Tag Archives: shakespeare

Hunting for a lost story

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in Books, Stories

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I have this memory of reading, decades ago, a story about a boy player named Tom – apprenticed to some member of the Chamberlain’s Men…

Or, well: I’m assuming it was the Chamberlain’s Men, but I do now, because I know that’s the company Shakespeare wrote for. I don’t remember whether Tom played any specific role – but he made Will mad by going and buying some unauthorised, pirated quarto of… Romeo and Juliet, perhaps? And I remember poor, mortified Tom’s master (Pope? Heminges?) saying that Will was not really mad at the boy, but at the unscrupulous printers. Continue reading →

Mucho Ruido in Mexico

28 Thursday Sep 2017

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So, I was at the Globe for Matthew Dunster’s “Mexican” production of Much Ado About Nothing,and loved it.

Let’s begin with the time-travel quality of just entering the place, climbing up the wooden stairs (we opted for the gallery benches – with cushions), watching from above the groundlings standing in the pit… Oh, the thrill of it!

And then the play itself: lively, colourful, full of song and music, with touches of that kind of melancholy, angry lust for love and life that goes with wartime – given that the setting is the Mexican Revolution… Continue reading →

Shylock’s Appeal

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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And here I was, staring at the screen, quite at a loss about what to write…  So very much at a loss that I asked for help.

“Write about the opaque days between around the end of the year,” Lady’s Mantle said. “Not enough of 2016 left, not yet 2017…” Which strikes me as a fitting theme for poetry, rather than a post.

“Write about the lovely sunsets we get whenever the fog allows it,” said Mother. Pretty, but not quite like Scribblings…

shylAnd so here I sat, staring at the screen and even more at a loss than before, when Rodolfo called, ordering me to turn on the telly, and have a look at a thing called Perché Shylock, that is Why Shylock. Continue reading →

Toy Shakespeare

21 Thursday Apr 2016

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ToyShakespeare I love toy theatres and I love Shakespeare… Toy theatre productions of Shakespeare, being a combination of two of my favourite things, make me ludicrously happy.

There’s been a time when I thought I’d find some like-minded soul and put together a large toy theatre and a little collection of (much abridged) Shakespeare plays for schools. Well, perhaps not just Shakespeare – but still. Continue reading →

Billy!

30 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by in Theatre, Things

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BillyOne thing of the English world that I wholeheartedly admire is the ability and will to keep the classics alive. In Italy we have this disastrous tendency to keep our Authors under glass, to be uncritically admired or nothing else…

Hardly a way to promote independent thinking or an active love of literature, alas – and, as a result, Dante, Manzoni and the others languish under thick layers of dust and the unconfessed boredom of schoolchildren, while Shakespeare is very much alive. Continue reading →

Thou Art Translated

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Lostintranslation, Theatre

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Bless thee! Thou art translated!

Bless thee, Bottom…

You know the OSF and their PlayOn! project? The one about “translating” Shakespeare into contemporary English? We spoke about it a few posts ago, remember?

Well, here is Kelly Monroe Johnston’s take on the matter. Mr. Johnston is co-artistic director of the Rogue and Peasant Players, a New York-based company with a seriously Shakespearean background.

The company, it seems is “of about 11 minds on the issue”, but Mr. Johnston’s argument is a valid and interesting one: he says he is not afraid that the OSF’s translators will fail – but that they will succeed…

How so? Read the post to find out. Here is the link again.

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