November
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1924 Tuesday, 22 November 2005 From: Geralyn Horton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 2005 12:12:18 -0500 Subject: Shadowplay I'm reading Clare Asquith's book. I'm not aware of any detailed discussion of "Shadowplay" on Shaksper, though it was mentioned favorably enough to make me check it out of the library. I've Googled a couple of reviews which talk about the central thesis and list, without critique, some of the historic detail offered in support of it. But I am bothered by a series of smallish errors in Asquith's text: inaccurate quotations and plot points from individual plays, misnamed characters.... (doesn't anybody edit such a Ms for accuracy?) How many minor errors in things I know about as a careful reader of the plays add up to a reason to distrust an author's argument in re: things about which she is an expert and I am ignorant (for instance, whether RIII is a recognizable portrait of Robert Cecil)? _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1923 Tuesday, 22 November 2005 From: Christopher Baker <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 21 Nov 2005 17:34:22 -0500 Subject: Empty Stage? At the end of act four of The Tempest, the stage direction reads "Exeunt." Act five begins when Prospero returns wearing his magic robes. Is there thus a moment when the stage is literally empty? How frequent are empty stages in the plays? My understanding of Elizabethan performance is that there was a fairly rapid and seamless transition between scenes/acts which would seem to have prevented a vacant stage at any point in a production. Chris Baker _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1922 Tuesday, 22 November 2005 From: Richard Burt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 21 Nov 2005 12:00:07 -0500 Subject: JC and Good Night, and Good Luck In the liberal-minded Good Night, and Good Luck (dir. George Clooney, 2005), reporter Edward R. Murrow (Davd Strathairn) tells Fred Friendly (George Clooney) that Murrow's closing on his show attacking McCarthy "is Shakespeare." On the show Murrow cites McCarthy's own citation of Cassius's line from Julius Caesar, "Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, / That he is grown so great?" And then he recontextualizes the line, saying that McCarthy should have read a few lines back in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to Cassius's line, "The fault dear Brutus lies not in our stars, but in ourselves." Murrow repeats the line at the end of his broadcast. As in Quiz Show (dir. Robert Redford, 1994), Shakespeare is the token of high-minded civic debate conducted by whites and opposed to the degrading, merely entertaining and profitable television shows, also implicitly addressed to white viewers. And as in Quiz Show, the high-minded quoter of Shakespeare turns out to be a loser. After taking down McCarthy, Murrow is told his show will be cancelled. _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1921 Tuesday, 22 November 2005 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 Subject: 2b?Ntb? Comment: SHK 16.1915 2b?Ntb? Yesterday, Richard Burt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > called attention to a New Yorker cartoon by Roz Chast "The I.M.s of Romeo and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet chat via Instant Messenger)." He further noted that it could be viewed with other Shakespeare inspired New Yorker cartoons online at Cartoonbank.com. Among those I found the one with the movie executive on the phone pitching a new film idea: "You'll love it! It's a tale told by an idiot." For those who may not know the artist was Bernard Schoenbaum, a prolific contributor to the New Yorker and brother of Sam. Of his close to 350 cartoon that appeared in the New Yorker, this is the only one with a Shakespeare theme. http://www.cartoonbank.com/product_details.asp?mscssid=7DNX88UHLBLV8HEGBN3QR234PH6TDX5B&sitetype=1&did=4&sid=32302&whichpage=1&sortBy=popular&keyword=Shakespeare+Schoenbaum§ion=cartoons _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1920 Tuesday, 22 November 2005 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 Subject: New Play by Vaclav Havel http://www3.cjad.com/content/cp_article.asp?id=/global_feeds/CanadianPress/EntertainmentNews/e112108A.htm Former Czech president Vaclav Havel planning to write a new play Updated at 10:25 on November 21, 2005, EST. PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - Former Czech President Vaclav Havel is planning to write a new play, a newspaper reported Monday. "I have it already well thought out," the daily Pravo quoted Havel as saying. "In my head, it's almost finished. There's just one little thing - to write it down." Havel did not give any details about the play, and also refused to reveal when he would start writing it. He has said earlier, however, he planned to write a play based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, as well as an autobiography. Havel, 69, was a well-known dissident playwright when he led the 1989 revolution that peacefully toppled communism. He became leader of Czechoslovakia in December 1989, and also served as president from January 1993, after the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He stepped down in 2003, after his second and final term expired. He began publishing in the 1960s, and before becoming president, he published dozens of plays, books and political essays that won him critical acclaim around the world. _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.