comedy

The Fashion Is The Fashion: Ye Try Guys

| astronut1

I’m so excited! One of my favorite Youtube channels is doing a series of videos where they try Shakespeare for the first time! Zach Kornfield, Eugene Yang, and Keith Habersberger known collectively as “The Try Guys” are a group of friends who seek out new experiences and share them with the world. They thrive on taking themselves out of their comfort zone and learning about the world through experiencing it firsthand in a funny, lighthearted way.

So, what could be more adventurous, daring, informative, and out of YouTube’s comfort zone than doing Shakespeare? So in a series of videos they are going to explore Elizabethan clothing, stage combat, learning how to speak Shakespearean verse, and finally on August 10th, 2023, they will perform “Romeo and Juliet” live on Youtube, with suggestions from the audience!

This post will be a reaction to the humor and information on Elizabethan clothing from part one of the series with my notes on Elizabethan fashion, and the costumes worn by Shakespeare’s company

Background on Elizabethan Clothing

I’ve written a series of posts about Elizabethan fashions. If you’re unfamiliar with the period, Queen Elizabeth reigned from 1558 to 1603. This was one of the most prosperous and cosmopolitan times in English history and the fashions of the time reflected this.

Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.

Richard II, Act II, Scene i

Clothing of this period was very hierarchical- if you were lower class, the garments had drab colors, were functional rather than fashionable, and were not tailored for individual people. On the other hand, upper-class people literally wore their wealth and status on their sleeves- clothes were tailor-made, colors were bright and hard to produce, and fashion styles represented the far reach and sophistication of the English court. One way the court proclaimed this was by importing fashions from Italy, as the quote above indicates. This might be one reason why so many of Shakespeare’s plays are set in Italy; the public wanted to see the exotic upper-class fashions in this play set in romantic, sophisticated Italy. In a way, Shakespearean plays were sort of a fashion show in the 16th century.

If they [Elizabethans] saw a onesie, their heads would explode!

Keith

Keith’s remark is referencing the fact that nowadays our clothes are stitched together on the spot by machines. If you buy pants or a shirt, it comes as one complete garment, but this is a luxury the Elizabethans did not have. Costumes came in pieces like ruffled collars, sleeves, skirts, kirtles, foreskirts, etc. All these pieces would need to be assembled by a patient lady or gentleman in waiting, which is why Elizabethan nobles couldn’t get dressed by themselves, as you can see in this graduate thesis video by my friend Anna Gonzales:

Keith Habensburger as Juliet

One of the best parts of the video is Keith trying on various upper-class Elizabethan ladies’ garments from dresses to skirts. The Try Guys have a long history of trying on female garments so in a way, they’re perfectly suited to try Shakespearean costumes.

Keith’s favorite Elizabethan costume piece is the famous neck ruff- a piece of rolled linen that goes around the neck worn by men and women. Ruffs were very popular in the Tudor court, so it became a symbol of Elizabethan fashion.

“A Shirt and a Smock”

In Anna’s thesis, she points out how Elizabethan undergarments came in the form of long shirts for men and a long linen one called a smock for women. In the video, Keith is puzzled by the garments and wonders if it would be at all erotic to see an Elizabethan in their not-at-all revealing shirts or smocks. As Anna points out in her thesis, these garments were worn close to the body, coming into contact with all the sweat and grime of daily life. So NO Keith, it wasn’t sexy to see an Elizabethan in his or her shirt or smock.

“THe Devil Himself Could Invent such stuff”- Elizabethan Corsets.


Every age has a new definition of the ‘ideal silhouette,’ that is, the figure that is most appealing in women that the clothes either create or accentuate. Elizabethan women were expected to have slim waists, small chests and wide hips. This look was accomplished through the use of a corset, which tightened the waist and compressed the chest.

Under the Hood- Farthingale, bum rolls, and petticoats

To create the wider hip look of Elizabethan women, bum rolls tied around the waist, and wooden farthingales created a bell shape for the hips and skirt. On top of that went the petticoat, kirtle, and skirt.

Eugene wears a petticoat on top of his corset and bum roll that is done up with red bows.

Zach wears a lace collar that partly covers his head. Eugene’s sleeves were added separately.

Eugene As THe Nurse

Eugene’s clothing as The Nurse, reflects the fact that lower-class people had fewer and fewer fancy options in terms of fabrics, styles, and colors. The costume is a simple linen shirt, a basic corset, and grey clothes. I suspect that The Nurse was also helping Juliet get dressed, like the ladies in this video:

Men’s fashion- Zach as Romeo or “Bros wearing Hose”

Men in this period also wore custom garments- the sleeves were added separately and the pants had to be attached at the points. Unlike women, young men didn’t cover their stockings (hose) and enjoyed showing off the shape of their legs. Stockings were often brightly colored and sometimes padded to make the man wearing it look more muscular.

Verily, May the Fourth Be With Thee

| astronut1

Hi everyone!

Book cover for Ian Doescher’s “The Empire Striketh Back,” a Shakespearean parody of Star Wars Episode 5.

Well today is May 4rth, when a lot of people have chosen to celebrate one of the most iconic movies of the 20th century: Star Wars! And why not? The story is full of conflict, introspection, love, change, the conflict between fathers and sons, and occasionally guidance from ghosts. Wait, that sounds familiar- it’s a lot like Shakespeare! Yes, the movie has a lot of parallels with the Shakespearean canon, and I’d like to share some of those similarities here. Below is a post I did for the American Shakespeare Center about how the Star Wars prequels parallel Shakespeare’s history saga of Henry the Sixth:

http://asc-blogs.com/2011/05/04/in-the-force-of-his-will-shakespeare-and-star-wars/

More recent posts for May 4rth

Review: “Star Wars-  the Jedi Doth Return .” by Ian Doescher
My Top 10 Favorite Shakespeare/ Star Wars Actors
Review: “Star Wars-  the Empire Striketh Back.” by Ian Doescher
Play Review: “William Shakespeare’s Star Wars”

Videos

Podcasts

Enjoy May the Fourth!

Review: “Star Wars-  the Empire Striketh Back.” by Ian Doescher

| astronut1

As I was writing William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back, I was surprised to realize I had made more references to Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing than any other play. Much Ado is a comedy—probably my favorite of Shakespeare’s comedies—so it was strange that lines from it kept popping up in the darkest of the original Star Wars® trilogy.

Ian Doescher, https://iandoescher.com/

Introduction

What Is William Shakespeare’s Star Wars?

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is a series of parody plays written by Ian Doescher that takes the prose screenplays of the Star Wars story and transforms them into Elizabethan verse. Last time I mentioned how much I loved the cheeky references to Shakespeare and Star Wars, and how Doescher adapts the cinematic quality into Elizabethan drama very well. In my podcast, I also emphasized the way Doescher gives each character verbose Shakespearan language that works very well for radio and theater:

My podcast episode where I do dramatic readings of “Verily A New Hope.”

What I want to do with this post, (and the accompanying podcast), is to see whether this edition captures the fun, the clever wordplay, and the Shakespearean storytelling of “A New Hope,” with the second installment of the series, and if it helps to capture the shift in tone between the two movies, as Luke is tempted by the dark side and Han is betrayed and frozen by Lando.

Notes about the play

  1. The first play in the series, “Verily, A New Hope,” took plot and structure inspiration from Henry V; it tells the story as an epic heroic story of Luke’s heroic deeds, much like how Henry V is about a king who grows from boy to man.
  2. By the playwright’s own admission, the dialogue is stuffed with lots of re-purposed quotes from Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare’s comedy of a womanizing, self-centered soldier who becomes a devoted husband. This is appropriate since the Leia/ Han plot within the play and movie starts out with them bickering like Beatrice and Benedick. Doescher says this was an accident, but I think he might have subconsciously taken inspiration from their love affair to help structure the dialogue. In the accompanying podcast episode, I talk more about how the use of Much Ado quotes helped to flesh out the characters of Luke, Leia, and especially Han.

Structure

Movies and plays follow a similar structure where the action starts at a static place, tension rises, and finally, things get resolved at the end. A lot of the same elements are in both issues. The main difference is how they are arranged. Let’s see how Doescher translated the three-act structure of a screenplay, to the five-act structure of an Elizabethan tragedy.

As you can see, films have a 3 act structure

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Elements to Watch for:

  1. The Language
    1. Choruses
    • A Chorus is a short speech where a character who is not part of the action of the play introduces the plot.  It functions the same way as the famous title crawl at the beginning of Star Wars.
  1. I mentioned last time that “Verily: A New Hope” uses choruses liberally, which is appropriate because the tone of this story is so much darker, and since the action follows the journeys of Han and Luke so closely Ian doesn’t use choruses as much. I suspect this is partly because unlike The Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope jumped around more between planets and locations and used wipes and other transitions heavily:

Below is a link to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Learning Zone, where you can learn about the language of the Henry V chorus.

https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/henry-v/language/facts#

2. Repeated lines/ Half lines

The literary technique of stichomythia has characters who speak at more or less the same time, using slightly different forms of dialogue. Doescher uses this well as a staging device by having Vader and Luke speak similar lines as Luke plummets down the shaft after losing his lightsaber duel:

These similar lines highlight the connection these two have (no spoilers), and also emphasize that, though the actors might be physically close onstage, their characters are meant to be far apart; they wouldn’t be saying this to each other.

In Romeo and Juliet, there’s an excellent example of stichomythia in Act IV, Scene iv, right after Juliet’s parents and Nurse discovers her, apparently dead. There is a long series of laments by her parents and nurse where they are shocked and horrified at her sudden death:

Lady Capulet. Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day! 2702
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight!
Nurse. O woe! O woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day, most woful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!2710
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this:
O woful day, O woful day!
Paris. Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d,2715
By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!
O love! O life! not life, but love in death!
Capulet. Despised, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d!
Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?2720
O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!
Dead art thou! Alack! my child is dead;
And with my child my joys are buried.
Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene v lines 2702-2723.

When I played Friar Laurence and the cast and I rehearsed this scene, the actors playing the Nurse and Juliet’s parents were struck by how similar the lines are and worried that these long passages of laments would get tedious to an audience. I realized by looking at the similar lines, the similar words (especially at the ends of lines), and the fact that Friar Laurence interrupts them at the end, led me to believe that these lines are meant to be spoken AT THE SAME TIME. This creates an effect of organized chaos where the actors seem to be wailing and ranting, but are actually speaking a carefully composed quartet of grief. Thus Doescher cleverly mimics Shakespeare’s use of stichomythia to convey Vader and Luke’s physical distance, and complementary feelings at the same time.

3. Parody Lines

The biggest appeal of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is the fact that it is a parody, and I’ve said for many years that parody and gentle riffing on Shakespeare is a great way to get students to overcome their fear of Shakespeare and engage with him. Students who know Star Wars but don’t know Shakespeare will recognize the familiar characters and plots of the movies and then see how Shakespeare’s language tells the story anew. Similarly, people who know Shakespeare will recognize the way Doescher re-tools famous Shakespeare quotes to give to characters in the Star Wars Universe, like here, where he spoofs the intentionally bad speech of Snug the Joiner and gives it to the Wampa from Empire Strikes Back:

Peter Keavy as Snug the Joyner in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” 2017.

In the Educator’s guide, which I’ve attached below, Doescher tells you exactly which lines he has parodied and the plots of the original plays so the students can learn about Shakespeare through these famous speeches. Orson Wells once said that “We sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations,” and this edition gives us thrilling space battle, wonderful characters, and witty dialogue to keep us entertained while we wait.

Staged moments

As Doescher worked his way through all nine installments of Star Wars, he continued to expand and experiment with his storytelling. There are a couple of moments in “Empire” that work only onstage such as the aforementioned moment of stichomythia after the lightsaber duel, and the scene in Act II, Scene ii where the Imperial Walkers known as AT-ATs actually speak to each other onstage. Like the French in Henry V, it’s interesting to see the battle from the enemy’s point of view, albeit a highly biased one. I won’t reprint it here for copyright reasons, but I will put this funny sketch in as a placeholder:

My Criticism

Although I loved “Verily, A New Hope,” I feel that Doescher didn’t go far enough to adapt the dialogue in interesting ways and play with the stagecraft of Star Wars to make it more distinct from the film and the first installment. My favorite moment of the play was the Wampa speech which was great because it not only parodies one of my favorite speeches in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it also made the Wampa attack tonally distinct from the film- the film is tense and grim, while the Wampa speech is funny and charming. I wish Doescher had embraced the parody and silly tone he shows in this speech and applied it more to the rest of the play; we already know Empire is the darkest installment of the series, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be played like that the whole time.

What I think works best in the film is the romantic comedy between Han and Leia; Doescher does a wonderful job pointing out the parallels between Han and Leia and Benedick and Beatrice which is not only fun, but helps Star Wars fans appreciate the comedy of Much Ado About Nothing even more. This is why I’m glad Doescher took painstaking notes on how he parodied Much Ado and other plays in the guide below:

The Education Guide

9781594747151Download
William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Prequel Series
Doescher’s official website.

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If you enjoyed the accompanying podcast episode to this post, please consider subscribing and donating to help me continue making fun and educational content like this!

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New Outschool Class: Shakespeare- The Lost Play

| astronut1

This is an interactive game that teaches the craft of Shakespeare’s writing and stagecraft in the form of an Elizabethan escape room. You must find the lost play of William Shakespeare before a mystery thief destroys it! Solve the clues and learn about Shakespeare’s writing and theater to uncover a historical mystery!

Course Description

In this fully online, fully interactive game, you play as a member of Shakespeare’s company. You’ve just discovered that someone has stolen Shakespeare’s new play “Love’s Labors Won,” and you need to find it before the show tonight! In the course of the game, you search the Globe Theater and Shakespeare’s study. Then a mysterious note reveals that someone has stolen the play! You must figure out who it is, and find the play before the thief burns it! Through the course of the game, you will learn about Shakespeare’s theater, the secrets of how he wrote some of his great plays and beautiful poetry, and the work of his contemporaries in a fun, interactive way.

The class is organized into four parts, based on four locations where you will search for the missing play:

Part I- Search the Theater

Part I- Search the theater (website/ Slides/ Jamboard)
You learn the basic parts of an Elizabethan stage (Google slides)
You label the parts of the theater (Google Forms)
You do a virtual tour of the theater (via Globe Theater.com)
Web quest- answer 3 questions about Shakespeare’s Globe: https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/ (handout)
You search the tiring house (the backstage area of the Globe), and find the letter from the thief (Sites).

Part II- THe Crime


A video plays where the thief declares that he’s stolen Shakespeare’s play for money and revenge.
After the video, you will learn about plays, printing, and theft in Shakespeare’s day through a series of Google Slides
Activity- make a folio, quarto, and octavio with just a piece of paper (handout)
Web Quest- answer 3 questions about how Shakespeare’s plays were printed and the first folio (Slides)
Activity 2: make an actors’ scroll or roll the way that Elizabethans might use (video)
Easter egg- find a pair of gloves in the print shop and answer questions.

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeare-100-objects-pair-gloves/

Part III: Write a New Play

You’ll gain new understanding of the types of plays Shakespeare wrote and their basic plot structure via Google Slides. You’ll then take a short quiz to confirm what you learned.

-Plot Structure
You’ll learn about the basic structure of Elizabethan plays via Google Slides.
A second set of slides will demonstrate the plot structure of Romeo &Juliet
You’ll mix and match a series of plot elements to create your own Elizabethan play via Jamboard

Tragedy:

  • A hero is given some unwelcome news
  • He feels betrayed by those close to him
  • He agonizes about the ethics of killing someone close to him.
  • He kills someone (or banishes an honest man) and immediately falls into a downward spiral.
  • The hero does (this will be a mandatory choice)

Comedy:

  • The heroine disguises herself as a boy
  • A hero or heroine swears (s)he will never fall in love and immediately falls in love
  • The heroine pretends not to be interested in the hero, (but secretly loves him).
  • A loyal best friend is captured, sent to prison, or bewitched
  • The hero and heroine hate each other due to a series of misunderstandings.
  • The hero and heroine get married (this will be a mandatory choice).

History:

  • An ambitious young man arises to challenge the king for the throne.
  • The old king dies, (or is murdered)
  • A new king becomes king
  • Duels and or battles
  • Someone dies in battle
  • Someone is murdered, assassinated, or sentenced to death.
  • New King gets married
  • King and Queen reign peacefully (at least for now)

Romance ( if students pick this option, they can mix and match everything (except the main character dying)

Verse practice-
You’ll learn about the verse Shakespeare wrote, through a series of slides and a jam board.
Activity- You will be given a series of famous lines from plays and movies, (such as a quote from a Disney Movie, a Star Wars film, or a song). You will then determine if it is an iambic pentameter line (Google Slides).
Easter egg- you find a second note from the thief (Google Sites).

Part IV- THe Tavern

You will look at a series of pictures and videos about Shakespeare’s contemporaries and try to figure out which of them stole the play. Through the handout, you will conclude who the thief is.
You find a dagger in the tavern and take it. Outside the tavern, you will fight the thief in a short animation. GAME OVER.

THe FIrst Class starts April 28th, 2023. CLick here to register!

https://outschool.com/classes/shakespeares-lost-play-mystery-game-ny9HhlxI?sectionUid=23c96e2a-6a34-427f-a481-79fe3200421c&usid=MaRDyJ13&signup=true&utm_campaign=share_activity_link

My Top 10 Favorite Shakespeares

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Shakespeare’s birthday is coming up! This is the week where I usually stop talking about individual plays, and talk about the man himself. Today I’d like to cover how he’s been portrayed in fiction. As you’ll see, with such a famous and at the same time mysterious figure like Shakespeare, there is a lot of leeway in terms of how you portray him. This list shows multiple interpretations of Shakespeare and at different stages (ages) of his life. Some are comic, some are tragic, but all are fascinating to discuss:

#10: Rhys Ivans (Anonymous, as The Earl Of Oxford).

Like I said in my podcast, I don’t believe Oxford was the real Shakespeare, and I have some issues with the character and his lack of humanity. That said, I do like the character they were going for- a tortured genius who has to create, in spite of himself, and it destroys him and his family.

#9: Hugh Laurie

I love what they do here- Shakespeare’s a temperamental artist who hates editors, but ultimately accepts that he has to put butts in seats. It’s very true-to-life and Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie do a great job in this sketch!

#8: Kill Shakespeare Volume 2

Like I said in my full review, I really like the idea of an aging Shakespeare buckling under the pressures of being an icon. Bardolatry, the worship of Shakespeare as a literary god, has been a real thing in academic circles for at least the last 200 years and I think it really hampers first-time readers from even attempting to read Shakespeare. Since this comic is very much attempting to get people to do just that, it makes sense that they portray Shakespeare as a deeply flawed human who is trying his best, but not able to live up to his god-like persona.

#7 Matthew Baynton- Horrible Histories

Even though this history show for kids is also trying to make Shakespeare accessible for British schoolchildren, it actually takes the opposite approach for Shakespeare- make him cocky, self-assured, silly, and a bit of a schlamaazel, who like his own creation of Mercutio, talks too much and invariably gets himself into trouble.

#6: King Of Shadows

Cover of “King Of Shadows,” an excellent Young adult novel for anyone who loves Shakespeare.

“Nat, say hello to William Shakespeare”. They might as well have said, “Nat, say hello to GOD!”

-King Of Shadows

Again, most interpretations of Shakespeare are aware of and try to subvert the god-like status he has in our culture, which is why this YA novel attempts to humanize him, by having him interact with the hero, Nathan, a 20th-century child actor, go back in time and finds himself switching places with another Nathan Field, a real boy actor in Shakespeare’s company. Nathan then meets and befriends Shakespeare and the two form a father-son bond.

This book takes place just a few years after the death of Shakespeare’s own son, Hamnet, so this William Shakespeare has a son-shaped hole in his heart. It’s really heartwarming to see the two broken people form a family bond.

#5: Hamnet

As I said before, Shakespeare is not the main character of this novel; he pops in and out of the life of the real main character; his wife Anne, as he visits her at his parents’ home, and later when he sees her on periodic trips home from London. His characterization is entirely indirect. That said, we learn a ton about him through her perceptive eyes. We see his hatred of his abusive father, his frustration with being a glover’s son with no time to make a living in the theater. We see his ambition take hold as he travels to London, and at last, his contrite return to finally become a good husband after the death of his son. This Shakespeare is sort of a prodigal son, who searches for fame and fortune as a young man in the big city, but eventually comes to value his life at home. This solves the mystery of why Shakespeare never moved his family to London, why he retired in the early 1610s, and why his writings have nothing about his relationship with his family, his wife, or especially his son. This Shakespeare is scarred; trying to redeem himself from the sins of his past.

#3 Kenneth Branaugh- “All Is True”

This Shakespeare is at the end of the journey he took in “Hamnet.” He’s retired from theater, trying to pick up the pieces of his life in Stratford, and trying to reconcile his feelings for the fair-young-man (played by Ian McKellen), and his wife, (played by Judy Dench). It’s melancholic, but still funny in a dour way.

#3: Christian Borle- “Something Rotten”

Like I said in the review of the Broadway musical, Borle is the best part of this show. Like Matthew Baynton, he plays Shakespeare as a cocky young self-assured genius on the outside, but unlike Baynton, we see he has a deeper side underneath. As he sings in the incredibly catchy “Hard To Be the Bard,” Shakespeare is once again dealing with the problem of maintaining his success and is under a tremendous amount of pressure to crank out new and successful plays all the time. Even though he’s the antagonist, he’s more sympathetic than the heroes.

#2: Jacob Fiennes- “Shakespeare In Love”

I realize this movie has lost a lot of prestige over the years, thanks to the controversy over its loathsome producer, Harvey Weinstein. I realize that the film Shakespeare In Love might not have deserved best picture over films like Saving Private Ryan. That said, I still think it’s a fantastic movie and every single element from the sets to the costumes to the near-perfect casting, is top-notch, especially the casting of Jacob Fiennes as Shakespeare. This young, heartthrob Shakespeare hasn’t yet become the self-assured genius we see elsewhere on this list. He’s constantly out-classed by Christopher Marlowe, which is a very good choice because it helps us sympathize and root for this man, whom we all know will become a rich, successful genius, but hasn’t yet.

Fiennes also gives Shakespeare a very good arc- he’s a selfish dreamer like Bottom at the beginning and a sweet, sensitive man at the end. In the end, he writes for all the right reasons- supporting his family, immortalizing his love Lady Viola, and helping his friends and partners in the Chamberlain’s Men. Most of these Shakespeare are fairly static, but this movie gives him a great hero’s arc which allows us to like him and hope that his play is a success. As you can see in this alternate version of the final scene, Shakespeare makes a tearful goodbye to Viola, and sets about paying tribute to her in a play that will eventually become Twelfth Night. He also begins his lifelong partnership with Richard Burbage, who will go on to play Malvolio in that play, as well as Hamlet, Othello, and many others. It’s a satisfying conclusion to his arch, which like Viola, shows that Shakespeare is ready to take on a “brave new world” with a new sense of purpose.

#1: Dean Lennox Kelly From Dr. Who: The Shakespeare Code

Dr. Who (David Tennent) and Dr. Martha Jones ( Freema Agymann), are… disappointed when they meet Shakespeare in person in 1599.

Though this episode has an inauspicious start, Dean Lennox Kelly from this 2007 episode of Dr. Who finds a way to incorporate every aspect of every other Shakespeare on this list! He’s a cocky, self-assured showman on the outside who knows he’s a genius but is also a middle-class man of the people, playing to the groundlings. On the inside though, he is mourning the loss of his son and yearning for love, which is why he falls in love with Martha and (spoiler alert) makes her the Dark Lady of the sonnets. He also is clever enough to figure out what’s going on as three aliens try to manipulate him into using his gift of words to conjure the end of the world for them. Finally, he is still a hard-working writer and does occasionally doubt his own work:

Shakespeare: “To be or not to be”. Oh, that’s quite good.

10th Doctor: You should write that down

Shakespeare: I dunno… bit pretentious?

-The Shakespeare Code.

Again, the best thing about this Shakespeare is his arc- he drops his mask of genius and opens up to Martha and the Doctor, just like how the Doctor confides in Shakespeare how he is mourning the loss of his previous companion, Rose. In the end though, he draws strength in the memory of his son, and actually uses it to save the world!

Is this a historically accurate biopic? No. Is it a silly cartoon? Also no. The reason I ranked this episode the highest is because they managed to encompass the myth and the man of Shakespeare in a very compressed time, with tons of Shakespeare easter eggs, and historical references, and it was filmed in the real re-creation of Shakespeare’s own theater! Someday I’ll write a full review of this episode, but for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed this list, and are hungry for more Shakespeare’s Birthday Week content!

Shakespeare’s Fools

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Happy April Fool’s Day! Today I’d like to look at the rich history of Shakespeare’s fools and clowns! Clowns are some of Shakespeare’s classic comic characters, but fools are complex characters that entertain, satirize, and even philosophize. They may dress the part, but they are no fools.

This clip from Mel Brooks’ comic masterpiece History of the World, Part I, has the writer/director perform as Comicus, a ‘stand-up philosopher’ from Ancient Rome- a philosopher who is basically a stand-up comic. As you’ll see, unlike clowns, most of Shakespeare’s fools basically fulfill this role- to satirize and make fun of people and institutions.

What Is A Fool?

Fools and clowns are based on medieval minstrels who, as this video from Monty Python’s Terry Jones shows, were itinerant entertainers who had to do a number of jobs including play music, dance, sing, compose poetry, juggle, and on occasion- START A WAR!

Fools Vs. Clowns

A fool is the renaissance version of a minstrel- an official royal entertainer who worked at royal courts. A clown is a comic part in a play. The often danced, sang, and did improv comedy. To illustrate the difference, here’s a short video about the life of Henry VIII’s favorite fool- Will Sommers

Foolish Founding Fathers

All of Shakespeare’s fools and clowns are based on ancient Italian sources-from the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terrence to the improvised comedy known as Commedia Del ‘ Arte

Short featurette documentary on the artform of “Commedia Del’ Arte” by The National Theater in London

Commedia is based on stock character types that Shakespeare adapted and fleshed out- Arlequinno became the constantly hungry Dromio, (among others), while Capitano became Falstaff and Pistol. Even Shylock has remnants of Brighella in his DNA. According to Dario Fo in his book: Manuale Minimodell’Attore, Shakespeare adapted stock characters from commedia to be his clowns, and sarcastic characters called sots, who commented on the action to become his fools (Fo, 107)

Will Kempe- Shakespeare’s First Great Clown

Despite his strength and skill as a dancer, Kempe specialized in playing oafish buffoons like Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, Falstaff in the Henry IV plays, and Peter in Romeo and Juliet. In the Second Quarto edition of Romeo and Juliet, you can see in the stage directions “Enter Will Kempe,” right before Peter speaks:

According to Will In the World by Steven Greenblatt, Kempe and Shakespeare had a falling out in the late 1590s, which many scholars have assumed might have been due to Shakespeare’s distaste for clowns wasting time with jokes that bogged down the play:

Hamlet:
 Let those that play your 
clowns speak no more than is set down for them. For there
be of them will themselves laugh, to set on some
quantity of barren spectators to laugh too. Though in the
meantime, some necessary question of the play be then
to be considered. That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful
ambition in the fool that uses it. Hamlet, Act III, Scene ii.

Kempe, for his part, seemed a little big for his britches; he and his fellow clowns seemed to think that Shakespeare's scripts were just vehicles for his own jokes and songs (Reynolds, 247). He then sold his share in the Chamberlain's Men, derriding them in print as "My notable Shake-rags," and then staged a publicity stunt where he danced across England!

1600-1613: The Golden Age Of Foolery

Kempe’s replacement was Robert Armin, an accomplished writer and singer, who specialized in playing satirical Fool roles. Armin appeared in several Shakespearean plays after 1599.

Unlike Kempe, Armin’s characters are essential to the plot of the play, and his jokes support the themes and ideas of the plays themselves. As Feste in Twelfth Night, Armin makes jokes that make fun of the overly-serious Orsino and Countess Olivia:

Feste. Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia. Good fool, for my brother's death.
Feste. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
Olivia. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
Feste. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's
soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen. Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene v.
Touchstone in “As You Like It”

Sometimes Armin’s characters are satirical mirrors of Elizabethan society; in As You Like It, Touchstone the Fool mocks the culture of dueling; implying that there are hundreds of loopholes that a gentleman may use to challenge a man to a duel, without actually fighting.

  • Touchstone.  I did dislike the cut of a certain
    courtier’s beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not
    cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is call’d the Retort
    Courteous. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would
    send me word he cut it to please himself. This is call’d the Quip
    Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment.
    This is call’d the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut,
    he would answer I spake not true. This is call’d the Reproof
    Valiant. If again it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This
    is call’d the Countercheck Quarrelsome. And so to the Lie
    Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.
  • Jaques (lord). And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?
  • Touchstone. I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor
    he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we measur’d swords
    and parted.

The Fool in “King Lear”

Perhaps Armin’s greatest comic creation was The Fool in King Lear; the ultimate satirist who makes fun of the king’s foolish choices. He tries to talk sense to the increasingly mad king, until he vanishes entirely, and Lear himself starts making fool-like cracks at the audience:

Lear Thou hast seen a
farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
Earl of Gloucester. Ay, sir.
Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold
the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.
The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none- I say none! Get thee glass eyes
And, like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not. King Lear, Act IV, Scene vi.

Through realizing his own foolishness, Lear recovers his sanity, and makes peace with his daughter, which beautifully shows the importance of fools, clowns, and satirists; to question ourselves, to sharpen our critical thinking, and to endure hardships with good humor. Therefore on this April Fools Day, I say,

“Here’s to the fools, to folly, to farce. Let them push the wealthy on the ar— APRIL FOOLS!”

References

Best, Michael. “Shakespeare’s Actors: Will Kempe” Internet Shakespeare Editions, University of Victoria, 28 Sept. 2016, ise.uvic.ca/Foyer/citing. Accessed 30 Sept. 2023.

Fo, Dario. Manuale Minimodell’Attore (English: “The Tricks Of the Trade” Translated by Joe Farrell, 1991. Accessed online at Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Tricks_of_the_Trade/akEJ9Ew9GaoC?hl=en&gbpv=1. 29 March. 2023.

For more tomfoolery

I teach a class specifically on Shakespeare’s comedies where I’ll talk a lot about the way Shakespeare writes clowns. I’ll also delve into the history of Commedia Del’Arte and how it influenced Shakespeare’s characters! For more information, visit http://www.outschool.com

Help Support my podcast

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As of right now, if you want to help support the work I do here and my podcast, you can sign up for monthly donations. I have a lot of new ideas for the podcast, but I can’t do them without your support, so please consider being a supporter now!

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Review: Romeow and Drooliet by Nina Laden

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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:

Free teaching guide from the SAG-Aftra Foundation

Play Review: Othello 2007

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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.

The Cast

https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/eamonn-walker–othello-zoe-tapper-desdemona-663679e

https://www.photostage.co.uk/shakespeare/othello/2007-shakespeare-s-globe.html

Eamonn Walker as Othello

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.

Adieu for now!

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2007/may/26/theatre2

Othello capsule review: 2007, directed by Wilson Milam [Walker/McInnerny]

https://bbashakespeare.warwick.ac.uk/productions/othello-2007-shakespeares-globe-theatre-globe-theatre-bankside