As you probably know, I love to review children’s adaptations of Shakespeare (whether direct or indirect). “The Lion King,” (Hamlet), “Encanto” (King Lear), and of course, the many adaptations of “Romeo and Juliet,” are mainstays on this website: Gnomio and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss, even Pocahontas have their basic plot and characters firmly rooted in Verona Italy.
Then one day by chance, I found this book in a local park, and I knew I had to review it!
THe Premise
This is a simple re-telling of the story of Shakespeare’s play that focuses on just the young lovers. You feel for these cute little animals and in a way, making them a kitty and a dog smitten with puppy love, makes them more understandable and sympathetic than Shakespeare’s youthful teenagers, who indulge in violent delights without using their human reason.
What It Keeps
The Story
The book keeps the feud between the two families, has the young lovers meet in disguise at a ball, fall in love on a balcony, get married, and amazingly, DIE! Laden still manages to tell the story in a kid-friendly way, though giving it tragic weight.
THe Language
The book opens with a rhyming prologue, which, although it isn’t in sonnet form, has the same function as Shakespeare’s prologue- to explain the plot before we see it played out in the book, thus giving the whole story a sense of dramatic irony. Plus, as you can see, Laden also imitates Shakespeare’s love of wordplay with metaphors and puns, (a tale of tails), and alliteration to give the dialogue some wit and effervescence. Reading it gave me giggles like I’d just popped open some champagne.
What it changes: Spoiler alert
All throughout, Laden makes small changes to simplify the plot and remove characters that don’t directly impact the main plot. The characters of Lord/Lady Capulet and Lord/Lady Montegue, The Nurse, Paris, Peter, the servants, and the friars are completely absent, turning an already brief play into an even more compressed story.
Like a lot of animal retellings I’ve seen of this story, the author recasts the human leads as animals that are natural enemies- in this case, cats and dogs. This makes the story easier for kids to understand- as I’ve said before, it’s often difficult to keep track of who belongs to which house in Shakespeare’s version. All you need to know is that Romeo and his brothers are cats and Juliet’s family are dogs.
Funnily enough, my daughter actually complained that the story would’ve been better if Juliet were a cat instead of Romeo, which I agree with for very specific reasons. The character of Tybalt is named after a character from a prose story called “Reynard the Fox,” who had the epithet, Prince of CATS. Mercutio annoys Tybalt by taunting him with this title before challenging him to a duel:
Tybalt: What would you with me? Mercutio: Good Prince of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives! Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene i.
It would’ve been a funny Shakespeare easter egg to have Juliet and Tybalt be portrayed as cats, but I understand why they went with dogs- Drooliet is a hilarious pun, and having Tybalt be a vicious, rabid dog helps set him up as a fearsome antagonist.
I suppose you’re wondering, how can the author keep Shakespeare’s tragic ending in a children’s book? Well, like Shroedinger’s cat, she manages to make Romeow die and not die at the same time. He gives Drooliet one of his 9 lives, allowing them both to ‘die’ and then come back for a happy ending. It’s a brilliant way to nod at the original, while also keeping the kid-friendly tone.
My Reaction
This book is really fun and very enjoyable for kids, parents, and teachers who want to introduce kids to Shakespeare at an early age!
Just below you can watch the book being read by actress Hayle Duff:
In this section, I review a Shakespeare book, movie, or TV show that I feel has some kind of value, either as an interpretation of Shakespeare, or a means to learn more about the man and his writing.
Name: Kill Shakespeare (Vol. 4) by Connor McCreery and Anthony Del Col
Ages: Adult/ Teen. There’s some PG-13 language and a lot of fighting and gore, so it’s not really for kids
Premise: William Shakespeare is more than just a simple playwright- he has a magic quill that brings his characters to life. Some of the characters worship him like a god or like a father. Many others, (as the title implies), want him dead. A faction of outlaw heroes who call themselves The Prodigals are trying to protect Shakespeare, including Juliet and Hamlet, but in this volume, they’ll have to face raging seas, bloodthirsty pirates, and the mind-altering effects of the island in Volume 3, which has pushed them all to near-madness.
My reaction: Volumes 1&2 were framed as a civil war between the heroes and villains of the Shakespeare canon- basically an Infinity War for Shakespeare nerds. This volume is in the context of a high-seas pirate adventure. It has a lot of cool fights and the drama between Cesario and Viola is great, but honestly, I thought it was poorly paced. Maybe it’s my personal taste, but it’s hard to keep myself invested in the story when everyone is stuck on a boat.
Basic Details:
As I said in my review of Volume 2, what I like the most about this graphic novel is that the characters are consistent with how the real Shakespeare wrote him, yet they make different choices in the graphic novel. They also grow and play off each other in many interesting ways. Here are some examples:
Most of the drama of the graphic novel centers around Captain Cesario, a dashing rogue pirate, and his first mate/ girlfriend Viola. The main characters from Volume 2, (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Juliet, and Othello), have escaped the effects of the island run by the mad wizard Prospero, but are still shell-shocked at feeling the terrifying psychic effects of that island. This is a clever plot device that basically makes it makes all the characters unnecessary except for Hamlet and Juliet. You could look at this installment as the story of 2 couples, (dare I say twin couples) where Viola and Cesario are fighting over whether or not to join Shakespeare and the other Prodigals, to remain on the high sea as pirates, or to betray them and become ingratiated with the fearsome cannibal-pirate Lucius Andronicus.
I won’t give too much away (there are some spoilers), but let’s just say that the relationships in Volume 2 have been tested to the breaking point; Hamlet and Juliet are having extreme problems, (almost as bad as Hamlet and Ophelia). Viola and Cesario are also fighting constantly. In addition, the ship is constantly under threat from the feared pirate Lucius Andronicus. Will the characters solve their internal conflicts before a mutiny breaks out? Or will they all be cut to pieces by the cannibal Lucius? On this boat, tempests are not kind, and salt waves are fresh with DEATH!
Shakespeare Easter Eggs
Kill Shakespeare, Volume 4 is largely based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which, although it mainly focuses on the courts of Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia, does have aspects of pirates, deception, and lovers quarreling. It is interesting (and I give the writers credit) for taking a light-hearted comedy with songs and dances and turning it into a swashbuckling pirate adventure; that takes real imagination, yet it works with the text; the first time we see Viola she is shipwrecked and the captain that saves her life is arrested offstage. This prompts Viola to disguise herself by wearing her twin brothers’ clothes and donning the non-de-plume Cesario, to freely behave like a man in a man’s world. Shakespeare already made Viola’s fate intertwined with the sea, so it makes sense that she might want to be a pirate. Kill Shakespeare takes Viola’s two identities and makes them two separate people, both intertwined with a love of the sea.
The graphic novel also conflates and expands other pirate characters from the play; there’s another captain in the play named Antonio who saves Viola’s brother Sebastian and is accused of being a pirate, While Viola in Twelfth Night is a noblewoman who out of necessity disguises herself as a man and becomes a servant to a Duke, Viola in this version is trying to escape being a noblewoman and becomes a pirate by choice. Meanwhile, Antonio, who denies being a pirate, is changed into the roguish Cesario, who loves Viola as much as Antonio loves her brother Sebastian in the play. Like Antonio, Cesario cares about Viola’s well-being and is willing to sacrifice everything to keep her safe, even being a pirate. This causes friction between the two since again, Viola wants to continue to be a pirate and would rather die than give it up. Their conflicting roles as shipmates and soulmates keep them at odds during the play, sort of like how Cesario’s mask is split down the middle; half tragic, and half comic.
Critique
I think this graphic novel is poorly paced. Most of the first half consists of Cesario and Viola arguing about what to do with Shakespeare and the rest of the Prodigals. Their drama is good, but it supersedes everybody else, and I found myself wondering what was going to happen to Shakespeare and the rest, and wishing that they’d got more focus. Othello is reduced to a plot device because he is madly searching for Desdemona, whom he killed during the events of Shakespeare’s play. Othello is no longer the honest, loyal friend to Juliet that he was in the previous editions; now he’s more like The Incredible Hulk, filled with animalistic rage and unable to be controlled except by the love of his friend Juliet. In some ways, Othello was the most likable character in the previous volumes so I hated to see him like this.
In addition, the constant couples’ bickering gets a little bit tedious; I suppose that’s inevitable when you take all the comic elements out of Twelfth Night, (Sir Toby and Feste are back in Volume One, and Malvolio, Fabian, and Olivia are nowhere to be seen). I did enjoy the ending where Viola resolves her conflict with Cesario much the same way Viola solves the problem of her being Cesario in the play. I also like the way that they built up the antagonist Lucius from Titus Andronicus. Lucius is a good choice for a villain in this world because he’s seen some truly horrible things in his own play like his father mutilating people, his brothers and sister murdered, and the worst pie recipe of all time. Making Lucius a bloodthirsty, cannibalistic pirate is a great choice. Still, I wish they spent more time fighting with him instead of sailing away from him. In short, the characters are as compelling as ever but the action is lagging and the drama is reduced to mostly petty couple squabbling. I would like to see this series pick up in a more action-packed version more in keeping with a graphic novel.
Recommendation: I’d recommend this book to all mature fans of Shakespeare, anime, Manga, D&D, or any kind of nerd stuff!
For Throwback Thursday, I’m talking about my first-ever experience going to the Globe Theater. Back in 2007, I saw a production of “Othello” starring Eamon Walker as Othello, and Tim McInerney as Iago. Below are some images from the excellent souvenir program I purchased:
The experience was very special to me I went to London for the second time with my classmates in a college theater class, many of whom I’d also performed with earlier that year in Romeo and Juliet. I got to see over 15 shows in London’s west end , but going to the Globe was definitely a highlight. It felt like a pilgrimage and the icing on the cake after studying Shakespeare’s plays all year long. It was also very serendipitous that the play we saw was Othello, since, as you can see in the video below, I noticed that Sam Wannamaker, the founder of the Globe, performed in the play himself as Iago:
THe concept
Again, since this was my first time seeing a play at the Globe, I appreciated that they played it straight- Elizabethan costumes, no bizarre staging. This felt very much like stepping back in time. Some critics in recent years say that all Globe Productions should be staged like this, and decry more experimental productions. I see an argument for both camps. The Globe is both a temple to Shakespeare’s life and work, and a modern theater that tries to push the boundaries of live performances, and I think this kind of variety is good. That said, I’m glad that every once in a while, they just let a Shakespeare play be classic.
Yes, this is one of the first ever Othellos I saw, and the first one I ever saw live, but Mr. Walker will always be one of my favorites. He really nails the complexities of Othello’s emotions- from powerful and stoic, to sweet and romantic, to rage-filled and abusive. I really felt for him and truly hated Iago for taking such a worthy person and turning him into a monster.
What Mr. Walker does incredibly well is show Othello’s journey to fight the simmering hatred and jealousy he feels towards Desdemona. You can see it in his face when Desdamona casually mentions that Cassio (the man Othello suspects is sleeping with his wife), has just been in the room with her.
I’ve heard critics claim that Mr. Walker’s voice is hard to hear, and I have to admit, his voice is a little hard to hear in an outdoor amphitheater like the Globe, but his physicality and his sublime characterizations of the role of Othello more than makeup for it. In addition, his great portrayal of Othello was also immortalized in a great TV (which I’ll talk about another time), which makes the aforementioned critique of his voice irrelevant.
In 2000, Mr. Walker starred in a made-for-TV movie modern-day Othello which has this heartbreaking scene at a restaurant (1:12:00- 1:15:00) where John Othello, (the first black police chief in England), talks about how his people left Africa, came to England and were given “Other men’s leavings.” He also makes it clear that for years he wanted to be white. This Othello is very clearly not healed from his generational trauma, and it comes out in violent ways:
I honestly liked Tim McInerney less as Iago than in other roles, such as his film role in Ian McKellen’s Richard III. I thought his character voice was too gruff to be understood, and though his physicality is good, I didn’t get much of a sense of his concept for the character. As I’ve written before, Iago is a compelling part, but the actor has to have a clear objective to help us in the audience understand why he feels the need to destroy Othello.
These minor nitpicks aside, this was an excellent production, and I’m really pleased to retell my experience to you. Below are links to reviews and photo slideshows.
In this virtual version of my popular “Macbeth” course, you will engage with William Shakespeare himself and learn about his play in a fun, spooky, and interactive way!
Unlike my previous “Macbeth” course, all teacher interactions will be done through the use of pre-recorded video. Through a combination of multimedia lectures, online games, and a digital escape room, students will delve into the plot, characters, and themes of “Macbeth.” The class is designed to be interactive, fun, smart, and spooky.
Class organization
The class is organized into five parts using a combination of Nearpod, online games, videos, and a digital escape room.
Part I: The Plot of “Macbeth”
You will play a video where William Shakespeare (played by me), will introduce the plot, characters, and literary terms in the play, “Macbeth,” The video will feature graphics, video, and recordings that will explain the plot and who the characters are, and their significance to the plot. Shakespeare will also take time to define a series of vocabulary terms like “soliloquy” and “tragic flaw,” terms that explain his unique writing style and how he constructed his tragedies. After the video, students will participate in a group quiz via Nearpod. The quiz will cover the vocabulary words the students just learned, as well as the characters. and see their scores that will show how well they applied their knowledge from Part I.
Part Two: Jacobean England
Students will learn via Nearpod and Youtube about the English King James I, the monarch for whom Shakespeare wrote “Macbeth.” First, the students will read 1-3 slides with some historical details about the king. Then the students will watch a funny parody song about the life of the Stuart monarchs and answer questions about King James’ life. The section will conclude with slides and a virtual tour of Parliament about the infamous Gunpowder Plot, where an assassin tried to blow up the English government!
Part THree: The Curse Of Macbeth
Using Nearpod, students will delve into the tragic history of the persecution of witches, which Shakespeare incorporated into “Macbeth.” The students will then read an article about the characters of the witches and answer open-ended questions on Nearpod. Next, the students will read an article about the alleged ‘Curse of Macbeth,’ and learn about the long-standing theater superstition. The class will conclude with an online game via Scratch, where you play as Macbeth and deliver the famous Dagger Speech before going to kill the king.
Part Four: Acting Shakespeare
I contemplate murder in Act I, scene vii.
As you know, I’ve played Macbeth professionally and have written articles about the experience. Using Nearpod slides, online articles, and a Youtube video of Sir Ian McKellen, students will deconstruct the process of creating a Shakespearean character, and how actors make famous speeches fresh and alive.
Part Five: Digital Escape Room
Part V: The Digital Escape Room (Spoiler Free Version)
In a combination video/ website, Shakespeare will direct the students to a digital Escape Room, a game where students pretend that the witches from Macbeth have trapped them and Shakespeare in a cursed castle, and the only way to get out is to finish a series of puzzles that cover the characters and vocabulary they learned. The Escape Room will include word searches, decoding ciphers, a sinister forest, and a clever interpretation of the famous dagger speech. The video is designed so Shakespeare allows you to solve the problems independently, or with him guiding you through them. Each puzzle you solve, you enter in a Google Form, getting you one step closer to escaping the cursed castle.
One really fun thing I like to see each Thanksgiving is the live previews of some of Broadway’s hottest shows. You may remember that I first became acquainted with the musical “Something Rotten,” after seeing a live performance at the Macy’s Day Parade. I am just ecstatic to see and talk about this year’s hit Broadway Musical Six. It swept the Tonys, and has opened up touring productions across the country.
The Cast of “Six” perform live at the 2021 Tony Awards.
This vibrant, clever retelling of Tudor her-story was created by TOBY MARLOW & LUCY MOSS in association with the Chicago Shakespeare Festival.
The show is incredibly smart, and creative, and delves into the lives of some fascinating women, re-told as a singing contest with the characters singing their lives for you to judge what it was like being the queen of England, and living with the turbulent and fickle Henry VIII. What really appeals to me in this show is that like Hamilton, the musical takes these six semi-mythical women and tells their story in a way that is fresh and exciting.
Part I: Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII:” How NOT to tell a queen’s story
Around 1613, Shakespeare wrote his final play- his 10th history play which loosely told the life of English king Henry the Eighth.
I happen to know a lot about this play since I was in it back in 2008, as you can see in the slideshow above. As you might notice, this play doesn’t tell the story of all of Henry’s wives. We only see the last few years of Catherine of Aragon’s life, and the beginning of Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. Most of the drama actually centers around Henry and his scheming advisor, Cardinal Wolsey. Maybe I’m biased because I played this role, but frankly, Woolsey is treated in the play as a stereotypical Machiavellian villain, who conveniently leads the king astray so he can be the hero of the play. Woolsey does all of Henry’s dirty work; taking over his government, spearheading his divorce to Catherine, and trying to dissuade the king from listening to Anne Boleyn’s Protestant ideas, dismissing her as a “spleeny Lutheran.” Shakespeare leaves it ambiguous as to whether Henry actually told Woolsey to do any of these things so the audience will blame Woosey, instead of the king.
I’ll be blunt, aside from the courtroom scene at Blackfriars, where Katherine pleads for Henry not to dissolve their marriage, and the fun dances and costumes in the scene where Anne flirts with Henry, the play is really quite boring. though I blame Jacobean censors more than Shakespeare for this. Even after the entire Tudor dynasty was dead and buried, powerful people in the English government controlled what Shakespeare could say about them.
Part II: The women take wing
During Shakespeare’s life time, the wives of Henry VIII were bit players at best. With the exception of Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn (who in most narratives have often been cast as either virgins or whores), the lives of Jane Seymore, Anne of Cleaves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr were barely told until the 20th century, where new feminist scholarship sparked renewed interest in these women and how they lived.
TV series like The Tudors, movies like The Other Boleyn Girl, and of course books and documentaries by
Well, I can’t yet give an objective view of the plot and characters of “Six,” because I haven’t seen it…(yet). But until then, let’s just say that like “Hamilton,” it is great to see history be recontextualized and shared in such an accessible way. We all know that European history is dominated by the names of white guys- king whoever, duke what’s-his name. To see important women in history be given a voice by a multi-ethnic cast is a great way to make it acessible.
Bravo.
Educational links related to the six wives of Henry VIII:
Please join me and the Shakespeare Online Repertory Company on Discord.com at 1PM. We’ll be reading “The Lion In Winter” by James Goldman, which, you may remember was made into an Oscar-winning film in 1968:
Original 1968 trailer for the film, “The Lion In Winter,” starring Timothy Dalton, Anthony Hopkins, Katharine Hepburn, and Peter O’Toole.
As many of you know, I’ve been in two plays with the Shakespeare Online Rep before, and like the production of “Lear” I did last month, this play is about a king, (the historical King Henry II played by Peter O’Toole), and his three children, who ruins his kingdom through his selfishness and inability to connect with his children. In addition, his wife Elenor De’Aquitaine (Hepburn) is powerful, cunning, and ruthless and will stop at nothing to get power away from Henry. She even manipulates her own children against Henry; John (the infamous king of the Robin Hood Legend), Richard (known later as Richard the Lionheart), and Jeffrey.
The acclaimed TV show “Empire” owes a lot to “King Lear,” but as you can see, it owes a lot more to “The Lion In Winter.” The character Lucius Lyon is much more based on King Henry, with his violent past, his mistresses, and his powerful wife Cookie, who is clearly an African American Elenor De’Aquitaine. Furthermore, the children are even more clearly derived from the three Plantagenet children: Hakeem, the spoiled, foolish philanderer played by Bryshere Gray, definitely has echoes of Kanye West, but Prince John is definitely in his DNA. Similarly, the talented Jamal, who is loved by his mother and hated by his homophobic father could definitely swap stories over dinner with Richard the Lionhearted, (though I doubt Jamal ever went on crusades). And lastly, the emotionally damaged Andre does have some Macbeth-like traits with his vaulting ambition and his brilliant, cunning wife Rhonda. But unlike Macbeth, Andre uses his business-savvy mind and his ability to manipulate his brothers to take power away from his father, which is exactly what Jeffrey does in “The Lion In Winter.”
Will our production be as cool as Empire, or as star-studded as the movie? Honestly, no. But I will say that after working with these actors before on multiple projects, this production should be fun, exciting, and moving, and definitely worth the hearing.
This list is not about skill or the talent of the actor. This is to honor the contributions of Shakespearean actors who also appeared in one of my favorite film and television franchises of all time: Star Trek. Accordingly, some of the actors who weren’t essential to either Star Trek or Shakespeare or both are placed lower on the list even if I personally love the actor or the character they portrayed.
#10: Marina Sirtis
The English actress played Counselor Troi on Star Trek: TNG. Like John DeLancie, however, aside fromplaying Ophelia inHamlet, I was unable to find much Shakespeare in her credits, which is a shame because she has an incredible speaking voice. I frankly think the creators of the show spent way too much of the series trying to sexualize her and didn’t create enough opportunities for her to use her telepathic abilities or her empathic abilities.
#9: John Delancie
Like I said before, I am judging these actors for their cumulative contributions to Shakespeare, and unfortunately, I didn’t find many Shakespeare credits for Mr. DeLancie. That said, he is one of my all-time favorite Star Trek actors and was part of Star Trek The Next Generation all the way through the series. As the omnipotent entity Q, Mr. DeLancie plays a Richard III-like villain who manipulates the poor humans around him for his own amusement. He is also very interested in human nature and engages in many debates with Picard on the virtues of humans, like in this epic scene:
Q (John DeLancie) and Picard (Patrick Stewart) debate the virtues of the human race (Hide and Q, episode 10).
John DeLancie actually started acting in a high school production of Shakespeare’s Henry V, and later performed at the American Shakespeare Center in Connecticut: (Source: https://www.johndelancie.com/pages/my-past-work) ,
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek envisioned the 23rd century as a time when mankind would be united in purpose but all people would keep their cultures and racial identities. Accordingly, a lot of the cast came from a diverse cultural background; African Americans, Russians, and very notably, Jews. One man who brought his own Jewish background into the core of Star Trek was Leonard Nimoy- son of Russian Jews who spoke Yiddish. In the article above, Nimoy mentions how he incorporated the famous Vulcan hand gesture of “Live Long And Prosper,” from the blessing his rabbi gave his congregation, which Nimoy saw as a boy:
Nimoy started out as a theater actor, starting with Yiddish theaters in Boston and New York, and he continued to work in theater and radio before and after Star Trek. His first foray into Shakespeare happened in 1975 when he was cast as Malvolio in Twelfth Night.
“I’ve been studying and reading and watching Shakespeare long enough to feel excited and positive about it. The biggest problem an actor has is finding good material. With Shakespeare, you know that not only do you have good material, you have a proven piece that has been staged successfully many times.”
— Leonard Nimoy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1975.
Though Nimoy is now internationally beloved for his work on stage, screen, and radio, as a child had to overcome prejudice because of his Jewish roots. I wish Nimoy had played Shylock in theMerchant of Venice since he had the potential to play the role with a lot of passion and pathos. Just goes to show that Mr. Nimoy was a man of great accomplishment and creativity, and a Renaissance Man to boot.
#7 George Takei
I studied at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford Upon Avon in 60s. So it is with great joy that I will be making my London stage debut this January!
George Takei
With his iconic deep, smooth voice and skill as a fencer I wasn’t surprised to find out that the actor who played Hikaru Sulu was a classically trained actor. Sadly, I was unable to find many Shakespeare credits for Mr. Takei, which is a shame since I wanted to find some clips of him performing Shakespeare to put here. The best I could find was this clip from TOS.
I was able to find this interview where the actor shares his thoughts on Shakespeare. I’m actually going to see Mr. Takei in a live show in April of 2023, and I suggest you do too if you can. He’s a fascinating guy and a great activist for Asian Americans and the LGBTQ+ community. Like Leonard Nimoy, he has overcome discrimination and oppression and spread his wings creatively through many different media. Hopefully, I can update this list once I see him live to include more quotes and thoughts about Shakespeare from the man himself.
#6: Brett Spiner
Fan art of Data (Brett Spiner) holding the head of his evil brother Lore. 2017 by Kaylen M Bennett
Brett Spiner is a multi-talented veteran of film, stage, screen, and radio, so it makes sense that he has a grounding in Shakespeare. More than that, Spiner’s character, the andriod Lt. Commander Data, (one of the best characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation), faces a Shakespearean dilemma- he wants to understand what it’s like to be human, though he isn’t. He is not only mechanical but he doesn’t have emotions. Therefore he offers an objective commentary on the way the human characters interact, not unlike Horatio in Hamlet or the Fool characters in many other Shakespeare plays.
Data’s struggle to understand humanity even extends to reading and performing Shakespeare himself, as this clip shows:
Data even impersonates a Shakespearean actor playing Puck in the episode Time’s Arrow, (a preview of Spiner’s role as Puck in Gargoyles):
I might be cheating a little by putting Spiner this high on the list, since technically he hasn’t done many full Shakespeare plays, but doing these little snippets as Data on Star Trek, or as Puck on Gargoyles was a way to introduce Shakespeare to younger viewers, which as I will discuss later, is one of the great gifts Star Trek gave Shakespeare fans like me.
#5: William Shatner
To be honest, I don’t care much for William Shatner as an actor or a person. He drove away a lot of his fellow cast members on Star Trek, his ego is infamous, and his delivery of Shakespeare is clipped, slow, and I would argue, lazy. That said, Shatner is very good at playing characters who are arrogant, and he does know a lot about how to deliver Shakespeare for TV.
I will give credit to Shatner; he’s good at playing smarmy or arrogant characters which is why Captain Kirk was a good role for him. He was also surprisingly good as Marc Antony- he really sells the verbal irony as he subtly attacks Brutus in the “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech. Like Kirk, Antony is (to quote General Chang in Star Trek VI), “An insubordinate, unprincipled, career-minded opportunist,” and Shatner plays both of them with skill and relish.
Shatner actually got his first break in the theater as an understudy in a production of Henry V, where he got to take on the title role when Christopher Plummer got sick (more on that later). As this video above shows, Shatner continued to play Shakespeare throughout his career, and as Kirk, he explored the ‘brave new worlds of Star Trek with a Shakespearean curiosity.
#4 Benedict Cumberbatch
Though his contribution to Star Trek is comparatively small- playing the villain Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness, Benedict Cumberbatch is quickly becoming the best of the new generation of Shakespearean actors who have made the leap to the Final Frontier. I covered his Shakespeare work in other posts such as my review of his Hamlet. So let’s just enjoy the Machiavellian villainy in this clip, where he taunts Spock with Richard III-like glee.
#3 Christopher Plummer
[William] Shatner was Plummer’s understudy in a 1956 production of Henry V at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Plummer could not go on one evening due to illness, which led to Shatner’s big break. “He didn’t do what I did at all,” Plummer recalled in a separate interview. “Where I stood up to make a speech, he sat down. He did the opposite of everything I did. And I knew that son of a $%*# was going to be a star.”
Christopher Plummer, who tragically died last year, was a loss to both stage, screen, and by all accounts, everyone he knew or worked with. He was a dear man a consummate professional, and he brought that skill with Shakespeare and a love of Star Trek to create one of the greatest villains in Star Trek history.
General Chang, the war-mongering Klingon in “Star Trek VI”, who assassinates his own Chancellor Gorkon to start a war with the Federation, is a great antagonist, especially considering that Kirk was tempted to do the same thing himself. Kirk hates the Klingons and wishes death and destruction on the whole race. This film came out just two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the blind hatred between the Klingons and the Federation is a brilliant metaphor for the last days of the Cold War.
Shakespeare appears at the center of this metaphor- Chang assassinates Gorkon like Brutus killed Caesar, fearing that his peace talks with the Federation would destroy the Klingon Empire. Chang hates The Federation and Kirk in particular. The only human he has any affection for is Shakespeare, (whom he himself believes is Klingon), and he taunts Kirk with Shakespeare quotes relentlessly. Chang’s character also has echoes of Macbeth- killing his king and then blaming someone else in a show trial where he serves as the prosecution. Finally, just like Macbeth, Chang dies fighting when the Enterprise figures out how to shoot at his ship while it’s cloaked.
As the quote above indicates, it’s fitting that Plummer played Chang since the two of them have had a friendly rivalry ever since they played opposite each other in Henry V. He’s a great antagonist onstage and a towering, dignified presence offstage. In a way, the two men were two sides of a coin- Shatner being a loud and boisterous movie/ TV star, Plummer being a dignified, matinee-idol type. These big egos tussle extremely well in Star Trek VI, yet, as even Shatner admitted, they admired each other a lot:
Before I move on, I’d like to show you my favorite performance of Plummer’s. It’s a short monologue from Long Day’s Journey Into Night, where Plummer plays a washed-up Shakespearean actor, who ruined his career doing populist trash. One can see some of Plummer’s antipathy toward The Sound Of Music in his performance. Still, thankfully, Plummer didn’t meet the same fate as James Tyronne:
#2: David Warner
It’s appropriate that Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which is a film named after a quote from Hamlet cast a beloved Hamlet, David Warner. Like Patrick Stewart and Benedick Cumberbatch, Warner was a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he played Hamlet back in 1975:
Warner’s character in Star Trek VI thinks that this speech is about the future, and like MLK, Gorbechav or Gandhi, he tries to bring a “brave new world” to fruition by making peace with his enemies through nonviolent means. This includes sharing his love for Shakespeare. I like to think that Gorkon knows that Shakespeare was actually human, and when he quotes him to the Enterprise crew, it’s a means to ingratiate himself to the humans by finding common ground.
Sadly though, Gorkon in his idealism forgets that the speech is actually about death (or possibly it was translated incorrectly into Klingon). Indeed, this misunderstanding of humans and Klingons is what costs Gorkon his life. The situational and verbal irony of this quote from Hamlet is worthy of Shakespeare himself and it helps Warner’s performance become one of the most memorable in the movie.
Amazingly though, as if one incredible Star Trek performance wasn’t enough, Warner came back again. Ignoring his performance in the infamous Star Trek V, Warner gave a truly chilling performance as the sadistic Cardassian Gul Navek in the two-part episode “Chain Of Command,” where he captures and tortures Captain Picard!
Like the Klingons, the Cardassians are a warlike race of conquerors who use their war machine to better their society through conquest. In subsequent portrayals, they seem like a metaphor for the Nazis since they attempted to exterminate the Bajoran race, and their military philosophy seems to be inspired by fascism. In this episode, Warner’s cruelty echoes many horror stories of POWs enduring sadistic torture at the hands of the likes of Adolph Eichman, Heinrich Himmler, and many other monsters who told their torturers to “On no account show the slightest mercy.”
The chilling way Warner plays Gul Madred is one of the high points of the series. He and Stewart worked before on a production of Hamlet in 1965, and the way these two play off each other is masterful. Warner is powerful, in command, dangerous, and sly. Picard never knows when he is telling the truth, and as time goes on, Madred revels in how much closer he is to breaking the pitiful human. Still, Picard in his wonderful stoicism never breaks, and briefly manages to turn the tables on Gul Madred, when he makes the mistake of opening up to Picard about how in reality, he is a scared and miserable soul, trying to fill the emptiness of his heart with power and sadistic pleasure. Again, these two actors are so powerful that all you need is them, and a dark room to create compelling drama.
#1: Sir Patrick Stewart
Patrick Stewart as King ClaudiusStewart as The Ghost in HamletSir Patrick Stewart as Jean Luc PicardStewart as ShylockStewart as Cassius in “Julius Caesar”
You probably saw this coming. Not only is Stewart the most important character on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but he’s also one of the greatest living Shakespeareans, and has become a sort of icon for Shakespearean acting himself.
Stewart has given so many memorable performances over the years, but one of my favorites was fairly recent- when he played Marc Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. I mentioned how, in Julius Caesar, Antony is essentially the Captain Kirk of his time- brash, cunning, arrogant, and unprincipled. In the play that bears his name though, Antony is a shadow of his former self- a drunk, foolish old man who is completely blinded to the threat Octavian poses to him. Stewart said that he based his portrayal on his own father, who was himself a soldier and an alcoholic, who was very abusive to the young Stewart and his mother. With this in mind, the portrayal has a poetic justice to it that the man who lied and cheated so many Romans finally gets cheated by the foremost man of Rome. At the same time, Stewart makes us feel for him; since so many people admire Stewart (myself included), seeing him play a man who is bringing himself low, makes us all want to save him from himself. It’s the definition of catharsis.
Today I’ll be tracing the recurring themes and motifs that evolved from Shakespeare’s last solo play, “The Tempest,” and chart a course that explains the evolution of this play into the beloved Star Trek franchise.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest is based on a real story. As I said before, the story might have come from a traveler’s story about visiting the island of Bermuda in the early 1600s. The idea of Europeans going to an uncharted island, meeting the strange inhabitants, and ‘civilizing’ them, might have inspired Shakespeare to write the story of Prospero.
In addition to the Bermuda story, the age of English colonization had firmly begun at this time. The first English colony in America, Jamestown was settled in 1607, and The Tempest came out 1611.
At the same time, The King was worried about magic and trying to marry his daughter off to a prince.
Shakespeare wasn’t allowed to comment on contemporary issues, so instead of setting the play in England or even contemporary Europe, he set it on a fantastical island with spirits Prospero can control. His control becomes a metaphor for colonization. At the same time, we see a fantasy version of James’ daughter’s marriage in the romance between Ferdinand and Miranda. The motifs of discovering strange new worlds and encountering new races of people form the core of Star Trek and space-based science fiction in general, and an adaptation of The Tempest in the 1950s would set the template that the Enterprise and her crew would be built on.
“Forbidden planet”- The Tempest goes Sci-Fi
Forbidden Planet is a story about a dashing, adventurous captain, a curmudgeonly doctor, and a science officer who are from a United group of planets that peacefully searches for “brave new worlds,” and the people in them. Obviously, these characters are very similar to Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Spok, so clearly Star Trek owes its initial creation to the success of Forbidden Planet, which was a Sci-fi adaptation of the Tempest. The question then is if there is there more that we can say about the connection between Shakespeare and Star Trek.
Star Trek’s relationship with Shakespeare
The main connective tissue of Star Trek and The Tempest is the use of exotic locations and alien cultures to explore issues that were close to home. When people in 1600 went to see Hamlet Prince of Denmark they didn’t see an ancient legend of a Viking Prince as the original Amleth, written by Saxo Grammaticus; what they saw was a thoroughly modern story of a Renaissance Prince tackling theological issues that had only just been dreamt of by the English protestants; issues of predestination, issues of Calvinism, issues of the questions about the issue the existence of purgatory, etc. That would have been unheard of to the original audience of Prince Hamlet. The appeal was seeing a different place and time to retell an ancient legend that at the same time spoke to the present time of the 17th century. Star Trek does the same thing only looking to the future instead of the past.
Like Star Trek, Shakespeare used exotic locations to examine issues that were universal, (no pun intended), issues that were very much for the consumption of his audience. Look at Star Trek; every alien race the Enterprise encounters is an allegory for some culture or idea on Earth, like the two-toned alien Lokai and Bele that represent segregation and racism, or the Klingons who represented the Soviet Union, or the Borg, who represent imperialism and authoritarianism, cults, and to a certain extent fascism,
In Star Trek, space-age technology was always secondary to character; it was always about fragmenting the human condition into different recognizable alien species. Through the characters of Dr. McCoy, Captain Kir, and Mr. Spok, Star Trek examines humanity through 3 distinct points of view; that of Kirk the wide-eyed Explorer, McCoy, the cynical doctor with a heart of gold, and the cold and logical Mr. Spock. As the series went on, the allegories to contemporary affairs grew more nuanced, like how in Star Trek 6, the conflict between the Federation and the Klingons represents the final days of the Soviet Union, and the fear on both sides of what a post-Cold War world would be like.
Star Trek The Next Generation: The Tempest, Reformed.
Why did the creators of Star Trek cast Patrick Stewart, the foremost Shakespearean actor of his time, to play the captain of the Enterprise? I would say it is because Shakespeare is a writer who follows some of the same tropes that Star Trek would later use, so the creators needed a Shakespearean actor to communicate these ideas to the audience.
When Star Trek: The Next Generation first came out in the mid-1980s; the lens through which we saw alien cultures changed significantly: Picard sees humanity and the universe through a sentimental lens; viewing all cultures with no concept of superiority or paternalism. Like Shakespeare, Picard sees these cultures as his own and all worthy of respect. That’s why these cultures are often drawn to him and embrace him as one of their own, such as in the episode where he literally lives the life of a man named Kamin on the now-dead planet of Katan, and becomes the only living man to pass on their stories:
Picard’s greatest antagonist Q is a warped mirror of Picard; somebody who sees humanity as a plaything but nonetheless is intrigued and fascinated by human nature:
Taken together, Picard and Q are like the two sides of Shakespeare’s Prospero in The Tempest. Simmilar to how Dr. Morbius represents Prospero’s ego in Forbidden Planet, Picard represents the superego- the part devoted to improving the lives of his crew and the aliens he helps, and who looks at each “brave new world,” he encounters with awe and respect.
Q however, is Prospero’s Id- a malevolent, cynical, vengeful man, (who like Prospero in the episode Deja Q, is actually banished from his rightful place in the Q Continuum). He torments and enslaves creatures for his own amusement and his curiosity about humanity is more morbid and sadistic than scientific or philosophical. With this in mind, it makes sense that Q has been such an enduring part of the Star Trek series since he is an essential component of the series’ psychological makeup.
Science fiction in general is about possibilities- looking at where we came from and where we are and asking questions about where we are going. Generally speaking, Shakespeare looked more to the past than the future, but his conclusions were pretty much the same- he saw “What a piece of work man is,” but also feared greatly for his survival. Star Trek takes these concepts and projects them out to the far future. Even though in the 24rth century humans have mastered space travel, eliminated poverty, and put aside petty prejudice, people are still people and the conflicts they have don’t change. What’s great about Star Trek is how well both choose to tell the eternal story of the human condition, looking before and after and making some truly profound discourse on what it means to be human. Perhaps the real final frontier is the same as the first- the human heart.
The Shakespearean Student 