Shakespearing
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Shakespearing #32.2: Even More Thoughts About Coriolanus
Shakespearing #32.2 by John King Even More Thoughts About Coriolanus Last week, I discussed how Coriolanus eludes me because I don’t feel any empathy for its characters, the minor character Menenius excepted. Considering that my chief axiom about Shakespeare is that he is best known in performance rather than on the page, I thought it… Continue reading
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Shakespearing 32.1: More thoughts on Coriolanus
Shakespearing 32.1 by John King More thoughts on Coriolanus I confess: I don’t get Coriolanus. Not on a gut level, anyway. Perhaps one has to be a soldier to see into the hero’s spirit properly. A soldier before the modern epoch. Certainly before Ulysses S. Grant. The idea that one’s identity can be granted stature… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #32: Coriolanus
Shakespearing #32 by David Foley Coriolanus Coriolanus is an anxious play. I’m not scholarly enough to know how closely it reflects the anxieties of its times, but it certainly reflects the anxieties of ours. First of all there are the people. What to do about the people, those “woollen vassals”? All very well to get… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #31.1: Cry, Trojans! (An Interlude)
Shakespearing #31.1 by David Foley Interlude: Cry, Trojans! I’ve had to take a break from Shakespearing for a couple of weeks, so as an interlude, here are some thoughts on the Wooster Group’s Cry, Trojans!, their performance of the Trojan scenes from Troilus and Cressida. It began as a co-production of the whole play with… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #31: Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespearing #31 by David Foley Antony and Cleopatra One reason I wouldn’t be a good playwriting teacher is that I wouldn’t know how to teach inconsistency. It’s one of those things I think you either get or you don’t, one of those things that suggest certain elements of writing can’t be taught. Mostly I mean… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #30: Macbeth
Shakespearing #30 by David Foley Macbeth “The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,” says Banquo of the weird sisters, and this disconcerting geologic claim captures the nightmare quality of Macbeth. Like a nightmare, the play inverts the relationship between the solid and the insubstantial: the world we think we know becomes shot through with… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #20.1: Another Interlude, This Time Out of Sequence
Shakespearing #20.1 by John King Another Interlude, This Time Out of Sequence A Review of Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s 2015 production of Henry V One of the ironies of the current season of offerings at Orlando Shakespeare Theater is that in the spacious Margeson Theater, Merry Wives features the hijinks of Falstaff in a 1950s domestic… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #29: King Lear
Shakespearing #29 by David Foley King Lear I’ve had a mental block about my Lear posting. I finished reading the play a few weeks ago, wrote two paragraphs, and stalled. It may be because I’ve already written about Lear in this series, or it may be because I began with the claim, “King Lear is… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #28.1: Four Observations About Othello
Shakespearing #28.1 by John King Four Observations About Othello 1. In Shakespeare is Hard, But So is Life, the Irish theater critic Fintan O’Toole says, If you look at the character of Othello in isolation, and in particular if you look at him through the notion of the “tragic flaw’, then he is not, for all… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #17.2: Another Interlude, This Time Out of Sequence
Shakespearing #17.2: Orlando Shakes’ Merry Wives by John King Note: Once more I am commandeering David Foley’s blog in which he offers his impressions while reading Shakespeare’s plays chronologically. This interruption happens to be a review of a current production of one of Shakespeare’s comedic masterpieces. Orlando Shakespeare Theater is among the best companies interpreting Shakespeare… Continue reading
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