By Alan O’Riordan “Oh shut up, Baldrick – you’d laugh at a Shakespeare comedy.” THAT line, delivered by Rowan Atkinson playing the Elizabethan Edmund Blackadder in the TV comedy, Blackadder, made sense to me as a 14-year-old. At school, we were reading Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 and laughing, not at the jokes, but at … More Shakespeare is a man for all seasons
Many people reckon The Tempest’s island sorcerer formerly known as the Duke of Milan was actually a self-portrait of the playwright. What do you reckon? In this article I’ll be considering the links between Shakespeare and his character, Prospero. But before we begin, would you be able to help me in a small literary investigation? … More A real character: Is Prospero Shakespeare?
Mark Twain’s hilarious (1909) debunking of the myth that William Shakespeare wrote the works of Shakespeare. Adapted and performed by Keir Cutler, Ph.D. at the 2003 Winnipeg Fringe Festival. Listing the handful of established facts of Shakespeare’s life, Twain ridicules the fantasy that an uneducated youth could have wandered into London and, with virtually none … More Mark Twain’s “Is Shakespeare Dead?” with Keir Cutler, Ph.D.
When something bad happens: True is it that we have seen better days. When something REALLY bad happens: O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day! Most lamentable day. Most woeful day That ever, ever I did yet behold! O day, O day, O day! O hateful day! Never was seen so black a day as … More A dramatic Shakespearean response to every situation
In Shakespeare’s play, “Julius Caesar,” a soothsayer repeatedly warns Rome’s all-powerful dictator, Julius Caesar, to “Beware the Ides of March,” a date that the soothsayer suggests could be injurious to Caesar’s health. And so, in the morning hours of the Ides of March (March 15) in 44 B.C., that very same Julius Caesar stood outside … More “Beware the Ides of March”
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare invented the idea of the teenager in love. Many of his characters – the thin and anguished Hamlet, the fat a jolly Falstaff, the sexy Cleopatra, the aged King Lear – have associations even for people who have never seen or read his plays, but none more so than Romeo … More “A Pair of Star-Crossed Lovers”
“Just because society, and government, and whatever was different 100 years ago, doesn’t mean that people didn’t have sex, pick their nose, or swear.” -Kate Winslet As we look at a season filled with stories either set or written long ago, it’s interesting to think about how much or really little we have changed. 100 … More Modernity in Antiquity
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, written around 1595 – 96, although there is no direct evidence of specific performance dates before the restoration. Nevertheless, the early printed text suggest that it was popular from the start; the first quarto of 1597 claims that “it has been often ( with great … More Four centuries of Romeo and Juliet: an overview
The best way to understand Shakespeare play is to see you or I ideally to participate in it. By examining a range of productions, we may gain a sense of the extraordinary variety of approaches and interpretations that are possible – a variety that give ‘Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made “our … More Romeo and Juliet in performance
Act Out 