MetaFilter posts tagged with Shakespeare

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski

Eideteker — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:40:44 -0800

The Big Lebowski as written by Shakespeare.

That is the question... yeah!

fearfulsymmetry — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:09:22 -0800

Actor Brian Cox gives an acting masterclass on Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy to a young student (SLYT)

Alleyn and company

verstegan — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:32:06 -0800

The papers of Edward Alleyn, the Elizabethan actor-manager, are now available online in a digital edition. Most of what we know about the London theatre in the age of Shakespeare comes from this archive; highlights include the only surviving example of a 'part' or script written out for an actor in an Elizabethan play (image) and the contract for building the Fortune playhouse in 1600, just a year after the building of the Globe. Sadly, the archive doesn't include any manuscripts relating to Shakespeare, because Alleyn worked for the Admiral's Men, one of the two main theatre companies in London, whereas Shakespeare worked for the competition (the Lord Chamberlain's Men), though that didn't stop the nineteenth-century forger John Payne Collier from faking a few documents of his own to fill the gap.

If rhythm be the food of love, play on

iamkimiam — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:12:44 -0800

The ASL Shakespeare Project brings us Twelfth Night, fully translated into American Sign Language (ASL) "American Sign Language (ASL) has often been called "kinetic sculpture," fusing movement and gesture to articulate language in space. With artists and scholars increasingly turning their attention to the representation and translation of gestures, this project joins two distinctly different cultures: the hearing world, with Shakespeare as one of its greatest poets, and the visual/gestural language of the Deaf." Peter Novak, project director for the ASL translation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, has devoted over a decade to this endeavor. Be sure to fully explore the main link to the ASL Shakespeare Project, where you can learn about some of the challenges* involved in an ASL translation, including homonyms, staging, songs and vernacular. Also, the Resources section contains a multitude of links, even lesson plans for students of ASL or Shakespeare, or both! Also, more from the Yale project page: Verse and Classifiers. *Click on Project, then Challenges (on the left sidebar)

"Richard may lie to all the other characters but within his solo speeches he always tells the truth."

kirkaracha — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:32:17 -0800

"So, 'now'--ooh, what a wonderful first word, right in the beginning of the play. 'Now.' Not in the past. Not a history play. Now." Ian McKellen breaks down Richard III. McKellen's web site has an annotated screenplay of his 1995 movie, and a brief essay on playing Richard III. To Prove a Villain on the historical king.

Shakespeare in music

Matthias Rascher — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:25:12 -0800

Amazing to see how differently Shakespeare's work has been dealt with in music: there is Jerry Lee Lewis doing a blues on Othello. David Gilmour, former Pink Floyd lead singer, guitarist and songwriter, turned Sonnet 18 into a touchingly beautiful ballad. The Metal Shakespeare Company wrote a heavy metal song about Hamlet (III/1), "To bleed or not to bleed". And yes, there is Shakespeare rap, too: William Shatner (the very same!) raps about Caesar and British rapper Akala thinks he is a reincarnation of the bard. Last but not least, the Beatles tried their luck at Shakespeare, too (no music this time): they did a skit on the famous Pyramus and Thisbe scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream (very rare footage!).

We are such stuff: As dreams are made on

ocherdraco — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:32:00 -0800

"Theatre," says Professor Lorraine Moller, Artistic Director of Rehabilitation Through the Arts at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, in her foreword to Laurence Tocci's The Proscenium Cage [pdf], "may well be one of the few antidotes to the de-humanizing climate of prisons." The use of theater in prisons has many forms: from projects designed to let prisoners tell their own stories as shown in the Austrian film "Gangster Girls" (trailer in German), to the elaborate, high-concept costume dramas of Italy's Compagnia della Fortezza. Some base their work on Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, others on Moreno's Psychodrama, but many programs use a more direct approach: put on classic plays, and let the play do the illuminating. That's the approach of Shakespeare Behind Bars, the troupe at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange, Kentucky. Watch the entirety of Shakespeare Behind Bars, a compelling 2005 documentary that follows the troupe for a season as they produce a production of The Tempest. Other programs, books, and articles of interest:

"Prison Drama," an article in the Chicago Reader that profiles the Geese Theater, a US troupe.¹
The Geese Theatre in the UK
"Notes on Prison Theater in Northern Uganda" (Part 2, Part 3)
Prison Performing Arts in St. Louis, Missouri
Direct Action, a program at Ramsey County Correctional Facility in Minnesota
The TiPP Project in Manchester, UK
Theatre in Prison: Theory and Practice edited by Michael Balfour
The Proscenium Cage: Critical Case Studies in U.S. Prison Theatre Programs by Laurence Tocci
Prison Theatre: Perspectives and Practices edited by James Thompson

¹An excerpt:

"There's a violence epidemic going on in this country," John Bergman sighs at the end of a long and exhausting day. "There's a wholesale trade of guns and knives at street level; there's talk of race hatred again. It's not getting better, and something's got to be done. . . . It's very easy to blame society. There's poverty and racism and outrageous government indifference to alleviating the conditions that breed crime. We can't do anything about that. But we're talking about people who have been self-traumatized as well as socially traumatized. Guys seduce themselves with criminal trickery. They learn how to lie and cheat and steal. That can be confronted. I'm willing to put out energy to push people to take a risk and say it might be possible. I don't get depressed. I love what I do. And I learn. I see what those men inside do and what we make together. It comes from them. These fuckers teach me tremendously."

There was good sport in its making

Ndwright — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:25:35 -0800

The Royal Shakespeare Company presents King Lear, starring Ian McKellen, directed by Trevor Nunn, adapted for broadcast and available in its entirety online. Noteworthy aspects of this adaptation include a novel end for the Fool (played by Doctor Who #7 Sylvester McCoy), an ironic fate for Edmund, and, omitted from the broadcast version, nudity (SFW) Interview with McKellen on playing the "Everest" of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Sonnets Turn 400

Joe Beese — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:59:16 -0800

400 years ago today, Thomas Thorpe entered into the Stationers' Register a book titled "Shake-Speares Sonnets". However, Clinton Heylin argues that - like Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - the Sonnets were never intended for a wide audience. "In both cases, they were killing time and at the same time dealing with huge personal issues in a private way, which they never conceived of coming out publicly."

a semi-staged production of Shakespere's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Mendelsohn's incidental music

feelinglistless — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:42:19 -0800

Last night, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a semi-staged production of Shakespere's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Mendelsohn's incidental music. Now they've put a video of the performance up on their website. Sorry if this isn't available in your area. It was actually broadcast on television last night, but only on the BBC's digital red button service something which was hardly publicised so this is a handy catch up which will be available to the end of the year. I think it's one of the best productions of the play I've seen. It constantly subverts the expectations and implications of what a 'semi-staged' production can do and there are many wonderful moments developed from out expectation of how the cast are going to handle particular aspects of the play in a venue what should be relatively hostile venue to this kind of work.

Iambic Petameter

william_boot — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:11:59 -0800

Look at this lovely hamster.

in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:58:29 -0800

Should you find yourself wandering around the city of Leiden, the Netherlands sometime, you may notice some curious markings on the city's walls.

These Muurgedichten ("Wall Poems") adorn many of the town's streets (clickable map), and many English-language poets are represented: one John Keats, for instance, inside a bookshop; Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings, W.B. Yeats, some guy called William Shakespeare, or this ode to Charlie Parker by American William Waring Cuney. But poets of many other languages and nationalities can be found throughout the city. Just to name a few: Charles Baudelaire (French), Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish - Argentina), Herman Gorter (Dutch). And being native to this here neck of the woods I would be remiss if I were to neglect mentioning some of my favourites: apart from the Cummings one mentioned above, my hero of Dutch poetry J.C. Bloem's appropriately overgrown tribute to Paul Verlaine; and Guillaume Apollinaire's Dadaist/Surrealist "Loin du Pigeonnier" ("Far From the Dovecote"). Lastly, Muurgedichten collects manifestations of public poetry found elsewhere under its "Not in Leiden" heading. I couldn't resist a selection:

Humorous medical one in Brazil (Portuguese).

Martin Carter (Netherlands Antilles, English)

Excerpt from JFK's inaugural address (Boston, English)

Childrens Rights (Zanzibar, English)

Policemans Prayer (Virginia, US, English)

Short, brilliantly framed Byron quote (Utrecht, NL, English)

No man is illegal (Sittard, NL, Dutch)

I am a poet. Should I want the rose to bloom, the rose will bloom. (Vlaardigen, NL, Dutch)

You'll Think, What's That Poet Doing (Monnickendam, NL, Dutch) You'll think, what's that poet doing In our alley On our wall In our town When he's not from 'round here. To be frank: so do I. But still, now you're looking at me. I can talk to you, say That I am happy you're looking at me And then you might for instance say "likewise". We wouldn't have done so otherwise.

To Sleep Perchance to Dream

grapefruitmoon — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 08:18:43 -0800

To Sleep Perchance to Dream : an exhibition of 17th century sleep-related paraphernalia at the Folger Shakespeare Library offers insight into attitudes towards sleep and dreams. Insomnia? Try eating some lettuce.

Ending up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must.

The Card Cheat — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:35:59 -0800

The day will come when the words of Shakespeare are no longer known. Roger Ebert looks back on a long career and waxes philosophical.

Cocktayle Napkinf

Rumple — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:10:18 -0800

A retro set of cocktail napkins showing Eisenhower-era damsels and drunkards, with captions by The Bard. via

Porn adaptations

sveskemus — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:06:30 -0800

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Now With Hot Girl-on-Girl Action. [NSFW!] Also, The Pound of Flesh [NSFW], on Shakespeare Porn.

Twas mine, tis his, and has been slave to thousands

Horace Rumpole — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:48:09 -0800

How did this man end of with a copy of the most iconic book in the English language? He says he got it from a friend in Cuba, but the Folger Library has identified it as the copy of Shakespeare's First Folio stolen from Durham University in 1988. Turns out that stealing the book is much easier than selling it.

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Kattullus — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:40:34 -0800

William Shakespeare wrote some of the world's finest sonnets. The website shakespeares-sonnets.com is a fine place to start delving into the poems. Here you can see scans of the first edition of The Sonnets as printed by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. If you wish there were more sonnets by Shakespeare, your jones might be eased by the Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up, which lets you remix them according to taste. And finally there's Shakespeare in Tune, a site where Jonathan Willby recites each of the 154 sonnets following a short improvisation on a German flute.

Not where he eats, but where he is eaten

cerebus19 — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:24:22 -0800

Coming soon, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead, probably the first movie to combine Shakespeare, Tom Stoppard, and vampires. It is, however, not the first time The Bard and the undead have been seen together. The movie, incidentally, stars Dustin Hoffman's son Jake, Ralph Macchio (no, really!), and the guy who played Artie on "The Sopranos". The score is being written by Sean Lennon.

Shakespeare and philosophy

painquale — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:38:38 -0800

Martha Nussbaum reviews three recent books on Shakespeare and philosophy. The essay offers an excellent analysis of love in Antony and Cleopatra and Othello, and an excellent discussion of the interaction between philosophy and literature. From the essay: "To make any contribution worth caring about, a philosopher's study of Shakespeare should do three things. First and most centrally, it should really do philosophy, and not just allude to familiar philosophical ideas and positions. It should pursue tough questions and come up with something interesting and subtle--rather than just connecting Shakespeare to this or that idea from Philosophy 101. A philosopher reading Shakespeare should wonder, and ponder, in a genuinely philosophical way. Second, it should illuminate the world of the plays, attending closely enough to language and to texture that the interpretation changes the way we see the work, rather than just uses the work as grist for some argumentative mill. And finally, such a study should offer some account of why philosophical thinking needs to turn to Shakespeare's plays, or to works like them. Why must the philosopher care about these plays? Do they supply to thought something that a straightforward piece of philosophical prose cannot supply, and if so, what?" There is some discussion of the piece here.

Pulp Shakespeare

2or3whiskeysodas — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 06:48:30 -0800

from ACT I SCENE 4

J: Your pardon; did I break thy concentration?
Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
Allow me then to offer a response.
Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray. Your turn. [via boingboing. sort of, although weirdly they link not to the original author's LJ but to the LJ of someone quoting him]

The Case for the First Folio

feelinglistless — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:42:42 -0800

The Case for the First Folio For centuries, editors of Shakespeare's plays have conflated different published editions (quartos and folios) in an attempt to create one true text as the writer intended. In this essay (.pdf file) Jonathan Bate, one of the editors of The RSC Shakespeare makes the case that in fact what they're doing is editing together different drafts of the play originated by the bard at different times in his life attempting to make better dramatic sense. Essentially that none of the texts you studied at school are what Shakespeare intended to be performed at all. It's a very long essay but there are many wonderful revelations; my favourite is probably that the popular girl's name Imogen is a textual error created by a compositor when putting together an edition of the play 'Cymbeline' having misread the double 'n' in Innogen, a character name which also turns up in Much Ado About Nothing. Sorry Imogens.

Is this a +2 dagger I see before me?

BitterOldPunk — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:43:18 -0800

Arden: The World of William Shakespeare is a Neverwinter Nights mod created by the Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University. You can play it, but it's kinda boring.

Much Ado About Shakespeare

crossoverman — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:27:08 -0800

BBC/HBO to film all 37 of Shakespeare's plays Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes will produce the entire canon over 12 years.

Symmetry. Shakespeare. Islamic medicine. Creative writing challenges.

Wolfdog — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:28:17 -0800

Symmetry. Shakespeare. Islamic medicine. Creative writing challenges. Four podcast series from University of Warwick.