Keeping up with Shakespeare
When I started blogging on Shakespeare
Calling a couple of years ago I had some kind of vague ambition – alongside of
reading the plays and writing short responses to them – of seeing all the
movies based on the plays, going to the theater to see the productions, reading
the books about the plays…
Well,
that was ambitious.
I
have discovered what more experienced Bardolators have undoubtedly known all
along. It’s impossible.
Since
starting the blog Hal and I have succeeded in seeing maybe half, at best, of
the Shakespeare plays performed in the Stockholm area. We haven’t made it to
any of the dozens of other performances in various places in Sweden. This fall Hamlet is being performed in
Helsingborg, Linköping, Uppsala and Stockholm (as a standup comedy). If we’re
lucky we might make it to Uppsala. The standup comedy…hmmm, maybe. As You Like It, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet
as ballet and comedy, King Lear are also scheduled. We actually have tickets to Lear.
On
Thursday this week Adrian Lester’s Othello is going to be broadcast live
from the National Theater in London at a cinema here in Stockholm. It breaks my heart that we won’t be able to
go. Adrian Lester is a brilliant actor. Branagh as Macbeth is coming up. We have
to see that!
New
movies are coming out all the time. We lucked out and saw the new Much Ado about
Nothing in London this summer but most of the new ones don’t make to our
regular cinemas, it takes time before the DVDs come out, somehow I have to find
out that they exist and find somewhere to buy them. And then schedule them into
our Shakespeare play-movie agenda.
Books!
Do you know how many books have been written about Shakespeare, his time, his
plays? I certainly don’t. Millions,
probably. I’ve read a couple of dozen
and have a dozen more on our shelf that I haven’t read yet.
What’s
a Bardolator to do? I’m planning on reducing my work hours (and income!) next
term. That will give me a little more
time. But not nearly enough. I’m beginning to realize that an entire lifetime
of 24/7 Shakespeare would hardly make a dent.
There’s
probably an excellent Shakespeare quote to describe this situation. While I try to find it fourteen new films
will be released, twenty-eight new productions of Hamlet will be
premiered, sixty-two new scholarly books and seventy-seven popular books on
Shakespeare will be published…
There’s
just no keeping up with Shakespeare!
P.S. Since writing this yesterday our friend YW has
booked tickets for us to Hamlet in Uppsala in November.
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