Troilus and Cressida (1601-ish) is a play largely faded from popular reference. No one even mentions Troilus anymore, and Cressida mostly sounds like a used Toyota, or a hipster au Adam Gopnik from his classic expat memoir, From Paris to the Moon (2001). But when
Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash Friends, Romans, lend me your ears. So much of this famous play has seeped forever into our collective reference that it’s hard to remember it’s theater. The conspiracy gone awry, adapted for the stage, still lands. People are, after
The Two Noble Kinsmen is the last of 39 plays to the Shakespeare oeuvre, written toward the end of his career in 1613 in collaboration with his colleague John Fletcher just three years before he died. It wasn’t included in The First Folio (1623, what
Look, th’ unfolding star calls up theshepherd. Put not yourself into amazement howthese things should be. All difficulties are but easywhen they are known. Duke, Measure for Measure, Act IV Sc 3 Measure for Measure is a lesser-known play, and one I’d never before read
Shakespeare’s final masterpiece, self-referencing yet universal, was written just five years before he died in 1616. It all kicks of with a shipwreck, as so often happens (Twelfth Night, I’m looking at you). Maybe in Tudor times the fear of a fatal shipwreck was so
Pausing for a moment to make general historical remarks. Three years ago this time we were in our first weekend of the hard lock down in Italy, which we initially thought would last a week, or two, or three, but instead stretched to 53 days,
I finished the vintage print copy of Cymbeline last night right before I fell asleep. Quite a note to go out on! Never mind the appearance of Jupiter as an actual deus ex machina with his eagle, shimmering before Posthumus in jail, aka gaol. Because
It often happens with the Shakespeare project that I’ll get some nice momentum going, plays are fun and easy to read, easy to find, and I think, right! Done and dusted! Then the Bard has some trick up his sleeve, buried in centuries of change
Decades ago, when I was in my most larval phase of the Shakespeare Project, Henry V (1599) was the first play I ever watched for fun, text in hand. I followed along mesmerized by the magic in words that tracked precisely to what I watched
