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."

   Alec Guinness. My Name Escapes Me

**

MARLON BRANDO AS MARK ANTHONY

"Although he was an avid reader and memorizer of Shakespeare, his performing experience had been confined to an acting-school production of “Twelfth Night” and, more recently, to taunting Vivien Leigh—then Mrs. Laurence Olivier—with a nastily precise imitation of Olivier’s Agincourt speech from “Henry V.” The director of “Julius Caesar,” Joseph Mankiewicz, came upon his star studying tapes of speeches by Olivier, John Barrymore, and Maurice Evans, and complained that the genteel result made him sound more like June Allyson. Brando later explained that the most daunting aspect of playing Shakespeare was relying on the written text, since he had learned to search around and under words—in pauses, in gestures, in grunts and mumbles, even in silence—for a sense of truth."


 Claudia Roth Pierpont. " Method Man:the greatest American actor lost his way" in THE NEW YORKER (October 20, 2008)

**
SHAKESPEARE'S HEROES & JACK NICHOLSON

"(JEREMY) Larner was angry that the heroes of Drive were not true heroes but in the mock-heroic vein. He cited an example from Shakespeare. Nicholoson
batted it away. 'Hey, Jer,' Jack sneered. 'Shakespeare, what Shakespeare? 'We're reaching  more people than Shakespeare ever dreamed of.'"

**

From light-verse writer BRUCE NEWLING


"Because I was so young when my father died, I have only fragmentary memories of him; and almost all I know of him was derived from accounts provided primarily by my mother but also by a few family members.  Michael Kirke, a first cousin fully a generation older than 1, for example, told me that my father had a fine singing voice and therefore he was often cast as the clown in such Shakespeare plays as "Twelfth Night," singing, as called for, during the course of the play.  My niece Sian (Welsh for Jane) has a framed photograph of my father dressed as the clown or fool in cap and bells, sitting cross-legged and holding a lyre.

Coincidentally, in 1947, as part of the quatercentenary celebrations of the founding of the school I attended, Queen Elizabeth's School in Crediton, Devon, a non-speaking part was created for me in a production of "Twelfth Night." I was cast as the page to Malvolio, the steward to Olivia.  My costume in black was the same as that worn by Malvolio, and we each wore a ruff; I carried a staff, as he did; and my role required that I mimic every gesture of Malvolio, as if I were a living shadow of him, you might say.  I had to strictly confine my attention to Malvolio—no side glances at the audience—and the whole effect was to point up the vanity and insecurity of my master, complementing the cruel practical jokes played on him by Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

The play was performed on an openair stage backed with a tall yew hedge on the grounds of the girls' school next to mine.  Malvolio was played by the town physician, Dr. Jackson, and it was he who proposed that Malvolio should have a page, having seen a London production of the play many years before in which Malvolio had not one page but six.  Sir Toby Belch was played by the physics master Gordon Vasey, who produced all the school plays while I was there; and there might have been one teacher from the girls' high school in the cast. Otherwise, the roles were played by boys and girls from the two schools.  

I have a photograph of the entire cast, 32 in number, standing side by side in a line across the entire width of the stage.  I pose kneeling on one knee, with Malvolio standing behind me.

Orsino, duke of Illyria, was played by a senior boy named Peter Bagi, and his delivery of the lines with which the play opens remains with me still.  "If music be the food of love, play on.  Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die."   And very soon thereafter: "Enough, no more.  'Tis not so sweet now as it was before."  Oh, my.
**

MASTER OF THE REVELS

"An officer first appointed in 1494 to serve under the 
Lord Chamberlain , and supervise Court entertainment.
   "The office became extinct in 1734 with the 'Licensing Act,' at which time the Lord Chamberlain's took over Responsibility for the Supervision and 'Censorshiorship of
Plays."

E.K. Chambers. The Elizabethan Stage. Volume 1 (Oxford
University Press, 192
**
THOSE THAT PLAY THE CLOWNS

"'Those That Play the Clowns'must pay the piper, and so, after four performances, at the ANTA , the poor players involved, among them Alfred Drake and Joan Greenwood, went to rest. The show had to do with what might have happened to the group of strolling players in Denmark lured by Hamlet to do their bit in his tragedy. It was written by Michael Stewart, and his dialogue was remote from the Globe."

John McCarter. "Theater" in The New Yorker (December 3, 1966)
**

"BEESEECH YOU,SIR, BE MERRY"

At the 9th hour
Reckoning from sunrise,
Our lives speak:
Hold now, Fellow. Much,
In spite of dying,
To be merry about.
None too subtle
When out shoots the verve
Of heaven shine.
Light. More light!
Blazed by sun,
The fluted world writhes,
Blisters with flesh,
With mercy.
Gradual lusters
Of heartfelt longings.
I beseech you, Sir,
Bury the dead. Turn
To the loom of the living
Where even wormwood laughs.

Louis Phillips

WHY SO MANY PRODUCTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS UNTIL AFTER WORLD WAR I WERE SO-CALLED TRADITONAL PRODUCTIONS

"It used to fire my imagination when I realized that our stage 'business' was derived from the actual business used in Shakespeare's time. Benson played with Irving, who had in his company an actor who had played with Kean. He communicated this knowledge to Irving. Kean had in his company actors who had played with Garrick. Garrick had as members of his company actors who had played with Betterton, and Betterton, in his turn, had as fellow-actors some who had played at the Blackfriars and the Globe, where Shakespeare's 
plays were originally presented. All these old actors were the marathon runners who handed on the torch of traditional stage business through the generations down to Benson's day. So it is little wonder that we Bensonians were somewhat consumed by tradition. But we were the last of the old brigade. 	
       When Benson died, the torch sputtered and burnt out."

     Reginald Denham. Stars in My Hair (New York: Crown Publishers, 1958)

**
SHAKESPEARE & LUXURY

"Many people today would like to live a life of luxury, but back in the 1300s, if you told someone you were seeking luxury, you might raise an eyebrow or two. Originally, the English word “luxury” meant “sexual intercourse,” and by the end of the century, “lasciviousness,” “debauchery,” and “lust.” This all came from the Latin luxuria, used to express ideas of desire, excess and deviation from a standard. Shakespeare used the word — in its lustful sense — in the 1600 play Much Ado About Nothing, when Claudio accuses Hero of being unchaste: “She knows the heat of a luxurious bed. / Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.” At some point during the 17th century, the word began to lose its provocative connotation and took on its current usage, referring to great comfort, extravagant living, and the use of wealth for nonessential pleasures."

Word Smarts Website (May 17, 2025)
**


CRESTON CLARKE (1865-1910) was a nephew of Edwin
Booth.

A REVIEW OF CRESTON CLARKE'S PERFORMANCE AS KING LEAR

"He played the King as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace."
                                              Eugene Field

**
THE MOVIE BARBIE & SHAKESPEARE
'
Gerwig plays all this with knowing humor, and has talked about how “Shakespeare’s comedies” informed Barbie’s screenplay
 (co-written with Noah Baumbach). As she clarified: Shakespeare was a maximalist. There wasn’t anything that was too far 
or too crazy  that couldn’t be worked through, and then there’d be something in the middle that felt quite human. I was thinking about [Barbie] in those terms: a heightened theatricality
 that allows you to deal with big ideas in the midst of anarchic play.



https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/
**

QUESTION:

The first chapter of this well-known English mystery opens with an  epigraph from Othello -- "O Who hath done this deed?". The final chapter of the book opens with yet another line from Othello -- "Nobody; I myself,  farewell."  Can you identify book and author?
 

Answer below somewhere.
**
" 
Constable Dogberry in Shakespeare’s "Much Ado About Nothing"

The Bard wasn’t just skillful at poetry and prose — he liked to create new words, such as “swagger” and “bandit,” when no existing terms would suffice. He also had characters use malapropisms, or incorrect words, usually for comedic effect. Take Constable Dogberry, the bumbling officer in Much Ado About Nothing. When leaving the royal court, he shouts, “Adieu: be vigitant, I beseech you.” The line always earns a laugh from vigilant audience members.
The term “Dogberryism” is a lesser-known synonym for “malapropism,” but the Shakespearean reference came first. Much Ado About Nothing was published in 1623, and “malapropism” came from a reference in a 1775 play.

Creating Compound Words

"Shakespeare’s love for wordplay included creating original compound words or terms by fusing two existing words. The OED credits Shakespeare with the first recorded use of several now-common compounds, including “lackluster,” “skim milk,” and “shooting star.” In Richard II, he wrote, “I see thy glory like a shooting starre fall to the base earth,” coining the phrase that would become a staple in the English language. He also contributed to our animal vocabulary with terms such as “watchdog” (from The Tempest) and “puppy dog” (from King John).
It’s hard to imagine our modern language without Shakespeare’s immeasurable influence on words, phrases, and expressions. From puppy dogs and shooting stars ...

Rachel Gresh

WORD SMARTS WEBSITE (January 4, 2024)
https://wordsmarts.com/shakespeare-changed/
*\
TAKING HAMLET PERSONALLY

"The only book i brought from Ireland  is the 'Complete Works of Shakespeare ," which I bought in O'Malley's bookshop for thirteen shillings and sixpence, half  my wages  when I worked at the post office delivering telegrams. The play Ilke best is 'Hamlet,' because of what he had to put up with when his mother carried on with her husband's brother,Claudius, and  the way my own mother in Limerick carried on with her own cousin Laman Griffin. I could  understand Hamlet raging at his mother the way I did with my mother the night I had my first pint and went home drunk and slapped her face,.I'll be sorry for that till the day I die."
Frank McCourt. "New in Town" in The New Yorker (February 22-March1, 1999)
**
JERRY LEE LEWIS AS IAGO

In 1968, there was a short-lived production of Othello in Los Angeles, a dream project of producer Jack Good, who wrote a loose adaptation filled with rock ‘n roll songs. He called the production Catch My Soul. Catch My Soul beat Jesus Christ Superstar by 2 years, and was a harbinger of the rise of the rock opera. (It was turned into a film in 1974.)
The title came from Act III, scene 3, when Othello declares his love for Desdemona, showing the dangerously destabilizing nature of … everything:
Perdition catch my soul
But I do love thee! And when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
*
Jack Good's Catch My Soul is based on William Shakespeare's play Othello. Good's musical contained many of the elements of Shakespeare's original work and largely mirrored its source. The subsequent film version directed by Patrick McGoohan changed the structure, setting and songs to an extent that make it a substantially different work. 

In the synopsis for allmovie.com Sandra Brennon states that in the film story:

"Othello is a wandering evangelist who happens onto Iago's remote commune. There he marries the lovely Desdemona much to the chagrin of Iago, who also loves her. The conniving commune leader then manages to quietly pressure Othello until murder and tragedy ensue."
          WIKIPEDIA 
**

Answer to TRIVIA:   CLOUDS OF WITNESS by Dorothy L. Sayers.

**
STANDING IN THE SHROUD-HOODED MEADOW

Standing in the shroud-hooded meadow
Where wave upon wave
Of green lives deepen,
I watch the sun's ardent climb.
In one day the entire world ripens,
Nothing too soon.
Underfoot the earth is vital stained.
I think of my life as
A white sleeve billowing.

Louis Phillips