Shakespeare... Dead and Loving it

[cujo]

"brevity is the soul of wit"... it's true, Polonius says so. In honour of that pompous windbag I will make this short and bittersweet. This thread is devoted to all those crazy Shakespeare-heads out there. Post your favorite lines, talk about your favorite plays, or even tell us why you like or don't like Crazy Willy...

That's right folks, crack open those Cliff Notes and download Shakespeare for dummies... its time to get reacquainted with the father of western literature... bow down Robert Frost!

 

[arw]

Oh Miss Cleo, you should have predicted how much I love this thread. I know not everyone will appreciate it but you know that wisdom and goodness is vile to the vile.

 

[cujo]

"Out damn spot, out" - Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth is definitely one of my favorites of his works. It is very applicable to the status of the world today, and how ambition can destroy friendships of those who desire it. I'm no scholar on the subject of Shakespeare text, but I think that Macbeth is the most dynamic tragic character. He is forced to deal with complex issues, even more so than those faced by Hamlet. Anyone else like this play or is it too "high school" for you...?

 

[arw]

I would read Macbeth over Hamlet anyday. Hamlet is over rated.

Cujo, you just like Macbeth because of the three fortune telling witches.

 

[cujo]

Cujo, you just like Macbeth because of the three fortune telling witches.

She knows too much Macbeth... and she's next in line for the Throne of Scotland. Go to the moors and proclaim yourself Thane of Cawdor... there you will duel with the Thane of ARW...

 

[foray]

The most moving passages I have ever read of Shakespeare's were Prospero's "we are such stuff that dreams are made of" speech, and Hamlet's "Hecuba" soliloquy. I love all of Hamlet's soliloquys. He's a bastard but I am more Hamlet than Horatio. Did anyone notice certain references to Shakespeare in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon?

foray

 

[arw]

She knows too much Macbeth... and she's next in line for the Throne of Scotland. Go to the moors and proclaim yourself Thane of Cawdor... there you will duel with the Thane of ARW...

I bear a charmed life.

 

[arw]

My absolute favorite quote ever is from Romeo and Juliet. Act V.I.1-2

If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep my dreams presage some joyful news at hand----Romeo.

 

[cujo]

What did you think of Roman Polanski's version of Romeo and Juliet. I think he filmed it just after his wife was killed...

 

[yertle-the-turtle]

"if you prick us, do we not bleed?"

 

[arw]

Cujo didn't he do Macbeth? I didn't know he did Romeo and Juliet too. Personally I think Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version is the best version of Romeo and Juliet.

 

[cujo]

You're right Arw... I meant Zeffirelli... for some reason I always get those two mixed up.
I thought that the Macbeth version by Polanski was great... decapitation and all!

 

[arw]

You get Zeffielli and Polanski mixed up

I've really only seen the BBC versions of the plays on film. I've seen tons of them performed at various theatre's around town. I don't always like Hollywood's interpretation of Shakespeare.

This isn't Shakespeare but it's the only example I have, my absolute most hated movie of all time is First Knight with Sean Connery and Richard Gere. It was so historically inaccurate to King Arthur's time it made me ill watching it.....that would be why I don't typically watch any of the plays when they are made into movies.

 

[cujo]

Yes First Knight was awful...
but so was Romeo Must Die... I just sat there and said when will you die so I can leave the theatre.

Zeffirelli and Polanski are both eccentric recluses who did Shakespeare adaptations... why wouldn't you mix them up?

 

[arw]

Zeffirelli and Polanski are both eccentric recluses who did Shakespeare adaptations... why wouldn't you mix them up?

I don't think I've seen much of Polanski and I've only heard of Zeffirelli because of Romeo and Juliet. I guess I'm not up on the directors of the world. Sorry. I've got other things on my mind. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

I am a huge fan of the bard. My favouite play is King Lear, by far, hands down. Evil sisters, tragedy, filial obligation, lies, trechery, deceit, a fool, madness....

"Who can tell me who I am." (1.4.238)

"I am a man more sinned against than sinning." (3.2.59-60)

"As flies to wanton boys so are we to the gods/They kill us for their sport" (4.1.37)

There is something so delightfully and morosely appealing about Shaekspearean tragedy. Like an accident you can't take your eyes off of, you have to keep reading it.

I highly reccomend the film adaptation of Titus Andronicus (starring Anthony Hopkins) for any Shakespeare fans out there.

 

[yertle-the-turtle]

Have any of you seen this Aussie (I think) theatre group that does all of 'speare's plays in 90 minutes? They came down last year but I'm not familiar with all his works so I didn't go.

 

[arw]

I am a huge fan of the bard. My favouite play is King Lear, by far, hands down. Evil sisters, tragedy, filial obligation, lies, trechery, deceit, a fool, madness....

"Who can tell me who I am." (1.4.238)

"I am a man more sinned against than sinning." (3.2.59-60)

"As flies to wanton boys so are we to the gods/They kill us for their sport" (4.1.37)

I love Lear. It's one of the few plays that every single one of my Lit professor's insisted upon teaching.

I love any play that has a fool in it. The fool is there to represent atttibutes that the main character lacks. I find the plays with fools, soothsayers, court jesters, to be a bit more entertaining.

 

[Triumph]

Shakespear, what a great guy.... for me to poop on.

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

Shakespear, what a great guy.... for me to poop on.

I don't get it. Nor do I 'get' your sig, for that matter.

arw, I agree. While there for comic releif, the fools are often the wisest characters there. Have you read I Henry IV or the Merry Wives of Windsor? While not a fool, Falstaff is pretty hilarious..

...btw, did you know that Cordelia (in Lear) is actually the Fool? Or is, at least by some interpretations?

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

 

[meegannie]

http://quizilla.com/users/campgeek/quizzes/What Shakespearean Play Are You?

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

 

[cass]

another lover of the bard..I'll get back to you with THE quote

I just wanted to say that I recently watched a working of Twelfth Night. It was filmed in Cornwall. I enjoyed it( Ben Kingsley and Sir Humphrey, bravo) I also got some very good garden design ideas from it. I am thinking of a mosaic wall and statue....who should the statue be of? Shakespeare? Venus? Bono?


to Bono or not to Bono



that is the question.

 

[arw]

arw, I agree. While there for comic releif, the fools are often the wisest characters there. Have you read I Henry IV or the Merry Wives of Windsor? While not a fool, Falstaff is pretty hilarious..

I loved Falstaff. Poor drunkard. "There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old."

"If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be
old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is
damned."

"I am bewitched with the rogue?s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I?ll be hanged. It could not be else, I have drunk medicines. "

...btw, did you know that Cordelia (in Lear) is actually the Fool? Or is, at least by some interpretations?
[/B]

No. I've never heard that. I was taught Shakespeare out of the same anthology by 4 different professors so maybe that's why.

 

[cass]

PS: I love the style of paintings you have posted here.
The fairy one appeared while I was posting...an omen? I don't know what to wear to the wedding today. I think I bought the wrong thing yesterday...a velvet top that looks like a butterfly, and I was thinking of taking one of my veils. I was worried it was a bit OTT ( and I'm a bit old)
On the basis of that pic,I think I've decided....to go OTT or not to go OTT
maybe THAT is THE question?


I know I know.....OUT damned spot!!

OK , I'm going

 

[arw]

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee

 

[cass]

..not quite gone yet....
PSS: @ the topic heading
the shadow scene from Dead And Loving It Lesley Neilsen

 

[deep]

I have Julius Caesar on vinyl lps with Richard Burton. I got it in the 70s when I was a wee lad. It is really good.

My favorite is Hamlet.
I have a 3-4 hour Kenneth Brannah production of the entire play (on audio tape) it is astounding.
When I was having trouble sleeping I would listen to it.

I will have to think of which lines move me most, there are so many.



Yertle, I finally saw a production of ?Merchant of Venice?
It seemed so anti-semetic, I did not like it. But, yes it is a good speech.

 

[deep]

I highly reccomend the film adaptation of Titus Andronicus (starring Anthony Hopkins) for any Shakespeare fans out there.

yes i saw it very good.

i think jane taymore? directed it.

she is a stage director.


also; the film Richard II with Ian McKellan

"A horse, a horse, a kingdom for a horse"

I saw him do this on stage and film

 

[cujo]

There is something so delightfully and morosely appealing about Shakespearean tragedy. Like an accident you can't take your eyes off of, you have to keep reading it.

None more eloquently has been said. I now look at Shakespeare in a whole new light...