"The Tempest" Trailer

So here's the trailer for Julie Taymor's "Tempest" with Helen Mirren as "ProsperA" and a celeb-heavy cast. It looks extremely over the top, but only time will tell if it's over the top in a good way. I've seen some great and awful adaptations of "The Tempest" in my time, including a trippy 70s art-house version that freaked my friends and me out so much we turned it off twenty minutes in (we were cramming for a Shakespeare final in college). And then, of course, there's "Forbidden Planet." What think'st thee of the trailer, fair readers?

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Shakespeare's Birthday~!

William Shakespeare. 1564–1616

It was a Lover and his Lass (from As You Like It)

IT was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green corn-field did pass,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;	5
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,	10
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that life was but a flower	15
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
And, therefore, take the present time
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,	20
For love is crown`d with the prime
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

Oh, and here's a big article on "Shakespeare Today" in the Telegraph.

The Play's the Thing

Last week I saw another Sam Mendes/Bridge Project Shakespeare production at BAM, "As You Like It." The cast was less famous, the play less mind-blowingly awesome than "Winter's Tale" but I still really enjoyed it. Some people look down their noses at this play under the belief this is a truly lesser work by the Bard. That's because of the way so many crowd-pleasing elements are just tossed in and the plots all wrap up so conveniently and so offstage. Singing! Wrestling! Girls dressed as boys! Sudden religious conversions that solve all our problems! etc. etc. And even so, it's not as hilarious when performed as other comedies like "Twelfth Night" or "Much Ado."

But to these critics I say, lighten up. What I find really fun about "As You Like It" is that it contains all those wacky elements and yet also simultaneously shows us real glimpses of the themes Shakespeare would later be obsessed with--usurping family members, exile, forgiveness, and so on. Plus I love the female friendship between Rosalind and Celia, and the double combo of Jaques and Touchstone provides a lot of onstage folly for our amusement.

Mendes' production relies on great music, wonderful arrangements of "Under the Greenwood Tree" and "A Lover and his Lass" and his trademark dramatic lighting, and a more-than-solid cast of Brits and Americans (with the exception of one irritating actor). If you are in New York and want some cheap erudition, I heartily recommend this production for an evening's diversion.

Beatles Confront the Chink In Shakespeare's Comic Wall

Since 9/9/09 is totally Beatles day.

H/t to swvl--here are the Beatles doing Pyramus and Thisbe from "A Midsummer Night's Dream."



One of the things that convinces me of the multifaceted genius of the Bard is how funny this play within a play is, no matter who's acting in it.

Feminist Cultural News Roundup

"Target: Women"'s Sarah Haskins is co-writing a screenplay for a film to be produced by Natalie Portman called "Booksmart." According to Variety, it will be about "two overachieving high school seniors who realize the only thing they haven't accomplished is having boyfriends, and each resolves to find one by prom."
Girl geeks of the world, rejoice! Unless the heroines are stereotypically asexual. But I have hope.

A great article in the Guardian about a group of farmers' wives in a mountainous region of Turkey who have formed a badass theater collective and are interpreting Shakespeare, among other things.

Speaking of pseudo-feminist flicks, anyone out there see the adorable "Julie and Julia" this weekend? I thought it was, for lack of a better word, delicious--particularly the fun first hour before the obligatory conflict was introduced.

Question of the Day: What's Your Favorite Shakespeare Quote?

(image credit: litrave.com)

In honor of the Bard's birthday, thought I'd toss the question out to you, readers? Do you have a particularly favorite Shakespeare quote? I'll give you a few of mine here (obvious choices, I know) to get the ball rolling:

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt-Measure for Measure

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.-Macbeth

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.-Hamlet

What are yours? What lines o'th'Bards do you say to yourself over and over? Which ones are overrated? Speak, readers!

Quick Link: Shakespeare for Your Daily Life

Egalitarian Bookworm and friend of friends Liz Goodwin has a hilarious piece up at the Daily Beast discussing a new book of handy Shakespeare quotations for all the bard-quoting needs of groundlings and balcony-occupiers alike. Here's Liz:

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Jerry Seinfeld once said that more people would rather be in a casket than giving the eulogy at a funeral. If you fall into the casket category in this scenario, then Barry Edelstein’s instructional book Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions is not for you. ...

The collection of ready-to-use quotations is tailored to fit every occasion, from birthdays to weddings to funerals, and contains detailed instructions about when and exactly how to speak the Bard’s words. Edelstein directs from beyond the page and assumes that his reader—like any good thespian—will jump at the chance to tap a Champagne glass gently with a fork, clear his throat, and begin quoting The Tempest at a crowded wedding.

---

Check the whole thing out!

Shakespeare News: Rufus on Sonnets and King Lear Online

• I know a bunch of you told me in comments here and via twitter that you missed King Lear. Well, it's online at PBS! According to an email I got from PBS, it's also airing Sunday, April 5 at 12pm.

• Ever wonder what Rufus Wainwright's favorite Shakespeare sonnets are? Swvl finds out in the course of an interview with Rufus about his new opera (!!) and a play he's working on based on the bard's 14-line masterpieces. Scroll to the bottom to find out which ones he likes best. Let me give you a hint: #18 and #116 are not among them. Rufus is too erudite to go for such obvious choices.

Last Night's "Lear"--Pics+ Your Thoughts?

I only caught some of the Ian McKellen/Romola Garai King Lear last night. I saw the scenes where Regan and Goneril blind poor Gloucester and the ensuing scenes up until Cordelia reunites with Lear, and then I tuned back in for the end. I thought it was excellently acted if a bit draining (shocking, fellowette! emotionaly drained by KING LEAR? It's such a happy play ;)

McKellen was wonderful. I couldn't hear some of his lines, but he really delivered a tour de force performance and the scene at the end where he carries his daughter out in a reverse Pieta never loses its shock value.

So what did you think if you caught more of it than I?

Shakespeare and Joyce Predated Britney

(NSFW language follows, so be warned, ye prudes)

Via Slate, an examination of the deep-rooted literary tradition that prefigures "If You Seek Amy," Britney Spears' controversial new song that, when its title is spoken aloud, spells out an entirely different meaning.

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The Irish literary god does in fact appear to be the first person to have used this phrase; in Ulysses, Joyce included a bit of doggerel sung by the Prison Gate Girls:

If you see kay
Tell him he may
See you in tea
Tell him from me.

In the third line, Joyce manages to encode cunt as well. Take that, Britney!

Joyce isn't, however, the only great writer to encode dirty words in his work. Hundreds of years earlier, none other than English literary god William Shakespeare used a similar trick. In Twelfth Night, Olivia's butler Malvolio receives a letter written by Maria but in Olivia's handwriting; analyzing the script, Malvolio says, "By my life this is my lady's hand. These be her very C's, her U's and her T's and thus makes she her great P's." With the and sounding like N, Shakespeare not only spells out cunt, but gets pee in there as well.

And he didn't need a news anchor, or even a town crier, to explain it.

---

Any Twelfth Night reference is guaranteed to win me over. Yellow stockings!
But seriously, it's always good to point out that "high" literature is, in fact, not that high, that Shakespeare wrote for the pit as well as the balcony and that Joyce was banned as pornographic, and that above all, Britney Spears is a golden leaf on a tall, verdant and flowering literary tree.

Sexy Shakespeare Pic

I fear 'twould be negligent NOT to post this image upon my blog, particularly since it appeareth to be Shakespeare week here at EBC, i'faith:

'Zounds! Doth thou recall in thy mind a certain personage?(saith I without a trace of originality--it can be seen all about the blogosphere)
;)

Sigh No More, Ladies, Sigh No More

Men were deceivers ever.

Last night my sig oth and I continued our Shakespeare kick with Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. Emma Thompson and her former hubby really steal much of the show as unlikely lovers. But the whole cast is great, and it's just the quintessential onscreen Shakespeare comedy. People forget how close the comedies always come to tragedy, how much emotional weight can be found in their words with the right production and approach. And the gorgeous Italian setting and musical numbers are all pitch-perfect. It's a five-star production. Enjoy the song below for a taste.

The Winter's Tale at BAM

Last night was a true cultural treat for me and my sig oth. We ventured out to Brooklyn for three hours of the Bard. The play was Sam Mendes' production of "The Winter's Tale," starring Simon Russell Beale (aka Charles Musgrove from Persuasion), Sinéad Cusack (Mrs. Thornton from North and South), and Morven Christie (Rose Maylie from Oliver Twist) as well as superstars Ethan Hawke and Rebecca Hall, the latter of whom is now at the top of my list for Dorothea candidates in Mendes' maybe-we'll-see-it, maybe-we-won't Middlemarch.

So aside from being six degrees of period drama awesomeness, and giving me the realization that hey! BBC dramas are unfuckingbelievably good because they utilize the world's top Shakespearean actors, I really adore the play on its own merits. For those who don't know it, TWT starts out as a tragic family drama, with a raging, jealous king wreaking havoc on his family. Then it skips ahead 16 years for an interlude of bawdy pastoral fun with the progeny of the main characters and some country bumpkins. Then the play gets serious again as it reconciles the two halves. It's a really interesting and moving work, full of meta-commentary on the nature of comedy and tragedy and art vs. reality as well as a humanistic approach to the themes of jealousy, forgiveness, power, and love. Basically it's little bit of everything Shakespeare does best thrown together in a provoking way. Plus the female characters in this play are SO AMAZING. They are just wonderful, strong, self-realized characters who steal the show.

Mendes' production was very strong, if a bit slow and Mendes-y at moments, but he does draw great performances out: the acting was top-notch, especially from the Brits. Ethan Hawke hammed it up as one of the comic characters, and the music and scenery were lovely and well done. It was well worth the hour subway ride from the northern of Manhattan and the accidental detour into East Harlem we took on the way back :) (but it did lead us to a 24-hour Dunkin Donuts, which is really the best way to digest Shakespeare!)

Here's Ben Brantley's review.

Two quick lit-links

• K takes on her favorite first lines from literature (via a discussion at Shakesville). I would have to say that my fave opening might be Orsino declaring, "if music be the food of love, play on." but that also may be because I saw Paul Rudd delivering the line live, during a performance of Twelfth Night in which he donned a g-string and soaked in an on-stage pool.

• Speaking of the Bard, there's going to be a new indie-ish Brit film called Ophelia, which is not shockingly is a retelling of Hamlet from his mad lady-love's pov. Sounds excellent!

Valentine's Day Sonnet-A-Thon: Romeo and Juliet's Palmer's Sonnet

Act I Scene 5

ROMEO [To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

-Shakespeare

Romeo + Juliet still does it for me

When I was 13, Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet was that teenage crack that Twilight is now. We all saw it multiple times in theaters and hung posters up and squealed and listened to the soundtrack so much that we actually gave the Cardigans a mega-hit.

The film was also an awesome tool when I taught the play in my public school classroom (which was the first of four years in a row I taught the play as a teacher/tutor... the exact number of years I've been in the game!).

But this teen sensation really holds up as a film, as I just reaffirmed once more while watching the last hour tonight on HBO. Shakespeare's plays are so robust and perfectly-worded that modern and innovative adaptations endure and never seem weird or blasphemous to me. That's why they tend to be my personal favorites, my deep appreciation for Kenneth Branagh's gorgeous film-making (and ability to commune with Will Shakes' spirit) notwithstanding.

Here, in no particular order, are my personal most-adored onscreen Bard adaptations. This isn't about objective quality AT ALL, or which adapt my favorite plays , but rather about which Shakespeare films I'd gladly sit down to watch for enjoyment like a favorite TV show. Which are your favorite Shakespeare films? Feel free to leave in comments.

Romeo + Juliet '96--perfect.

Hamlet (2000)--a re-imagining of the tale in modern day NYC, which is cool. But what really intrigues me about it is the re-imagining of Hamlet himself from angry, talky, thwarted heir to existential 20-something in a goofy ski hat whose moribund thoughts are his madness.

Much Ado About Nothing '93-- Back when Branagh and Thompson were a pair. Sumptuous, hilarious, emotional: it reminds us that the Bard's comedies have a depth and profundity which are sometimes hard to pick up from a straight read.

Throne of Blood. Kurosawa's dark, black and white version of Macbeth in Japanese is devastating, even without the poetry of the original text. I hear "Ran" (Lear) is even better.

10 Things I Hate About You. Ridiculous, I know. But if you've seen the film, you understand.

Honorable mention goes to the very mixed-bag Midsummer Night's Dream, only because it features a lovely, amorous Christian Bale before he got SO SERIOUS, and a perfect Michelle Pfeiffer + Rupert Everett pairing as Titania and Oberon.

Previously: song adaptations of R+J (appropriate now that Taylor Swift has this big hit)

Stephen Colbert, Egalitarian Bookworm, Compares the Candidates to Shakespeare

With special guest Stephen Greenblatt, my former professor! He compared McCain to Macbeth and Prospero (with Bush and Lieberman as Banquo and Caliban, respectively) and he compared Obama to Hamlet (with Rev Wright as the Ghost, amazin') and to Puck cause he casts a spell on us foolish mortals, over hill and over dale.


Egalitarian Bookworm Stephen is so back!

Monday Morning--err, evening--Poem: Shakespeah's 29th Sonnet

Yeah, you know this one. But you love it.

Sonnet 29 "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'

    William Shakespeare   

Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It

...Books in running brooks and sermons in stones...

I am a huge fan of Branagh's overwrought Much Ado About Nothing and much less fond of his overwrought Hamlet. I think that's because Shakespeare's comedies have emotional and dramatic depths that need to be brought out, while his tragedies need direction that emphasizes subtlety (I've never seen KB's Henry or Othello or other films so I reserve judgement on those).

But due to the impressions detailed above, I was really looking forward to last night's HBO As You Like It premiere... and for the most part, I wasn't disappointed. The cinematography or whatever you have it was lush, and the music was absolutely, numblingly gorgeous. I thought the perfomances of Rosalind, Celia, and Orlando were close to astounding--full of the kind of flirtatious wit that makes Shakespeare's comedies so wonderful.

Now, for my quibbles: all in all, there was too much delcaiming of the Bard's language--some of it could have been quicker, more naturalistic. I found Kevin Kline's Jaques a little bit flat--does anyone remember how wonderful his Bottom was in the Midsummer Night's Dream of a few years back? I feel like he's become a self-parody--and my mom pointed out that the Robin Williams resemblance is getting too uncanny.

But enough complaints. Any beautiful new Shakespeare adaptation is welcome. Alfred Molina was a superbTouchstone, and all the pastoral characters were lots of fun, and there was definitely this very 1960s era earth-child vibe to the whole thing, even though it was set in Japan, that I found kind of groovy. Even if this play has less weight than Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, or The Tempest, it's a very fun and clever one, and the language makes it golden.

So be sure to catch it on reruns if you have not already!

"Those Crazy Veronese Lovebirds."

Thus the New York Times dubs Romeo and Juliet, who are due in Central Park this summer for the annual Delacorte Theater "I am a hip and literate New Yorker" free love-fest, not to be confused with the annual Great Lawn "I am a hip and (wine-guzzling Classical music) literate new yorker" free love-fest which occurs in its near proximity.

Questions that this announcement brings to mind are:

1-If I had taken my mini-gangstas from the Bronx, whose reactions to reading R and J were mixed (and hilarious), to the Delacorte theater, would they have shouted expletives at the actors or fallen asleep? Or beat me up?

2-Will I fail to get my ass on line by 8 am for the fifth, sixth or seventh summer in a row (I don't know, I've lost count!)?

3-Does Romee-oh for what Julie-et?

4-What would have happened if Juliet had woken up like 30 seconds earlier, huh?

5-Which is the better pop song adaptation of "R and J"-- "Exit Music (for a film) by Radiohead,
"Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits/Indigo girls or "Romeo had Juliette" by Lou Reed? Answer. They all rock, cause they're inspired by the BARD, yo!

Sample lyrics for each:

Exit Music:

You can laugh
A spineless laugh
We hope that your rules and wisdom choke you
Now we are one
In everlasting peace

We hope that you choke.. that you choke

R and J:
Yeah now and all I do is miss you
And the way it used to be you know
And all I do is keep the beat
I keep bad, bad company
And all I do is kiss you
Through the bars of a rhyme
When julie I'd do the stars with you
Anytime

Romeo had Juliette

Manhattan's sinking like a rock
Into the filthy hudson what a shock
They wrote a book about it
They said it was like ancient rome

The perfume burned his eyes
Holding tightly to her thighs
And something flickered for a minute
And then it vanished and was gone.


And now I must vanish and be gone. Love, Fellow-ette.