All The World's A Stage - the Shakespeare thread

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by JozefK, Apr 23, 2016.

  1. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    New to me. Thanks!
     
  2. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    we just got our tix for Branagh's Romeo & Juliet, it didn't make it here the first time
     
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  3. HorseyAnn

    HorseyAnn Equine-loving, rhyme-artist

    Location:
    U.K.
    That's great. Enjoy! I love Romeo & Juliet. I loved studying it at school. We did it as if we were acting it out & got stopped every now & then for explanations. I loved being Juliet. I liked the old film but not the Leonardo de Caprio version. It is 1 of my favourite Shakespeare plays. 12th Night is my favourite Shakespeare play. I prefer Shakespeare's poems to his plays though.
     
  4. Steve Minkin

    Steve Minkin Senior Member

    Location:
    Healdsburg CA
    Derek Jacobi as Mercutio! Gotta see it. Not seeing it scheduled locally yet but it will be available on demand on some point.

    Loved the Baz Luhrmann/ Leonardo de Caprio version, excellent updating of the play. Zeffirelli's traditional version is my favorite.

     
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2021
  5. Steve Minkin

    Steve Minkin Senior Member

    Location:
    Healdsburg CA
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    Finally caught up with the 2018 version of Lear with Anthony Hopkins as the old king.
    I liked the modern setting, loved the look of the movie, the visual settings, and the performances of the evil sisters by Emma Thompson and Emily Watson . . . but overall it never fully clicked for me. This play should bite, should hurt a little, and I think it moved along so briskly it never quite arrived there. It was entertaining, worth seeing, great look, but for me memorable only for Goneril and Regan.
     
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  6. Steve Minkin

    Steve Minkin Senior Member

    Location:
    Healdsburg CA
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  7. cgw

    cgw Forum Resident

    Location:
    Upstate NY
    Just saw a local Shakespeare in the Park production (The Tempest).
    Just a few blocks from my house - great.
     
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  8. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
  9. Steve Minkin

    Steve Minkin Senior Member

    Location:
    Healdsburg CA
    My son's girlfriend stopped in there recently and got me these two items, said the guy is very personable and will talk to you all day about the place and its goods.

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    [​IMG]
     
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  10. mike s in nyc

    mike s in nyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    new york, NY
    Just saw a production of 'love's labors lost' in riverside park, here in NYC, by the Hudson classical theater (formerly known as 'Hudson warehouse')

    Some really fine acting... but I have to say that of all the Shakespeare plays I've been exposed to (Ive seen either as live theater or motion picture adaptation somewhere between 27-30 or so of the plays, so, most of them) this was a very difficult play to enjoy for me- so much dense language, allusions to things most modern audiences would have no idea about, puns I would have to read and have explained to me, etc.

    Looking forward, hopefully, later this summer to somehow getting tkts to the delacorte theater/public theater central park production of 'merry wives of windsor' which is playing thru early sept. (and hooray for the return of live outdoor theater, even if i had to wear a mask the whole time!). I've seen the public theater (central park nyc) productions, live, in the past few years, of Othello, midsummer night's dream, Julius C., Cymbeline, 12th night, and as you like it---- just about everything was wonderful.
     
  11. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

    Location:
    Devon
    Reading Shakespeare plays, they are almost completely incomprehensible to me. Watching a play and it all makes sense. Most peculiar!
     
  12. mike s in nyc

    mike s in nyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    new york, NY
    also, (making this a separate post) i saw the streaming version of Russell Brand's one man riff on shakespeare 'our little lives- shakespeare and me'-- thought it was great, anyone here see it?
     
  13. mike s in nyc

    mike s in nyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    new york, NY
    the 'plot' (such that it is) of loves labors lost I 'got' from seeing the play, but so much of the language went over my head, sailing up to the clouds!
     
  14. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

    Location:
    Devon
    Well, I meant the language in particular. Seems easier to follow when spoken by actors in context. Although it may depend upon the quality of the actors and the director's interpretation of the dialogue. But I don't remember seeing any bad productions.
     
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  15. Steve Minkin

    Steve Minkin Senior Member

    Location:
    Healdsburg CA
    The No Fear editions of Shakespeare are quite useful for deciphering the more puzzling passages. I've read all the plays multiple times, and I read at least four versions prior to hosting a reading of the play with my group . . . . and I still always include the No Fear edition (along with the Arden, Oxford, and Folger versions). They have the text on the left hand page and a modern phrasing of it on the right hand page. After 500 years of English evolving and morphing, it's a handy edition to have, no matter how familiar one is with the material.

    Performances and group readings always make the overall forms easier to see. Private readings reveal the details, the subtleties, the less obvious connections, etc. Depends how deeply you want to dive into the plays.

    The poetry of the language is evident physically in performances and group readings, but -- to really savor the words -- private readings are great, allows you linger over the words and taste them leisurely, without the dramatic compulsion to move on --
    Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
    Are melted into air, into thin air:
    And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
    The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on; and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep.
     
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  16. mike s in nyc

    mike s in nyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    new york, NY
    Just back from the Public Theater's outdoor central park staging of 'Merry Wives of Windsor"- its a minor play in the Shakespeare canon , but this was a really wonderful and enjoyable production.. here's what i wrote in my fb post--

    Just back from the public's Central Park production of "Merry Wives of Windsor"- the first production they've done since summer 2019. It's a tremendously engaging, accessible comedy, told thru a lens of West African immigrants in present day Harlem, with laughs, smiles, songs, dance, and borscht-belt schtick all the way thru, with a bit of magic at the end for good measure. Great to see vibrant outdoor Shakespeare in the park return, and its playing thru Sept. 18, so if you're in or near NYC, go check it out!
     
  17. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    Thanks a lot. Never known The Public to go that deep into the fall/winter theater season. And I love the option to text requests for same-day-performances as opposed to having wait on line at the park! Exited to go. Thanks again.
     
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  18. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    The version against which all other 20th Century versions were compared -

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    Hamlet (1948, Laurence Olivier)
    Hope this one stays up for a bit. The Criterion Channel keeps it on steady rotation as well.
     
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  19. MikaelaArsenault

    MikaelaArsenault Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
  20. mike s in nyc

    mike s in nyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    new york, NY
    I saw Daniel Craig on stage in about 2016 as iago in an incredible production of Othello, also directed by Sam Gold (who is doing the upcoming Scottish play with Craig)
     
  21. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
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    Macbeth (2014, Rob Ashford/Kenneth Branaugh)
     
  22. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    [​IMG]
    Macbeth (2021, Joel Coen) In Theaters December 25
     
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  23. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
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    Hamlet (2017, Robert Icke)
    First watch for me. Cast Includes Andrew Scott (Hamlet), Juliet Stevenson (Gertrud)and Angus Wright (Cluadius).
     
  24. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    Good to see (and hear) this refreshingly clear version of The Scottish Play -

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    Macbeth (1970)
    The performances of Michael Jayston as Macbeth and Barbara Leigh Hunt as Lady Macbeth stand out in this otherwise bare-bones British televsion, low production version of the play.
     
  25. NickySee

    NickySee Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    Wow. Just found out about the passing of a great Shakespeare actor, Antony Sher (14 June 1949 – 2 December 2021). He was also the author of numerous books, including several on Shakespeare. R.I.P.

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    Here he is as Leontes in a filmed full production of A Winter's Tale:

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    A Winter's Tale (1999, Gregory Doran/stage, Robin Lough/tv)

    "The production opened with a striking dumbshow as a backlit Leontes (Antony Sher), dressed in ermine and full regalia, processed down stage accompanied by a soundtrack of escalating whispers. Sher’s powerful interpretation was based on his medical research into psychotic jealousy, which manifested itself as “big, grim smiles [that] give way to despotic rage” and “a smiling monster with glinting eyes” Benedict Nightingale, The Times, 10 April 1999.

    Adding to the sense of paranoia, Robert Jones designed a claustrophobic Sicilian set, inhabited by Edwardian frock-coated courtiers with monocles. Director Doran introduced some original touches including the sickly Mamillius being confined to a wheelchair; Emily Bruni doubling the role with Perdita. For the reconciliation scene, Hermione (Alexandra Gilbreath) resembled a statue of the Virgin Mary."
    - RSC.org
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2021
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