Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with shakespeare

Where to see Shakespeare?

BrokenEnglish — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:58:25 -0800

Where should I go in London or Southern England to see Shakespeare performed live in early 2010? I'm particularly interested if you have seen, or know of, any exciting performances by an excellent company, either well-known or not. It doesn't have to be a big-time production.

Full Fathoms Five...

Viola — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:36:17 -0800

I need help remembering the most famous Shakespeare references in modern literature. Nabokov repeatedly compares Lolita to Miranda, Eliot speaks of his father's death by quoting Ariel in "The Wasteland." I don't need entire adaptations like this question asks for, or characters overtly discussing Shakespeare (like Stephan discussing Hamlet in Ulysses) just oblique or embedded references. For some reason my brain can only recall references from The Tempest.

هَمْلِت في العربي؟

Biru — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:26:25 -0800

Does anyone know where I can obtain online a copy of Hamlet's famous soliloquy "To be, or not to be..." in Arabic? I have Googled and came across many an article on the difficulty of accurately rendering the meaning, but sadly no actual copy.

Where to find a listing of all the deaths in Shakespeare?

starvingartist — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:36:36 -0800

I seek a tome of knowledge pertaining to the Bard of Avalon, one William Shakespeare hight by name. To meet my wishes, it is meet said tome contains a listing of all personae dramatica in each play who meet their end, timely or no. Doth such a book exist? I am writing a play about the death and violence in Shakespeare's plays. I do not have time to read the entire canon back to front and list each character's death myself. Given the surfeit of reference books about the Bard, surely there must be one that contains this information? Do you know?

Shakespeare's plays not in play form

thisperon — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:56:04 -0800

Looking for a website that retells the plots of Shakespeare's plays. Using modern English, in short story form. Does anybody know of websites that provide a synopsis or version in short story form? I already know that wikipedia provides a synopsis of each play, but I would LOVE to find something that does a modern retelling of his plays in story form, using modern English.

Perhaps something like this, but not so child-oriented and using more present day language.

Creative retellings are welcome.

The purpose of this is so I can familiarize myself with the plots before reading/watching the plays. Hopefully I'd like to find something that is more fun to read than a collection of dry synposes.

Thank you!

Shakespearefilter- Writing an invitation like the Bard

Jason Land — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:57:57 -0800

I want to invite a woman (via letter) I like out on a date to see a Shakespearean play later this month. I want it to read somewhat like the general language used in his writings, but also instantly understandable to someone not very familiar with his plays and/or language. If someone could point me to a resource to help out or if you're willing to rewrite it yourself, I'd be very thankful. Basically, the text of the invitation would read as follows (I'll do it in faux-formal syntax to give the sort of translation I'd like):

My dear XXXX,
It would give me great pleasure and honor if you were to accompany me to a showing of the great bard William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" on the eve of July 18. It is a delightful comedy also concerned with romance, misunderstandings and cross-dressing.

If you are or if you are not inclined to attend this event with me please allow me to know your disposition below.

A wonderful idea, to attend with so handsome a suitor!
[ ]

This is a spurious request that offends me.
[ ]

Hilarious Shakespeare?

5_13_23_42_69_666 — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:56:14 -0800

What is the funniest scene in a Shakespeare play? Inspired by a comment in a post about storyreading, I thought it would be fun to read out a scene from Shakespeare as a birthday present for a friend who is a big fan of his work. As much as I'd love to re-read them and pick one myself, I just don't have the time. Recommendations? Bonus points for sexy innuendo.

Should I flip a coin?

creasy boy — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:54:58 -0800

Which King Lear should I read, Q or F? I got King Lear from the library and it has the two versions side by side. Which one should I read? I just want to have a good time, not some authentic scholarly experience.

Pre Globe Theater restaurant in London?

Joleta — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:17:32 -0800

Where to eat before an evening performance at Shakespeare's Globe in London? My friend and I have tickets for Shakespeare's Globe theater in London on Saturday, May 2 at 7:30 pm. We'd like to eat before the performance, somewhere near the theater. The menu at the Globe's Swan Brasserie is uninspired, but we haven't ruled that out as an option if there's nothing better. I found www.hardens.com and there were some interesting restaurants, but most are farther than I'm comfortable with (in case service is slow), or only open for breakfast and lunch. We'd like to keep this to a moderate price range, and avoid Indian food, as we're having Indian the next night.

Wanted: decent, non-traditional Shakespeare adaptations

zoomorphic — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:51:06 -0800

Help me find more non-purist adaptations of Shakespeare's plays in books and film, please. Caveat postor: they need to actually be good. There are tons of Shakespeare "adaptations" floating around, but many are terrible and one stars Amanda Bynes. I need help sifting to find the ones that really do something interesting either with Shakespeare's language or themes. Taymor's Titus is as traditional as I'd like to go. It's fine, great even, if the work transcends the basic plot structure. I'm definitely not looking for West Side Story, Kenneth Branagh's vehicles or by-the-book renditions like Polanski's Macbeth. I'm looking for books, films and plays that are of similar quality to:

A Thousand Acres
Kurosawa's Ran and Throne of Blood
Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet (surprisingly good)
Taymor's Titus

What am I missing? Thanks in advance!

If music be the food of love, post on...

HeroZero — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:09:12 -0800

HighSchoolTwelfthNightProductionFilter: Help me set some Shakespearean songs to 1920's dixieland jazz melodies. Challenging, esoteric topic for the hive mind:

My high school students are performing Twelfth Night soon. They chose to set the play in a sort of mythical "Mardi Gras" setting. Feste sings a couple of songs, and I'm trying to find some period music for the actor to sing along with. Mostly this has involved me muttering along to my Louis Armstrong tracks in iTunes. Does anyone have any advice on how else do this?

Here are the two songs Feste will sing:

1st song:
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

2nd Song

Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!

Thanks!

Can you recommend any good print editions of Shakespeare in non-modernized orthography?

No-sword — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:05:39 -0800

Can you recommend any good print editions of Shakespeare in non-modernized orthography, priced for regular folks (not university libraries)? I don't necessarily want uncorrected reproductions of the text exactly as it appears in a given primary source. Editorial corrections and cobbled-together ur-texts are OK with me. I just want the end result to be spelt and punctuated Elizabethan-style. Martin Seymour-Smith's edition of the sonnets is a good example of what I'm after.

I'm really only interested in hold-in-your-hand printed books, although if you know any good online editions like this feel free to list them up for future Googlers.

Secret-Santa-Shakespeare-filter?!?!?

robotot — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:34:54 -0800

Secret Santa filter!!! What to get a co-worker for her secret santa present? Shakespeare related gift required. Price preferably around $30 AUD My coworker is in her mid 20s and is mad about Shakespeare, to the point that she used to work at the Globe theatre in London, and even now has a mini Shakespeare figurine on top of her monitor. What can I get her that is Shakespeare related but that she would be unlikely to already have. I'd like to keep the price at around $30 Australian.

Shakespeare's overlooked speeches

EarBucket — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 08:17:49 -0800

What are some good (relatively) obscure monologues from Shakespeare? I've decided I'd like to memorize at least one short (~one to two minutes) monologue from each of Shakespeare's plays. Male or female parts, but I'd like them to be non-obvious, i.e., no "St. Crispian's Day" or "Now is the winter. . ." Any suggestions?

To Like or Not to Like?

uxo — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:33:24 -0800

What will help me appreciate Shakespeare? All throughout school I never enjoyed Shakespeare. Sonnets, plays, what have you, I felt his stuff was a bit over the top and I could never connect with any of the characters. Also all the obscure references made my head ache, trying to look them up.

Given how much people love his stuff however, I feel like I've been missing out. Do I have the wrong attitude towards Shakespeare? Am I not "experiencing" his plays in the correct way? Do I need to change my expectations of what his plays should be?

Would especially like to hear from people who used to feel lukewarm about him until they saw X or, read X, and then they were sold. I would love to know what that X happened to be. Tell me what to check out (I'm cool with adaptations).

So far I've read a couple of his plays (way back in HS), seen the film versions of Macbeth and Hamlet, seen the 12th Night performed, and seen that Romeo+Juliet adaptation with DiCaprio (which I admittedly liked--but I think only because I like the director).

Tell me what could help me appreciate this guy, short of having the "I love Shakespeare" gene that so many others seem to have.

*also apologies in advanced--I don't know if this is chatfilter...I feel enough people are in my shoes to make this a compelling question...I hope

Which characters from Shakespeare's plays do the party leaders in the Canadian federal election resemble most?

stokast — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 09:02:05 -0800

Which characters from Shakespeare's plays do the party leaders in the Canadian federal election resemble most? I saw Stephen Colbert doing this for Obama, McCain, and Palin this week and wondered if any canucks had any idea how it would apply up north...

Help me brainstorm a witch's apothecary worth of Halloween props

rosebengal — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:33:59 -0800

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Halloween is fast approaching and I need help creating some apothecary style props from the Bard's well known witches chant based on the introduction to That Scottish Play. Most of my audience isn't going to remember much past "eye of newt and toe of frog" but being a geek about details I'd like to try to create a tableaux of the entire contents of that cauldron. Here are my constraints. I'm crafty but sorely lacking in free time this year (and I've already vowed to make a full sized papier mache cauldron...). I'm not looking for authenticity, e.g. I don't have any desire to know where I can purchase a goat gall bladder or baboon blood. Items that can handle at least a week of non-refrigerated display are desirable. Easy to find re-purposed household items a plus.

Here's the list (and my ideas).

poisoned entrails (Shakespeare was nonspecific as to whose)
toad venom -- corn starch slurry dyed maroon, or glowy...
fen snake -- rubber snake
eye of newt -- bubble tea tapioca pearls
toe of frog
wool of bat -- cotton wool, dyed black
tongue of dog
adder's fork
blind worm's sting
lizard leg
owlet wing -- raid flytying supplies for feathers
dragon scale
wolf tooth
witches mummy (powder) -- talcum powder
shark jaw
hemlock root -- errant walnut tree sprout from yard
[human] liver
gall bladder of a goat -- silly putty
yew slips
[human] nose
[human] lips
baby finger
tiger entrails
baboon's blood -- corn syrup and red food coloring

Interesting commentary on Shakespeare's sonnets?

sleevener — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:13:53 -0800

Please recommend me some good commentary on Shakespeare's sonnets and tell me why you like it. I'm reading through Shakespeare's sonnets. I'd like to read some enlightening commentary, written by a thoughtful, interesting person. The ideal book would be something like Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson, but about these sonnets. I'm not really looking to have their meanings decoded for me, and I don't particularly care for facts, like who the "real" Dark Lady was. Whatever your recommendation, please also let me know why you're recommending it (what you like about it or about the author). Thank you.

Is it worth the time to read the complete works of Shakespeare?

schrodycat — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:34:31 -0800

Is it worth the time and effort to read the complete works of Shakespeare? Sitting in my "books to read" pile is a second-hand copy of the complete works of Will Shakespeare. Help me decide if I should commit the time (probably a year for me) to read it. Have you read his complete works yourself? Was it a life-changing experience? Or would a re-read of only the most famous half-dozen works suffice?

Like most English speakers, I was force-fed a few of his plays and sonnets in secondary school, and have seen a few movie and stage adaptations, but have never really plunged into the deep end of the pool.

What is the purpose of Fortinbras in Hamlet?

Kattullus — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:42:23 -0800

I've never really known what to make of Fortinbras in Hamlet. Do you know of any good explanations of his purpose in the play? I read Eric Rauchway's Blessed Among Nations and found a reference to the article "Hamlet and Fortinbras" by William Witherle Lawrence which, according to Rauchway, went a long way towards explaining the problem of Fortinbras. So I went to the local library, dug out the right PMLA volume and read the article. While it traced the origins of the Fortinbras character in previous incarnations of the Hamlet tale it didn't provide a satisfying answer as to what purpose Fortinbras serves in the play. Are there any good articles or books out there about Fortinbras and his role in the play?

My only idea is that it's a reference to James coming from Scotland, England's northern neighbor, to assume the throne of England. The royal line dies out in Hamlet and the same happened in England with the death of Queen Elizabeth. Fortinbras, being from Norway, Denmark's northern neighbor, ascends to the throne of Denmark. It seems to fit in with other such Jacobean ass-kissing in Shakespeare's corpus, e.g. Macbeth.

Where can I find a book that breaks down Shakespeare plays by the characters in each scene?

Mr. Bad Example — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:14:17 -0800

ShakespeareFilter: I'm trying to find a book--or something similar to it--that a classmate loaned to me briefly a few months back. Briefly, it had all of Shakespeare's plays with charts showing which scenes each character appeared in and the total number of lines each had. My classmate can't remember the author or title, so I'm stuck throwing this vague question out to the general public. Does anyone know where I can find something along these lines?

Vengeance manifested throught different cultures.

Knigel — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:13:11 -0800

Please help me find the gods and goddesses of Revenge and Vengeance in Greek theatre, Shakespearean theatre, as well as popular movies (mainly Oldboy and Titus Andronicus). I have mainly been seeking Nemesis (and her other guises) in Shakespearean theatre. I am also trying to find Korean manifestations of Vengeance in mythology. I would like to teach my Korean students by connecting Shakespearean plays such as Titus Andronicus to Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance Triology (mainly Oldboy). I am interested in cultural differences and similarities of revenge. I am also interested in protagonist and antagonist foils and mirrors in relation to revenge/vengeance and how different cultures (Western/Asian/Korean) construct them.

Extra deaths in Shakespeare's Hamlet?

booksandlibretti — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:57:33 -0800

Productions of Hamlet in which an additional character dies unexpectedly? (spoilers for a 400-year-old play and modern productions) One currently running production does this (once the show closes, I'll comment to give you the details). I saw it, and was amazed -- then curious whether it'd ever been done before.

A friend suggested that Martin Sheen's Hamlet, from 1968's Public Theater production in Central Park, may have done something similar with a Vietnam-y setting. Unfortunately I can't find information about that assertion, either way.

People expected to die in Hamlet:
-Hamlet
-Hamlet's dad (offstage)
-Fortinbras's dad (offstage)
-Polonius
-Claudius
-Gertrude
-Ophelia
-Laertes
-Rosencrantz
-Guildenstern

Know about a production with an even higher death toll? I'm interested in anything you've got -- from the local production in a church basement on up. The more documentation, the better, obviously. I have access to jstor and other scholarly resources, so feel free to link those articles as well as any others you find. Thanks!

How do I figure out how much a rubbing of Shakespeare's grave is worth?

canine epigram — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:05:48 -0800

I have a rubbing from Shakespeare's grave slab. I'm trying to figure out if it is potentially worth enough to bother with an appraisal ($150 I think) or just guess a price and sell it. I bought it in an antique store going out of business, and lo, these many years later, am no longer as enamored of it as it was. Since we're moving, it's not a bad time to de-clutter, and I'm looking to get rid of it. My wife did some poking around to see what an appraisal would cost, and it's pricey.

I've done some googling, and established that it looks like a rubbing from his grave stone as the seller maintained, but have no way of knowing for sure. I've heard that you could once take rubbings of the stone, but can do so no longer.

How could I figure out more cheaply whether this is worth anything at all? Or is it worth the expense?

A New View of 'Julius Caesar' for High Schoolers

flowerofhighrank — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:47:31 -0800

Does anybody have ideas about how to teach 'Julius Caesar' to 10th graders? I love teaching it, but it's my 7th year doing it and my kids are tired of the '53 and '70 video versions (I call the 1970 movie the 'disco porno' version; what garish colors! What flat acting!). I've drawn comparisons with Godfather, the Sopranos, etc. Anybody have an unknown resource, video of a local troupe performing, etc?