BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:SHAKESPEARE

for Mark

" March 15 is too important a day to ignore. As the man who taught me to use a chainsaw said, it is immortalized 
by Shakespeare’s famous warning: “Cedar! Beware the adze of March."

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
MAR 16, 2024
**
 SHAKESPEARE & VIRGINIA WOOLF

"Shakespeare’s living presence in home readings aloud of the plays and in amateur theatricals, Garber gets down to the meat of the book, a 100-page chapter on Virginia Woolf. After describing in her diary a fancy-dress party at her sister Vanessa Bell’s London house in 1923 Woolf ended: “Shre [her habitual abbreviation], I thought would have liked us all tonight”. To Molly McCarthy she wrote: “I kept thinking of Shakespeare. We were so mellowly and good-fellowly; not any intensity or bitterness, but all serene and melodious”. Shakespeare, for her and her friends, was the comforter, the consoler. Talking about him was, as Garber puts it, “both a pleasure and a sign of intimacy”. The mature comedies, of course, but, perhaps surprisingly, also King John, Richard II, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, Pericles and Cymbeline all figure in their writings, conversations and epistolary exchanges."


 Gabriel Josipovici, reviewing SHAKESPEARE IN BLOOMSBURY by Marjorie Garber ( Yale University Press. £25 (US $35)
in TLS (March 22, 2024)
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WHERE IS THE SKULL OF SHAKESPEARE?


" In 2016, a team of scientists used radar scans to investigate the burial site of William Shakespeare and uncovered signs of disturbances around the remains. The evidence suggests that his skull was likely removed from his grave at some point in history."

https://www.interestingfacts.com/shakespeare-facts/YUOLCQ55YwAH_LU4?liu=a28bbdc7f2e0154569dc36b4f43a3c0e&utm_source=blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2004757979

**
FROM A STUDENT IN MARK CURLEY'S SHAKESPEARE CLASS


After discussing the plot of the Winter's Tale, a student wrote,  "I cannot make this up, but apparently, Shakespeare can."
**

        PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN A SONNET
        BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
 
       When I count my TIMEX that tells the time,
       And see brave days sink in hideous night,
       When I behold foaming AJAX removing grime
       From bathroom tiles silvered o’er with white;
       When I see HOLIDAY INNS and their rooms,
       Which erst from heat did canopy salesmen,
       And spinsters spinning on HEIRLOOM LOOMS,
       Make soft beds for love-making now & then.
       Of your beauty do I no question make
       That thou amongst THE DAILY NEWS must go,
       Since scurrilous rumors stir and shake,
       But die  as fast as other gossips grow
       Against FOX NEWS we shall make defense.
       & our true love drives fake news hence.
 
 
 **

HOW ACTORS CAN COME UNDER THE MAGIC POWER OF A PLAY

"Already, just a few weeks into rehearsal, there are moments when the mood of Hamlet appears to dominate
the company. Even the 'sickness imagery' noted by the scholar Caroline Spurgeon seems to affect them, so that presently not only Peter (Eyre) but also many of the other actors are or have been ill, and there is much talk of symptoms and remedies. The reheasal hall also begins to look like one of the spare ballrooms of a rundown Scandinavian castle; the actors lounging round it like disaffected courtiers who most of the time have no
occupation, but dare not leave for fear of the king's displeasure.

Alison Lurie. "What Happened in Hamlet" in Words and
Worlds : from Autobiography to Zippers (Encino, Ca.Delphinium Books, 2019)
**

COMING UNDER THE SPELL OF SHAKESPEARE

The 1947 film -- A DOUBLE LIFE:

Highly regarded theater actor Anthony John (Ronald Colman) has a violent temper, which leads his actress wife, Brita (Signe Hasso), to leave him. When the two perform together in a production of "Othello," the strain of playing Othello drives John insane, to the point of killing his mistress, Pat Kroll (Shelley Winters). John does not remember the incident, but is forced to face his actions when promoter Bill Friend (Edmond O'Brien) uses the murder to publicize the play.

The "Othello" scenes were filmed separately and in the exact order in which they occur in Shakespeare's play, so as to give Ronald Colman the feeling that he was really appearing in "Othello." Colman felt uneasy about performing Shakespeare, so director George Cukor and Shakespearean actor Walter Hampden, who acted as coach and advisor for these scenes, tried to make Colman as comfortable as possible in them.
iDMb Trivia
&&

From "BRUSH UP ON YOUR SHAKESPEARE" 
by COLE PORTER, IN THE MUSICAL KISS ME, KATE

Brush up your Shakespeare
Start quoting him now
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow

Just declaim a few lines from Othella
And they'll think you're a hell of a fella
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer

**


SHAKESPEARE AND WILD GEESE
"I, also, want to use one of the Fool's lines as a title for something -- 'Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.' Can't think how to shorten it.
   "Is there any connection between wild geese and Lady Wildgoose? Lady W and her sister Lady Sandy tried, in 1603, to get their old father Brian Annesley registered as insane. They were frustrated by their cordell. Shakespeare must have heard gossip about it."


FILM DIRECTOR JOHN CROMWELL (In 1945 he hosted the Academy Awards alongside Bob Hope.) 

As for William Shakespeare, John Cromwell played "Paris" to Katharine Cornell's "Juliet" and Maurice Evans' "Romeo" in McClntic's "Rome and Juliet" in 1935, and appeared as "Rosenkrantz" in McClintic's 1936 Broadway staging of "Hamlet", with John Gielgud in the title role, Lillian Gish as "Ophelia" and Judith Anderson as "Gertrude". He also appeared as "Lennox" in the 1948 revival of Shakespeare's "Scottish Play", with Michael Redgrave as "Macbeth" and Flora Robson as "Lady Macbeth" (young actors also featured in the play who went on to renown were Julie Harris, Martin Balsam and Beatrice Straight)."

A
**

KING LEAR

King Lear
In Venice, asking a gondalier
If the Merchant was open on Monday,
Suddenly realized he was in the wrong play.

ROMEO & JULIET

Romeo 
When Juliet's cat mewed meo-
w, the Montague lover began to fret
That his presence wd be revealed to a Capulet.


LADY MACBETH

After killing the king, Lady Macbeth
Exclaimed: "I need a bath.
A little water will cleanse us of this deed.
Or perhaps a cold shower is what I really need."