Portia (Or Porcia), was the wife of Marcus Brutus. Many ancient writers emphasize her courage, beauty, and devotion to her husband and Rome. Many painters and illustrators have chosen to depict her as a model of courage and grace.
https://portiacatonis.weebly.com
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Every couple of years or so, there’s a new retelling of the tale of star-crossed lovers. I’ve written before that Shakespeare didn’t invent this story, but his version is definitely the template for every subsequent retelling.
The big challenge in telling the story for children is how to get around the sexual and violent elements of the story. Some versions like “Gnomio and Juliet,” make the violence comic and kid-friendly, while others like the WIshbone version call attention to the fact that it’s only a play, by presenting it as a story-within-a story.
What I find unique about Disney’s Elemental is that it ignores the violence and explores a side of the story that is often downplayed: family loyalty vs. personal choice. Is this version a complete adaptation- no. But it’s interesting to compare to “Romeo and Juliet” to see how it modernizes and diversifies elements of Shakespeare’s story.
One trope that both Elemental and Romeo and Juliet emphasize is the ancient notion of comparing human temperaments to the four elements.
In this world, all people are made of one basic element and it corresponds to their personality- dull, cold earth, flighty air, emotional water, and driven and temperamental fire. Our heroine Ember not only has a fiery temper, but a burning desire to repay her family for all that they’ve given her. She is also full of family anger for the prejudice she suffered at being an immigrant and a fire person. In the world of Elemental, fire people are looked upon with distrust because.. well fire burns!
This concept of elemental temperaments is explored in very creative ways in the film, but it is by no means a new idea. The idea that humans are made of four elements goes back to ancient Greece and China. The Greek philosopher Aristotle helped popularize the theory that not only is everything made of four elements but there are four liquids called humours that control human health and human behavior.
This is a presentation I created back in 2006 that explores the imagery and worldview of Romeo and Juliet. I explore what it means to be “Star Crossed Lovers,” and the relation that this play has to Astrology, religion, and even the Black Death. I hope you find it interesting!
Aristotle believed that to be physically and emotionally healthy, a person’s humours needed to be balanced which would prevent sickness and also control their temperament. A “humorous” person was someone who was either too angry or too melancholy and therefore worthy of scorn. This eventually twisted into our notion that humorous means to be funny.
In Romeo and Juliet, all of the characters are dominated by a particular humor and sometimes they even say how they are dominated by Choler (fire), Melancholy (Earth), Blood (Air), and Phlegm (Water)
Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Tybalt, Act I, Scene v
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall
Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.
All things that we ordained festival,
Lord Capulet, Act IV, Scene v
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’ cell;
The Nurse (to Juliet), Act II, Scene v
There stays a husband to make you a wife:
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.
What’s unique about Elemental is that, while characters in Renaissance dramas have all four elements within them, in this movie, they are literally embodying one. Therefore to be in balance as Aristotle says they should be, they need a partner with an opposite humor to form a harmonious union. This is a nice way of visually showing the age-old adage that opposites attract in a very literal and easy-to-grasp way.
As much as I love “Romeo and Juliet,” I’m well aware that Romeo is not an ideal lover. His attraction to Juliet is very much based on sight alone and though he is courageous and persistent to win her love, he does little to support or help her. Many people have pointed out that, had Romeo lived, it seems unlikely that his relationship with Juliet would last, especially considering that he just got over another girl five minutes before meeting her:
So as a character, Romeo is iconic, but as a lover, he’s not exactly ideal. What Elemental does is keep his love of romance and his persistence, and give him the ability to empathize, a desire to help, and above all, the ability to LISTEN to Ember, (the Juliet analog). Enter… Wade:
Wade is a great addition to the Romeo trope and though he doesn’t kill anyone for Ember’s honor, he does fight many figurative battles for her- he helps her fight her guilt and find her purpose in life, he tries to help her family multiple times, and he fights her father’s prejudice against water people by being kind and respectful to her family.
I think it’s telling that Wade is dominated by water. First of all, it makes it clear to audiences that he has significant challenges in dating Ember (since he might literally extinguish her), but also because of what it says about his character.
Romeo is dominated by the humor of blood, which according to Hippocrates and Galen:
A person who is sanguine is generally optimistic, cheerful, even-tempered, confident, rational, popular, and fun-loving. He or she can be daydreamy to the point of not accomplishing anything and impulsive, acting on whims in an unpredictable fashion. Sanguines usually have a lot of energy, but have a problem finding a way to direct the energy. This also describes the manic phase of a bipolar disorder.
https://www.thecolourworks.com/hippocrates-galen-the-four-humours/
While Wade is literally made of water, which according to Galen:
A phlegmatic person is calm and unemotional. Phlegmatic means “Pertaining to phlegm” and corresponds to the season of winter (wet and cold), and connotes the element of water. While phlegmatics are generally self-content and kind, their shy personality can often inhibit enthusiasm in others and make themselves lazy and resistant to change. They are very consistent, relaxed, and observant, making them good administrators and diplomats. Like the sanguine personality, the phlegmatic has many friends. But the phlegmatic is more reliable and compassionate; these characteristics typically make the phlegmatic a more dependable friend.
https://www.thecolourworks.com/hippocrates-galen-the-four-humours/
So by his very nature, Wade is more active and a better friend than Romeo, which makes his relationship with Ember a more equal partnership. Wade is thus a more modern take on the age-old sanguine lover like Romeo.
Many have argued that Romeo and Juliet’s relationship was never designed to last; it was designed to be much like fire or even like a poison that tastes good at first, but kills at last:
Much like Shakespeare’s version, the Juliet character in Elemental is more interesting than the Romeo character, and the writers know it. In Shakespeare’s version, Romeo is absent for most of Act IV, and in Elemental, Wade is not there for most of Act I and parts of Act II in the movie. The focus of both stories and the best feature is how the heroine handles the conflict between her family and her romance.
In Shakespeare’s version, Juliet doesn’t immediately fall head-over-heels in love with Romeo and uses an elemental image to describe how it would be foolish to try and rush into love too fast:
Although I joy in thee,
Juliet, Act II, Scene ii
I have no joy of this contract to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say ‘It lightens.’ Sweet, good night!
But, once the two of them are married, she is very passionate and will do anything to avoid getting married to Lord Paris, even though her parents are pressuring her:
It’s also interesting that Lord Capulet is described in this scene as “Too hot.” I’ve mentioned before that in many productions, the Capulets are dressed in fiery colors like reds, yellows, and orange.
Juliet herself can also be very fiery and willful. At one point, Friar Laurence even compares Romeo’s infatuation with Juliet to fire and gunpowder!
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
[Enter JULIET]
So there is precedent for portraying Juliet as a fiery character. What Elemental adds, is a sympathetic portrayal of race and culture wrapped up in her fiery nature. As I said before, Ember is the child of immigrants who are grateful to Element City for taking them in, but tired of the prejudices they face from the other elements. This echoes the real word struggle of Chinese immigrants under the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Japanese Americans during World War II. One way Ember’s fiery temper manifests itself is with her anger at prejudice and injustice:
The other struggle that keeps Ember intemperate is her conflicting desire to honor her family by taking over the family business, although this isn’t what she wants to do with her life. Wade sees this and realizes that Ember is fighting a war within herself and that is why she is lashing out at people in the store. She is also dealing with her family’s relative poverty and is constantly worried that her family won’t survive if she doesn’t take over the store.
In this scene, Ember becomes jealous of Wade, who was born into wealth and acceptance unlike her family who has struggled for years. This jealousy drives a wedge between her and Wade. It’s interesting that, rather than a family feud, the real forces that keep Wade and Ember in Elemental apart are not an arbitrary feud, but big societal forces like racism, nativism, and cultural differences.
In essence, Elemental takes the star-crossed aspect of the story and makes them more like the modern world. Most of us in first-world countries don’t get into blood feuds but plenty of people face prejudice and hardships based on where and how they were born. Elemental “boils” down the core of the Romeo and Juliet story and tells it differently, while keeping the central lesson that love can overcome and unite family differences and problems when two people are willing to risk everything for each other… even life.
Tonight is the Chinese New Year, beginning the Year of the Dragon. I’ve talked before about the fascinating relationship between Shakespeare and China, and I thought I’d illustrate it here by talking about a shared cultural mythology- the concept of dragons. Both Western and Eastern cultures use dragons in their myths, but as you’ll see, they have very different cultural meanings.
Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
Antiocus, Pericles
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch’d;
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:
Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish;
Antony and Cleopatra
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A tower’d citadel, a pendent rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
In Western myths, dragons are symbols of wrath and fierceness. In ancient Greek and Viking myths, dragons are often guards of treasure, (and sometimes in modern stories like Harry Potter). In the myth of Hercules, a multi-headed dragon guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, (the apples that kept the gods young and immortal). King Antiochus wants to scare Pericles by comparing his daughter to the apples; if he fails to win her love, he’ll be devoured as Hercules almost was.
His CORIOLANUS is grown
Coriolanus
from man to dragon: he has wings; he’s more than a
creeping thing.
Shakespeare’s Roman general Coriolanus is frequently compared to a dragon in Shakespeare’s play. According to Dr. Peter Saccio of Dartmouth College, this is because the general is unable to relate to other humans- he is solitary, violent, jealous of his power and wealth, and prefers to strike first, then retreat from other people when the battle is won. This is why he utterly fails to get the Roman people to elect him consul in this scene from Ralph Fiennes’ movie. I find it ironic that Fiennes has played not only this character, (who is associated with dragons), but with Lord Voldemort, (who controls several large serpents), and also Francis Dollarhyde in the film Red Dragon:
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
Cymbeline
May bare the raven’s eye! I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.
Sometime he angers me
Hotspur, Henry IV, Part I
With telling me of the mouldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-wing’d griffin and a moulten raven,
A couching lion and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
As puts me from my faith.
A thousand hearts are great within my bosom;
Advance our standards, set upon our foes
Our ancient word of “courage,” fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
Richard III
In the medieval story of St. George, the titular knight defeats a dragon, which is basically a stand-in for Satan. George was seen as the ideal knight- virtuous, devoted to his cause, strong, and patriotic. His defeat of the dragon was an allegory for how knights should devote themselves to protecting their lords, ladies, and the innocent against evil. Therefore, it’s intentionally unsettling that Shakespeare has Richard III telling his soldiers to act not like the virtuous St. George, but like the cruel and violent dragon. Richard is Shakespeare’s most villainous king, so it makes sense in context that he would side with the dragon, and thus his defeat would seem even more like a triumph of good over evil. In addition, the real King Richard flew this flag with a dragon on it during the actual Battle of Bosworth Field.
Peace, Kent!
King Lear
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
None of the animals is so wise as the dragon. His blessing power is not a false one. He can be smaller than small, bigger than big, higher than high, and lower than low.”
–Chinese scholar Lu Dian (AD 1042-1102)
Dragons didn’t have the negative connotations of Western myths. In China, they were symbols of good luck, strength, and success. They were also known to be proud and temperamental-sometimes kind but sometimes vengeful to people who didn’t show them proper respect. In a sense, the dragon was like the ancient Greek gods- they should be viewed with respect and gratitude as well as fear.
The Chinese calendar goes by a cycle of years, not months. It has 12 animals that represent various qualities and those qualities will characterize the coming year. So hopefully a year of a dragon will be a year marked with courage, good fortune, and justice.
IV. What would a Chinese Lear look like?
Looking at the quotes I showed you earlier, it’s interesting that King Lear calls himself a dragon, and it made me think- Lear is a powerful warlord who demands absolute loyalty from his children. Would a Chinese version of King Lear work?
There was a Chinese production of King Lear back in 2017, where the translator and director traveled to the Royal Shakespeare Company in England and worked with the actors and directors of a London production to make their production gain insight into the characters’ motivations. However, I wonder how successfully they translated the Western ideas and values of the play for a Chinese audience. One of the reviews from China Daily.com describes the play like this:
Originating from old British legend, King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s four most famous tragedies. Through the internal disorder of the royal family, the rise and fall of King Lear’s fate and the final punishment of evil powers, Shakespeare expresses his optimistic views in the future of society, thereby adding the glory of strong idealism into his work.
ChinaDaily.com
The last word I would use to describe King Lear is “optimistic”. It is the only tragedy where not only does everyone die, but the entire future of the monarchy is in question. Nevertheless, reading about this production makes me interested in imagining my own version of King Lear, one that emphasizes Chinese values, but also questions them.
Many Chinese stories stress family loyalty, communalism, and respect for elders. You could portray King Lear as a story about the disastrous consequences of self-interest. After all, Regan and Goneril cast their father out and dismissed his followers, and it led their kingdom into civil war. In that version, Lear is like the Dragon King, who in Chinese folklore, was a powerful ruler of the seas, (giving new meaning to the lines “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks”). As a bonus, historically, many imperial Chinese rulers decorated their palaces with images of dragons, and the emperors themselves were associated with the creature, (especially during the Han Dynasty), so when Lear says “Come not between the dragon and his wrath,” In his mind, he literally is a dragon.
In 1736, Jean-Baptiste Du Halde wrote about the Emperor: “His clothing is embroidered with dragons: they are his emblem, and only He can wear dragons with five claws – any infringement to this rule is punished severely.”
Cornell University: Emblems and Mascots of Rulers:
Chinese Imperial Dragons
That said, some dragons were associated with bad luck and ill omens. I’ve said before that Lear’s biggest flaw is that he fails to take time to examine himself or think about the consequences of his actions until it is too late. Maybe Lear thinks of himself as a benevolent dragon, but really is a bad man cursed with bad luck; he is not a dragon, he just has one on his back. So, in short, a Chinese re-imagining of King Lear could be a fascinating look at Chinese culture and give a fresh re-imagining of Shakespeare’s tragic story.
I hope you enjoyed this look into dragons in Shakespeare and Chinese culture. Joseph Campbell said that all cultures share and interpret archetypes to understand their own culture, but also to grasp what makes us all human. For whatever reason, every culture on Earth has some kind of large serpent- Chinese dragons, European dragons, The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the Viking Yormungand, even the Piasa of the native tribes of the Mississippi. and they can mean many different things to many different people, which means that we as humans are in some way tied to gether through all these dragon tales (no pun intended).
For my Shakespeare club, I’m coaching two young actors on Viola’s celebrated soliloquy in Act II, Scene ii.I thought I’d share some of that work with you. In this speech, Viola has an epiphany; the lady she was sent to woo on her master Orsino’s behalf LOVES HER!
I left no ring with her: what means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charm’d her!
She made good view of me; indeed, so much,
That sure methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord’s ring! why, he sent her none.
I am the man: if it be so, as ’tis,
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy is it for the proper-false
In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!
For such as we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? my master loves her dearly;
And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master’s love;
As I am woman,–now alas the day!–
What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
O time! thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me to untie!Exit
Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene ii, lines 648-672.
Viola has spent an unspecified amount of time disguised as a man. She has just tried (unsuccessfully) to woo Countess Olivia on behalf of her employer, Duke Orsino. Olivia seemed intrigued by her in her disguise as “Cesario,” and refused to hear any more words about Orsino, but asked Viola to come see her again. The Countess then sent her messenger Malvolio to give Viola a ring, which he claims she tried to give to Olivia as a gift. At first, Viola is confused and upset by the accusation, but slowly realizes that the ring is actually a gift for her; in fact, it’s a love token.
I think the comedy depends on how Viola reacts to the realization that Olivia loves her. I’ve seen some Violas that are embarrassed, some that are a little frightened (after all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned), and others with sad sympathy. Viola is a good person, so she can’t laugh at the lovesick countess, but she can have a wry laugh at herself and how her disguise has caused all this trouble; making her unable to confess her love to him, while at the same time making Olivia think she is a handsome young man.
Michelle Terry is very matter-of-fact in her portrayal. She doesn’t pause, she doesn’t drag out the lines. In fact, she seems more annoyed and scandalized than anything else. The comedy comes mainly from her gestures and movements as she talks to the audience as if they were one of her gal-pals- venting her frustration with this ridiculous situation.
Michelle Terry excels as Viola, straight-faced, tormented, only occasionally raising a conspiratorial eyebrow at the audience.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/aug/08/twelfth-night-review-shakespeares-globe-theatre
Judy Dench in the RSC TV show “Playing Shakespeare” is very sympathetic to “Poor Olivia, ” and plays the speech with a romantic sentimentality. She’s focused on Olivia, and feels awful for the false hope she’s given her.
Both these interpretations are valid, and they’re a good baseline for two sides of Viola’s personality- the sensitive genteel duke’s daughter who is sympathetic to Olivia, and the down-to-earth funny one who is willing to disguise herself as a boy to survive.
The main image here is the image of the knot- a central image of how convoluted this love triangle is.
I left no Ring with her: what meanes this Lady?
Fortune forbid my out‑side haue not charm'd her:
[650]
She made good view of me, indeed so much,
That me thought her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speake in starts distractedly.
She loues me sure, the cunning of her passion
Inuites me in this churlish messenger:
[655]
None of my Lords Ring? Why he sent her none;
I am the man, if it be so, as tis,
Poore Lady, she were better loue a dreame:
Disguise, I see thou art a wickednesse,
Wherein the pregnant enemie does much.
[660]
How easie is it, for the proper false
In womens waxen hearts to set their formes:
Alas, O frailtie is the cause, not wee,
For such as we are made, if such we bee:
How will this fadge? My master loues her deerely,
[665]
And I (poore monster) fond asmuch on him:
And she (mistaken) seemes to dote on me:
What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is desperate for my maisters loue:
As I am woman (now alas the day)
[670]
What thriftlesse sighes shall poore Oliuia breath?
O time, thou must vntangle this, not I,
It is too hard a knot for me t'vnty.
It’s interesting to note that (in the First Folio text), the verse alternates between being regular, and using a run-on technique called enjabment, where the thoughts continue after the end of the lines, starting with lines three and four. Ironically, when Viola says that Olivia was distracted and confused when she visited her, her own thoughts are disjointed and fragmentary as she reaches the inevitable conclusion that Olivia is infatuated with Viola in her disguise.
In the book “Shakespeare’s First Texts” by Neil Freeman he describes how the Folio prints the speech in four distinct sections. Freeman hypothesizes that Shakespeare organized this speech into four phrases that chart the stages of emotions Viola goes through:
Each stage has its own easily identifiable quality, reflecting the growing steps of Viola’s journey in what for her is a huge struggle not only to comprehend, but also to deal with the enormous complications of the dreadful love triangle- the potential results of which are now becomming only too clear.
Freeman, 175.
In the first three and a half sentences, Viola goes through the facts- she gave no ring to Olivia, Olivia was eying her, and half paying attention to what Viola was saying. The phrase ends with Viola’s conclusion that Olivia must be in love with her.
The sentences are of very irregular length- sometimes six words per line, sometimes a few as four. According to Freeman, the irregularity of the verse shows how Viola’s emotions are getting the better of her. Viola could be gasping with remorse over the pain she’s caused Olivia, or shocked at how easily she was taken in by Viola’s disguise.
Each line of this section mentions the people in this love triagle: “My master,” “And I,” “And She,” etc. Viola might be thinking about the possible outcomes to this situation- getting fired, getting discovered, getting married, etc.
Like Hamlet before her and Macbeth after her, Viola ends her soliloquy by saying she has no conclusion. She has no idea how to solve this problem, but can only hope that Time will provide a solution.
As I said, this is a soliloquy, which is to say, a speech where the character is solo or alone onstage. Some people think this means that the characters are talking to themselves, but I firmly disagree with this notion. One reason why Shakespeare writes soliloquies is because they allow a character to share their thoughts and feelings with the audience. They are the ancestors of every aria or solo in opera and musical theater, and every Disney Princess/ Villain song. I’ve even said before that there are some similarities between Viola and a famous Disney Princess:
This is a story of two boys, centuries apart, but united by their love of theater in general, and the Globe Theater in particular. The first is William Shakespeare, whose story Aliki tells from his birth, to his boyhood days, to his rise to prominence in the theater. The second is Sam Wannamaker, the man who spearheaded the project of re-building the Globe Theater from 1949 to the first performance of the Globe in June of 1997.
Aliki tells this story in the format of an Elizabethan play, dividing it into five acts. Acts I-4 tell the story of Shakespeare’s life while Act V focuses on Sam Wannamaker pursuing his dream. The book concludes with a chronology of Shakespeare’s plays, and a table of his most famous words and expressions, illustrated with adorable characters.
Like many of her books, Aliki’s illustrations are layered and detailed. She uses ink pen outlines to draw her characters, but then fills them in with bright, vibrant colors. She then painstakingly shades them using the crosshatching technique, to create textures that are complex but have a hand-drawn almost impressionistic feel. The characters aren’t ultra-realistic, and the color palette is limited mainly to bright primaries and warm browns, making it look like a child’s box of crayons or colored pencils. This book is designed to appeal to children with its hand-drawn quality.
Cover- The cover makes the subject of the book clear to the audience. We see Shakespeare and Globe Theater, but also illustrated moments from his plays. This helps establish that this is not only a biography, it is an introduction to Shakespeare’s plays and poems as well.
Front Matter: The book opens with four pages of quotes from Shakespeare’s plays illustrated with fairies, pipers, and Elizabethan men and women. There is no half-title, no frontispiece and no Half title verso.
Title page verso (copyright page) In the center of the copyright page is an Illustration of Shakespeare standing atop a globe, over the famous lines: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Below the quote in very small letters is the copyright date, a short summary, the ISBN data, card catalog information, and the typography information.
Title Page The title is laid out on a white background with a thin black border. Below the title is an image of a boy (presumably Sam Wanamaker), assembling a paper model of Shakespeare’s globe, with a portrait of Shakespeare in the background. This helps establish that this biography focuses on both Shakespeare and Wanamaker, and makes the reader excited to see the real Globe brought to life in full illustration.
Table of Contents As stated before, the book is organized like an Elizabethan play, so rather than Chapter 1, etc. the book has five Acts with 1-4 scenes in them. Each chapter in the table of contents is labeled with a description that sets the scene; either a location (like London, Stratford, The Globe), or what will happen in the scene (such as “Building” or “Uncovering”). The table then details four appendices that are part of the back matter.
Preface: The Preface is referred in the book as an aside, (an Elizabethan theater term meaning something spoken between a character and the audience). This preface acknowledges that, because of the lack of surviving historical information on William Shakespeare, Aliki, like many Shakespearean biographers, has to use some guesswork to fill out the narrative of his life. A second preface (referred to as a Prologue), introduces the story of the book, (namely the lives of Will Shakespeare and Sam Wanamaker). This preface mimics how in Shakespeare’s plays, a prologue would tell the audience what would happen before the narrative started.
Back Matter/ Appendices: There are four appendices in the back matter- A table of Shakespeare’s collected works, a timeline of the book’s events from 1564-1999, an illustrated list of Shakespearean words and expressions, and finally a list of Shakespearean sites to visit in London and Shakespeare’s home town of Stratford Upon Avon. These appendices show the reader that Shakespeare has an important role in history and in the English language, and encourage the reader to learn more about him.
This story not only tells Shakespeare’s life, it also introduces the reader to his plays and his influence on the English language through the illustrations and frequent Shakespearean quotations. The reader also gains an insight into Elizabethan life and culture by following Will’s journey from Stratford to London. Finally, by juxtaposing Shakespeare’s life with Sam Wannamaker’s, the reader sees Shakespeare through Sam’s eyes as he works his whole life to restore Shakespeare’s Globe to its former glory. The reader develops a love of Shakespeare, (or at least an empathetic respect), and may feel empowered to read more about Shakespeare, see his plays or maybe even become a Shakespearean artist in the future. In short, Aliki’s book brings the world of Shakespeare to young readers in a way that is beautiful to look at, full of insight, and with enough supplemental materials to encourage them to learn more.
Like Prospero’s magic in The Tempest, this story is magically told- it is not intended to create a totally realistic representation of Elizabethan life, but to give an exciting, colorful impression of Will’s life and work to the reader. Due to the scant historical details of Will’s life, Aliki chose not to do a standard biography, but, like Shakespeare’s own history plays, to tell a historically authentic story, rooted in truth that brings a time and a place to life, while portraying it an exciting and visually appealing way.
Citation:
Aliki. (2000). William Shakespeare & the Globe. HarperCollins Publishers.
I’ve written before that Shakespeare helped influence Halloween as we know it- the images of holding skulls, witches chanting over a cauldron, and even ghosts coming back to plague their murderers all have Shakespearean roots. Exhibit A is how these images and tropes can even be found in beloved Halloween costume stores like Spirit Halloween!
If you like creepy Halloween activities and Shakespeare, please sign up for my fully online, fully asynchronous class: “An Immersive Guide To Shakespeare’s Macbeth!” The class features a digital escape room, an interactive quiz, and a special, undead guest!
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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 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.
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 the author keeps 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.
This book is really fun and very enjoyable for kids, parents, and teachers who want to introduce kids to Shakespeare at an early age!
I was excited from the beginning to hear that the Try guys were going to bring Shakespeare to YouTube in a way that was fun and accessible. My expectations were that they would make fun of the play with care; I was hoping that they wouldn’t mock Shakespeare, (or mock people who like Shakespeare). I was also hoping that they would critique the characters without outright mocking them and find ways to make the play connect to modern audiences. I think they achieved all those things and more!
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. As I said before, what could be more adventurous, daring, informative, and out of YouTube’s comfort zone than doing Shakespeare?
In a series of videos they explored Elizabethan clothing, stage combat, learning how to speak Shakespearean verse, and finally on August 10th, 2023, they performed “Romeo and Juliet” live on Youtube, with suggestions from the audience! With this post, I will discuss the evolution from these three videos, to the final show, which I got to see live on YouTube. I will discuss what I think worked, what didn’t, and how this production might influence future Shakespeare productions going forward!
The original pitch for the play made it sound like a live YouTube event, but they made it even better by including a voting option where viewers could change some of the action and chose for instance, if they fought with swords or some other object, thus engaging the audience the whole time. This is what made this experience unique, (perhaps more than any other production), and I think in many ways this production could be an inspiration to educators and theater practitioners! My main critcism of the show is that, though it can be enjoyed by almost anybody, it is definitely not suitable for children, and nobody could get away with showing it in a classroom environment.
The set for “Romeo and Juliet,” seems like an ordinary YouTube TV studio, in that it’s fairly small and it does not suggest any particular period. It kind of suggests somewhat of a dream-like environment; there are cardboard cut outs with some clouds, the lighting is warm with a few pink colors . Most of all it reminds me of a fractured fairytale more than classic tragedy, (which I suppose is clever in itself because it sets up that the Try Guys are going to fracture Shakespeare the same way people like the Muppets fractured fairy tales.
The costumes don’t seem as elaborate or historically accurate as the ones in the previous video, which is a shame because it would’ve been really nice to see the Try Guys walk, fight, and dance in the same costumes that they experimented with in the previous video. That said, the costumes certainly are functional within the story. Eugene as Mercutio has a stylish striking black outfit that certainly suggests somebody you don’t want to mess with. Zach as Romeo has an amusing long wig (romantically disheveled of course) and a blue doublet (though I miss the pumpkin pants in the previous video). As in other productions, the Montegues wear blue and the Capulets mostly wear red. I would be surprised if the director had seen the famous Franco Zephirelli film (or at least Gnomio and Juliet).
The director Keith Habersberger also keeps the best costumes for himself both as the Prince and Juliet; he’s wearing a beautiful ordinate gold costume as the Prince and Juliet herself has lovely rose-colored gowns. Even her shift in Act Four is it’s tasteful. I’ll talk more about Keith’s portrayal of Juliet later, but let’s just say that the clothes do not make him look like a man in women’s garb, they make him look like Juliet.
The stage combat episode is great, and as a Stage Combat junkie myself, I watch a lot of channels like Skalgrim, Forged In Fire, HEMA videos, and of course my own stage combat videos. Consuming this combat content, I know that there are lots of avenues for education and for entertainment watching these 3 guys who have never done sage combat before, try out swords. I was very delighted to see them putter around with swords and then learn a short stage combat scene in which they then put on put their own spin on by improvising a scene where Romeo & Juliet sword fight with a guy who cut the cut in front of them while they were trying to get ice Cream. The video is fun, ludicrous, but also it’s just as informative as videos from the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Unfortunately, The Try Guys didn’t make much use of the swordplay they learned in this video during the final performance. Imagine my disappointment when, during the climactic duel between Tybalt and Mercutio, the audience voted to replace the swords with…something that was definitely NSFW. I’ll discuss this choice in depth later on my podcast but let’s just say it made the training they did in the previous episode seem like a waste of time.
Did you hear about this guy Romeo? He’s the talk of the town
Link Neal from Good Mythical Morning
One aspect of the production that I deeply loved was that instead of doing the whole play, The Try Guys did a 90-minute abridged version using multiple narrators to fill in with bits of exposition and commentary. The Reduced Shakespeare Company did this before in their show, but since The Try Guys are very popular in the YouTube Community, they got a bunch of their fellow Youtubers to be their narrators like Rhett and Link, Smosh Games, Rosario Pansino from Nerdy Nummies, and Mat Pat from Game Theory. It was absolutely delightful to hear more of my favorite YouTubers talk about my favorite writer, each one telling the story with their own brand of humor!
Romeo runs to Friar Laurence, mascara all smeared!
Manny Mua
Finally, let’s talk about the acting in the final performance and how the Try Guys succeded in bringing Shakespeare to You Tube.
Keith carries the show as Juliet. As he mentions in the video above, he has performed in Shakespeare before, and his passion for performing shines. It’s actually a bit shocking to see him drop his usual persona as an easy-going funny guy and become a tragic heroine! In addition, he has a clear vision for the character- I suspected that he would probably exploit the comedy of him being a man playing a woman and being taller than Zach and he does in the earlier scenes, but once Tybalt dies, Keith plays Juliet absolutely straight- he is absolutely committed to playing Juliet’s anguish and desperation and it’s really moving to watch!
Eugene was a natural choice for Mercutio- his Try Guys persona is very much the wild card, sometimes friendly and sometimes fierce and he clearly loves Shakespearean language as you can see in the earlier video where he plays Edmund from “King Lear.” Honestly, though, I think his performances in the final play are a bit under-dramatized- I don’t quite know what he was going for as either The Nurse or Mercutio, which might be a result of limited time or lack of direction. That said, he does a good job for having never done Shakespeare professionally before.
Zach admits in the Shakespeare Acadamy video that he doesn’t “get Shakespeare,” and I get the sense that he doesn’t really like Romeo, so his performance seems like an intentional parody of romantic leading men. Honestly, this is fine. Romeo isn’t my favorite Shakespearean character either, and yes, The Try Guys are treating this as a real show, but at the same time it is still an experiment; they are trying something they wouldn’t normally do, so Zach is dealing with the awkwardness of playing Romeo with the same self-deprecating sense of humor that he uses when baking without a recipe or trying ballet. He knows that he would never get cast as Romeo in real life, so he’s having a laugh while he does it onstage, all the while being the best Romeo he can be.
One of the biggest challenges any Shakespeare practitioner has to face with a modern audience is the problem of engagement. The age of social media has changed how we consume content- we don’t passively watch anymore, we engage with it, comment on it, share it, and sometimes even manipulate it for ourselves. In Shakespeare’s day, there was no division between actors and audiences so in a way, his plays work well for this kind of live choose-the-outcome YouTube Event and I’m interested to see if it influences future performances going forward. In any case, I’m grateful that I was able to see this fun-frenetic, once-in-a-lifetime evening of live theater!
If you would like to learn Shakespeare like the Try Guys, I have a series of online clases in acting, stage combat, Shakespearean comedies, tragedies, and of course, “Romeo and Juliet.” You can enroll in one of these classes now or schedule one with me by visiting my Outschool.com page:
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 book franchises of all time: Harry Potter. Accordingly, some of the actors who weren’t essential to either Harry Potter or Shakespeare or both are placed lower on the list even if I personally love the actor or the character they portrayed.
The Irish-born actor has been a veteran of stage and screen for decades before his death in 2002, after the second Harry Potter film. Here is him on Johnny Carson, telling a funny story about a production of Macbeth he did early in his career:
If you visit this website regularly, you know I’m a fan of Kenneth Branaugh– I’ve reviewed three of his Shakespeare movies and he’s my all-time favorite Hamlet. I’m also aware that he has a reputation of being a bit of an egotist and a womanizer, (since he had affairs with two women on this list), so even though he was a bit too old to play the part, it was nice to see him have a laugh at his own expense as the attention-hogging Gilderoy Lockheart. The humbug professor’s name actually Gilderoy (as in a man painted with false gold), gives away the twist that he takes credit for other witches and wizards’ work and Branaugh shamelessly mugs to the camera whenever he’s on screen. My favorite scene of his though, is the one serious scene where he teaches dueling with the help of the much more competent Professor Snape:
If you saw my post on the duel at the end of Hamlet, you can see that the way wizards duel is directly inspired by the way fencers fought in Hamlet, right down to the flashy salute and bow beforehand, and it’s neat to see two legendary Hamlets fight in it.
I couldn’t decide between these fabulous actors, so I grouped them together. After seeing Timothy Spall as the cowardly, foolish incompetent spy and traitor Rosencrantz in Hamlet, I knew that the only Harry Potter role for him would be as Lord Voldemort’s toady and pathetic rat, Peter Pettigrew, aka Wormtail.
Broadbent on the other hand, is completely different and unrecognizable during his excellent portrayal of Lord Buckingham in Ian McKellen’s 1995 film version of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Unlike the meek and easily broken Horace Slughorn, Broadbent as Buckingham is an oily politician who very nearly sells his soul to McKellen’s diabolical Richard:
What unites these two portrayals is that both characters are corrupted by a figure of pure evil, but both have a breaking point- Buckingham, (as you see in the clip above), refuses to be a party to child murder, while Slughorn eventually helps Harry Potter destroy Voldemort. In a way, they’re two sides of a very flawed coin.
Like Richard Harris, Michael Gambon, (who passed away in September of 2023) was an accomplished stage and screen actor, famous for playing King Lear multiple times, including a famous performance with Antony Sher at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Here are some highlights of his stage work:
I feel I have to give Fiona Shaw a good spot on this list, though I think her talent was wasted in the role of Petunia Dursley. She is an icon of British theater and her work in Shakespeare is superb. She famously played Richard II back in 1995, and in the short film below, she talks about her amazing interpretation of Measure For Measure, with fellow Harry Potter alumn, David Tennant.
I’d also like to include the best-deleted scene from Deathly Hallows with Shaw in it, where she admits to Harry for the first time that she misses her sister Lilly.
In a way, Lord Voldemort was a role that Fiennes had trained for all his life. He has played smarmy, serpentine characters before in films like Red Dragon and Schindler’s List. But Fiennes’ Shakespeare training allowed him to tap into the evil megalomaniac at the heart of Voldemort when he played roles like Richard III, (another deformed autocrat), and Coriolanus, the Roman general who is himself compared to a dragon. In the video above, YouTube critic Kyle Kalgren analyzes how Fiennes’ past roles and experience with Shakespeare translated well in his performance and his direction of the 2011 film Coriolanus.
By contrast, I give more credit to Imelda Stanton, who mainly plays sweet mom-like characters (or nurse-like in the case of Shakespeare In Love), for embodying the utterly loathsome Delores Umbridge. Reportedly, the role made Stanton feel physically ill and unlike Richard III, people hate her character with a passion. By contrast, look at her sweet and charming portrayal of Maria in the 1996 film Twelfth Night, (which also starred Helena Bonham Carter):
Again, I had to give credit to both of these women for the startling transformations they did for their Harry Potter characters, as well as their stellar work in Shakespeare. Helena Bonham Carter mainly plays apealing aristocratic characters such as Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Ophelia in Hamlet:
Seeing Ms. Carter as the demented Bellatrix Lestrange was quite a shock for me, yet the performance was no less impressive. I especially love this scene in Deathly Hallows where she has to act like a 17 year old girl, TRYING TO BE BELLATRIX LESTRANGE
I already wrote a tribute to Alan Rickman after his death in 2016, so I don’t wish to repeat myself. Suffice it to say that Mr. Rickman was always a consummate professional, and his iconic portrayal of Severus Snape was the performance of a lifetime.
To be honest, I thought Tennant was miscast in Harry Potter- he can play villains, (as Good Omens fans know well), but he just isn’t great at being maniacal and evil. That said, Tennant is a rising Shakespearean star and has created many memorable performances from Richard II, to Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, to Hamlet.
Say it with me… you probably saw this coming. No one can deny that Dame Maggie’s contributions to Shakespeare, as well as her ubiquitous portrayal of Hogwarts’ current Headmistress Minerva McGonigal, stand the test of time as strongly as the animated chess pieces she placed in the school basement. Let’s look at some of her greatest Shakespearean moments.
If you enjoyed this list, you might want to sign up for my Intro to Acting class or my extended acting course, where I delve into Shakespearean acting techniques, and answer the big question, “WHY DO SHAKESPEAREAN ACTORS KEEP GETTING CAST AS WITCHES AND WIZARDS?” To sign up, click the link below: https://outschool.com/classes/609658d1-3f9f-4371-8af2-4fe81ad13d8c
Thanks for reading!
The Shakespearean Student 