09 Saturday Jul 2016
Posted in Uncategorized
…Now that summer’s here!
Actually, my plans are for May or June. A week or ten days strolling leisurely through Kent, visiting villages, manors, gardens and places like Scadbury – and ending, of course, with a few days in Canterbury… Continue reading
07 Thursday Jul 2016
Posted in Things
Tags
adventure, alternate history, Davide Mana, GG Studio, Hope and Glory, Role Playing Game, Savage Worlds, Short Stories, steampunk
Alberto Bontempi
And today for something different – as in no theatre and no Elizabethana…
Hope and Glory is a role-playing game setting for Savage Worlds – but also a collection of stories set in what will be the game’s world.
What world, you ask? Continue reading
05 Tuesday Jul 2016
Once upon a time, I went all the way to Jesi with my mentor, to see a seldom-produced opera based off Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas.
It was my first real two-day opera trip, and I was very excited. I was green enough at the game to blissfully ignore that usually, if an opera sinks into oblivion, there are good reasons… Filippo Marchetti’s Ruy Blas had enjoyed a certain success back in its day (and I’m speaking of 1869), and then was forgotten and never resurrected, until that time when the small and courageous Teatro Pergolesi decided on a revival.
So all the way we went, a tad adventurously, and attended the resurrection of Ruy Blas – together with no more than other twenty opera-lovers… I’d say the experience was rather unremarkable, and indeed it was, music-wise, but as staging goes… well. Continue reading
02 Saturday Jul 2016
Posted in Theatre
Tags
Ed Sylvanus Iskandar, Italy, Jeremy S. Bloom, obsessions, Shakespeare Theatre Company, sound design, The Taming of the Shrew, theatre, William Shakespeare
So it seems that, when you have to do with theatre, you develop this tendency to see, find or seek theatre – or theatrical potential at least – in everything you come across.
I know I function like this, at least in part*. Friends and family have learned to tell the relevant mad glimmer in my eyes. I zone out during dinner, or I enter a lovely courtyard, or I hear drums, or I see drapery falling just so, and… Continue reading
30 Thursday Jun 2016
Posted in Theatre
Tags
Last night we had our first rehearsal with the musicians.
In the end we’re going to have a contrabass and two timpani, and last night we had the two musicians in with their instruments, mostly to get a feel of what’s to be done.
One of the two had read the play, and we had exchanged a few ideas already, while the other just plunged in. Gemma and I made a few requests, but we all agreed to keep things as fluid as possible yet.
“Go on,” they said. “Rehearse. We’ll try things on for size.” Continue reading
28 Tuesday Jun 2016
Posted in Books
Rick Lieder’s KM
My friend Davide, he of the Karavansara blog, alerted me to Kathe Koja’s project, Christopher Wild.
She’s writing a novel about Kit Marlowe, and there will be a very limited “bespoke edition”. Twenty-nine (or nine-and-twenty, as Elizabethans would have spelt Kit’s age when he died) patrons will receive not only a personalised hardback copy, but also monthly reports on the novel’s progress, author’s notes, research bits and so on – Continue reading
23 Thursday Jun 2016
Posted in Theatre
Tags
Anne Hathaway, blank verse, Charles Marowitz, christopher marlowe, Clemence Dane, Emilia Lanier, Murdering Marlowe, William Shakespeare
On the face of it, Charles Marowitz’s play Murdering Marlowe has more than a little in common with Clemence Dane’s Will Shakespeare.
Like Miss Dane, Marowitz goes for blank verse. Like Miss Dane, he places young Shakespeare firmly in the shadow of young Marlowe. Like Miss Dane, puts a woman between the two – more or less torn. Like Miss Dane’s, his Anne Hathaway is left-behind and whiny. Continue reading
21 Tuesday Jun 2016
Tags
anachronism, English language, historical thesaurus, History, Oxford Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, writing
Do you know the Historical Thesaurus of English?
It’s a project of the University of Glasgow, providing information on the history of nearly 800000 words. It… Continue reading
16 Thursday Jun 2016
Tags
christopher marlowe, Clemence Dane, Dark Lady, Emilia Bassano Lanier, Lucy Morgan, Mary Fitton, the Sonnets, William Shakespeare
Of the several candidates for the role of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady of the Sonnets, three seem to catch (or have caught) the imagination of novelists and playwrights: Emilia Bassano Lanier, Lucy Morgan, and – though less and less – Mary Fitton.
Usually Emilia is depicted as fiery, passionate, wilful and intelligent – juggling her talents at the virginals and in bed, with a short temper and a calculating streak, while Lucy is usually the plucky “blackamoor” girl, striving hard against prejudice and terrible odds as she tries to make an independent life for herself. Both are portrayed sympathetically – Lucy even more so. Mary Fitton, though, is a dark horse of another colour. Fictional Marys are growing few and far between, but used to be to be cold-hearted, cruel, calculating and ambitious, regarding poor Will Shakespeare as an amusing interlude and/or a stumble in their Court career… Continue reading
14 Tuesday Jun 2016
Now imagine for a moment that you are a boy player with the Admiral’s Men, in the early 1590s. The company’s sharers are discussing: should they buy Kit Marlowe’s latest work, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, or not?
When the meeting is over, you bounce to ask your master – and yes, they’ll buy the play, Ned Alleyn will play the lead, and there are devils in it. You are a little alarmed, because you still play women’s parts, and Marlowe’s women are not always what you’d call a joy to play…
“And what of the women, master?” you ask. “What do I do?” Continue reading
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