October
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1791 Tuesday, 25 October 2005 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 Subject: BBC Develops Interactive TV Apps for Shakespeare Productions http://blog.itvt.com/my_weblog/2005/10/bbc_develops_in.html BBC Develops Interactive TV Apps for Shakespeare Productions October 25, 2005 The BBC is planning to offer a red-button interactive TV application, dubbed "Shakespeare's Stories," to accompany four "modern-dress" productions of Shakespeare plays that will air on BBC One later this fall. (Note: the productions-of the plays "Much Ado About Nothing," "Macbeth," "The Taming of the Shrew," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream"-are part of a BBC initiative, dubbed "ShakespeaRe-Told," that is designed to bring Shakespeare's work to new audiences via TV, radio and the Web.) According to the Corporation, viewers who press the red button after each production will receive an introduction to the app's interactive experience from actor, David Oyelowo. The app will allow them to view a scene from each of the plays in the original text, and examine the story from four different angles: they will be able to explore the original language in a glossary; view behind-the-scenes interviews with each play's actors, directors and writers (the plays have been extensively adapted to modern contexts); examine the original context of the plays, and access information on Shakespeare's life (this section of the app will include interviews with noted British director, Sir Peter Hall, and with TV Shakespeare expert, Michael Wood); and explore the themes and moods of the plays. The application, which was developed by BBC Interactive Drama and Entertainment's ITV team, will be available on all the UK's major digital television platforms, and will also be available via broadband on the BBC's newly revamped TV Web site (see article in this issue). _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.1790 Tuesday, 25 October 2005 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 Subject: Hiatus Dear SHAKSPEReans, Rebecca and I will be leaving later today for the Blackfriars Conference. I look forward to meeting SHAKSPER members and friends old and new who will be in attendance. If you don't know me, I'll be the guy with the cane and the incredibly bright and beautiful 12-year-old daughter. Although I will be taking a couple of laptops with me, I doubt if I will have Internet access. Thus, there will be a hiatus in SHAKSPER mailings until next week. _______________________________________________________________ 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 Webpage <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 16.1789 Monday, 24 October 2005 From: Webster Peter <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 21 Oct 2005 10:05:11 -0400 Subject: The Winter's Tale at New York University Friends and Colleagues: Time is short, allow me to alert you to a completely impressive production of The Winter's Tale, presented by The Classical Studio of New York University's Tisch School for the Arts. The remaining performances are at the Jack H. Skirball Center for the performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place, off of Washington Square in New York City. October 21 at 8:00 PM, October 22 at 2:00 and again at 8:00 PM. The phone number there is 212.992.8484, or go to www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu. The play is directed by Louis Scheeder, whose King Lear last season was a profoundly moving experience. Why you should go: The verse is served admirably, the words carry the work in a muscular, supple and sensual manner: the play's the thing. The production is gorgeous: spare and lush at once, with an original score of great beauty and live musicians that nimbly bring the play's songs to life. There is a bear. it will surprise you. There is a dance with hairy men. It will surprise you. There is tragedy and comedy in just measure, and the bold directness of the concept will surprise you. The actors are all students, but their training in verse is most apparent, and their youthful energy serves the play. When is the last time you went to a "Shakespeare Play" and left delightedly quoting text and humming the tunes? Do not avoid this gorgeous palace of a play! _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.1788 Friday, 21 October 2005 From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 2005 23:18:57 +0000 Subject: 161631 Friends, Romans, Countrymen Comment: Re: SHK 161631 Friends, Romans, Countrymen Antony in his Forum philippic lashes out at in-grateful Brutus--"Caesar's angel"--thus linking the assassin to bastard coinage and to religious ministry. Yet any rebel Angel would immediately recall the Prince of Darkness himself (alias the old Serpent, the devil Satan, Lucifer, the Red Dragon)--the same Lucifer who, chafing under his Creator's rule and favor toward humanity and their redeemer Lamb, stormed the Heavens with his legions, only to be cast down to Earth, the enemy of mankind ever after. Reading John's REVELATION for the first time has left me convinced JULIUS CAESAR is in many respects patterned after this apocalyptic work, with Philippi an early pagan Armageddon prefiguring the Last Judgments. David Kaula, Mark Rose, Barbara Parker, and Steve Sohmer, among others, have already detected some of these parallels. Yet Naseeb Sheehan, in his BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS cites not one passage relating the two works. Let's plumb their apocalyptic spirit. REVELATION'S "civil strife" in Heaven clearly reflects JC's fratricidal battles below. The portents or jugments in both include falling stars, raining blood, and birds preying on carrion men groaning for burial. Fire-eyed Antony, the avenging limb of Caesar's spirit, recalls both the Archangel Michael and the fire-eyed Lamb (at the right hand of God) leading the triumphant armies of light against the Red Dragon Satan and his minions. Did Brutus (Caesar's natural son?) envy both Antony, at the right hand of Divus Julius, and Octavius (later displacing Antony on the right), legal heir to Caesar? As the Red Dragon waited to devour at birth the Messianic babe, so Brutus sought to crush the Serpent in its shell, both without success. Do these unsaved, unredeemed, unGraced pagans bear the mark of the beast on their foreheads and right sword arms? Is that the angry spot glowing on Caesar's brow? Are the hats of the faction "plucked about their ears" to cover those marks? After Caesar is butchered, the Black Mass conducted by Brutus does not wash them white in the Blood of the Lamb. Rather they bathe (an anti-baptism) and mark themselves further in the Blood of the Beast. The pure white robes of the saved in REVELATION contrast with the purple array of Babylon's Whore (Rome) astride the scarlet Beast (the Empire) and in JC with the assassins' "purple hands [that] reek and smoke." There was to be "no rest" for these Beast worshippers like Brutus or Caesar. The "idol" people of Rome worship these human idols and their stone images interchangeably, "which neither can see [dim-eyed Brutus and Cassius], neither can hear [hard-eared Caesar], nor move [that fixed star Caesar]." The avenging Lamb and his Angels spread the plague by s-word of mouth for their in-Gratitude. The "speech" of these pagans invariably heralds "strike"--always "words before blows." Judgment Day has come. The Babylon that is Rome nearly falls with Caesar's fall. The sea Beast's wounded head among its seven heads may represent the assassination itself. Yet Caesar's Empire survives until Judgment Day when the "bowls" of wine of the wrath of God and His Lamb are poured out upon the beast-marked but sparing the God-marked. The bowls of wine in JC suggest not only Eucharistic communion but this very Divine Wrath. The unsaved creatures of the vine are "pressed" into the winepress of the wrath of God and "trodden" until the "blood came out." The white clothed rider Jesus (his robe "dipped in blood") on his white horse of conquest treads the winepress of the "fury of the wrath of God the Allmighty." The risen dead are judged and the spotless inscribed in the Book of Life; in JC the proscribed are damned by spot into the master spirits' Book of Death. At play's end Brutus, preventing the time of life for himself as he has done for others, leaps into the "pit" where the no-blest Roman of them all will be chewed in the jaws of Satan forever--a consummation devoutly to be enjoyed by the Faithful. Regards, Joe Egert _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.1787 Friday, 21 October 2005 [1] From: Michael Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 2005 08:39:44 -1000 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1780 Clocks and Bells [2] From: Jack Heller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 2005 13:42:39 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 16.1780 Clocks and Bells [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 2005 08:39:44 -1000 Subject: 16.1780 Clocks and Bells Comment: Re: SHK 16.1780 Clocks and Bells I agree with Hardy that there's little to be gained in repeatedly circling the same track. I'm content to let Holger Schott Syme express his disagreements with me in some future review of Richard II, Part One. I'm glad that he's willing to good-humoredly grant my major premise concerning Shakespeare's authorship. As for Macbeth, my suggestion that the play might have been originally conceived for indoors was merely that, a suggestion. Many of the action's pervasive details (the darkness, the candles, the spooks, owls and witches, etc.) gain resonance from this hypothesis. But it's beyond proof. --Michael Egan [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jack Heller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 2005 13:42:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: 16.1780 Clocks and Bells Comment: Re: SHK 16.1780 Clocks and Bells Before this thread disappears altogether, may I repeat this question, first posted on October 10: In the play A Mad World, My Masters (by Thomas Middleton), Follywit has his theft of a watch discovered by the ringing of its alarm. As I supposed that timepieces were far more rudimentary in 1606, how would the illusion of a watch alarm have been created to have the sound occur on cue? Jack Heller _______________________________________________________________ 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.