599?

I've heard good things and have had it at home unread for far too long now, but might have to put it to the top of the pile as I've just been shown by the Faber rep the follow-up 1606:

He's an entertaining writer, and skillfully merges history with literary criticism. To get the four plays he wants to talk about into one book, he makes the somewhat dubious argument that all were written in 1599. But this is a more interesting book than his Contested Will, which I consider a waste of time answering the silly claims of the non-Stratfordians. I have yet to see the Lear book.

[Ken B]

He's an entertaining writer, and skillfully merges history with literary criticism. To get the four plays he wants to talk about into one book, he makes the somewhat dubious argument that all were written in 1599. But this is a more interesting book than his Contested Will, which I consider a waste of time answering the silly claims of the non-Stratfordians. I have yet to see the Lear book.

I quite liked Contested Will, not because the non Stratfordians need answering, but because of the interesting history and obsession. Plus the robust defence of literature as art. An unpopular opinion these days.

[Karl Henning]

I enjoyed Contested Will, myself.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I quite liked Contested Will, not because the non Stratfordians need answering, but because of the interesting history and obsession. Plus the robust defence of literature as art. An unpopular opinion these days.

Understood, and enjoyably written as Mr. Henning states. But the same ground has been covered by others elsewhere, and as you imply, to give the anti-Stratfordians that much attention is to take them more seriously than they merit, somewhat like giving so much attention to creationists, global warming deniers, anti-vaccinationists, JFK conspiracy theorists, and Donald Trump.

[Karl Henning]

An outtake from Richard III (not really, all right)

http://www.youtube.com/v/o5LkDNu8bVU

[Ken B]

e them more seriously than they merit, somewhat like giving so much attention to creationists, global warming deniers, anti-vaccinationists, JFK conspiracy theorists, and Donald Trump.

I am a Trump-denier myself. He doesn't really exist. He cannot.

[SimonNZ]

And better still, the superb Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows, about a struggling Canadian Shakespeare festival, one 6-episode season each on Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear. Again easily available on Amazon, with 159 out of 177 reviewers giving it 5 stars. I'd give it 6.

Just got around to following up on this recommendation, and after the first disc (three episodes) I'm enjoying it enormously, much more than I expected to (apart from what must me the single most annoying theme tune in the history of television), so thanks for the heads-up!

Do you know if there exist any videos or dvds of the lead actor Paul Gross in an actual Shakespeare production?

[Ken B]

Just got around to following up on this recommendation, and after the first disc (three episodes) I'm enjoying it enormously, much more than I expected to (apart from what must me the single most annoying theme tune in the history of television), so thanks for the heads-up!

Do you know if there exist any videos or dvds of the lead actor Paul Gross in an actual Shakespeare production?

Huge huge plus one for Slings and Arrows.

[kishnevi]

Reading  James Shapiro's 1599 now.
And for no discernible reason the memory of this came into view.

Anyone else read this in their misspent youth?

[(poco) Sforzando]

Just got around to following up on this recommendation, and after the first disc (three episodes) I'm enjoying it enormously, much more than I expected to (apart from what must me the single most annoying theme tune in the history of television), so thanks for the heads-up!

Just wait until you get to the next two seasons; the theme tunes are even more annoying.

[Karl Henning]

And for no discernible reason the memory of this came into view.

Anyone else read this in their misspent youth?

Not that title, but two other by the same author.

[SimonNZ]

Finally got around to Nicol Williamson's film of Hamlet, which I'm sure I'd heard good things about, but which thoroughly disappointed me.

I feel this adaptation might have worked better as audio-only, a talking book or a radio play because everyone spoke well (though with a wide range of undisguised accents), but with a strange lack of any change in facial expression, movement or gestures to convey emotion or emphasis. Worst of all were the Gertrude and Ophelia, though one might argue their roles were so cut as to have little chance of showing any actual character development. Anthony Hopkins seems half-amused at being allowed to just phone it in the whole way through. My favorite cut was when Polonius (once again played as a bumbler, dammit) tells Reynaldo to spread bad rumous about his son Laertes....and then nothing - no explanation.

And having the ghost as just a bright light with UFO noises was a truly bizarre and crippling misstep, and can only detract from empathising with Hamlet's mental state and grief for a real father (and Nicolson's choice of using his own voice for the ghost only reinforces this). Probably the oldest Hamlet I've yet seen, as well.

Interestingly all the way through I kept thinking how much better numerous moments were done in the Branagh version, so I may watch that again in the near future.




Also just noticed the original theatrical poster, and can't decide which is funnier: the Nosferatu pose or the "from the author of Romeo and Juliet" ad-line: