Monday, March 26 2012

The text on The Merchant of Venice is finally done and I can let the play go for this time.

From the Shakespeare Almanac:

• On March 20, 1414, King Henry IV died. Of course he died at the end of Part Two and we haven't got there yet, but it was kind of interesting to read about it in the Almanac while in the process of reading Part One.
• On March 24, 1603, Queen Elizabeth I died, at the age of seventy, having reigned more than forty-four years.  

Shakespeare sightings:

• Several more in Dickens' Great Expectations, in which Coriolanus, Timon of Athens and Macbeth are all mentioned.
• An article in DN about the Globe being the host of theater groups from around the world putting on all thirty-seven of the plays in connection with the Olympics this summer. The most moving example: the director of the new theater in the new capital city Juba of the new country South Sudan. This gentleman, during the civil war, fantasized about playing Shakespeare. He and his colleagues will now be playing Cymbeline.
• An article in DN about lawyers in which Shakespeare's famous lawyer quote, “The first thing we do, let's kill all the Lawyers” is cited. OK – contest! Which play and who says it? Lovely prize to the first to comment on the blog with the correct answers.
• In Denise Mina's Garnet Hill, the main character Maureen fins temporary comfort in a bubble bath but compares herself to Ophelia, which isn't very comforting.
• In the movie “Factory Girl”, about Edie Sedgwick as part of Andy Warhol's gang, one of the background songs was the Reflections' “Just Like Romeo and Juliet”. I suppose that's a sighting once removed...remote anyway. But still.

Further, this week:

• Received: In the Bleak Midwinter.
• Started read aloud with Hal: Henry IV Part One.
• Read: my first issue of the magazine from Shakespearesällskapet. Much of it is about Coriolanus, including an article about a production of this play at Pistolteatern in the '60's. The whole magazine is interesting and I recommend membership for those of you who read Swedish. Www.shakespearesallskapet.se
• Still reading: Shakespearean Negotiations by Stephen Greenblatt. Still very interesting, even more so now since the first plays Greenblatt analyses, in the chapter “Invisible Bullets”, are the Henry IV plays.
• Posted: Us and Them in The Merchant of Venice.