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#williamshakespeare — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #williamshakespeare, aggregated by home.social.

  1. A quotation from Shakespeare

    CASSIUS:           You gods, it doth amaze me
       A man of such a feeble temper should
       So get the start of the majestic world
       And bear the palm alone.

    William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
    Julius Caesar, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 135ff (1.2.135–138) (1599)

    More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #shakespare #williamshakespeare #juliuscaesar #cassius #acclaim #flaws #power #strength #weakness

  2. A quotation from Shakespeare

    CASSIUS:           You gods, it doth amaze me
       A man of such a feeble temper should
       So get the start of the majestic world
       And bear the palm alone.

    William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
    Julius Caesar, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 135ff (1.2.135–138) (1599)

    More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #shakespare #williamshakespeare #juliuscaesar #cassius #acclaim #flaws #power #strength #weakness

  3. A quotation from Shakespeare

    CASSIUS:           You gods, it doth amaze me
       A man of such a feeble temper should
       So get the start of the majestic world
       And bear the palm alone.

    William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
    Julius Caesar, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 135ff (1.2.135–138) (1599)

    More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #shakespare #williamshakespeare #juliuscaesar #cassius #acclaim #flaws #power #strength #weakness

  4. A quotation from Shakespeare

    CASSIUS:           You gods, it doth amaze me
       A man of such a feeble temper should
       So get the start of the majestic world
       And bear the palm alone.

    William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
    Julius Caesar, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 135ff (1.2.135–138) (1599)

    More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #shakespare #williamshakespeare #juliuscaesar #cassius #acclaim #flaws #power #strength #weakness

  5. Movie Review: As You Like It (1978)


    Title: As You Like It
    Release Date: December 17, 1978
    Director: Basil Coleman
    Production Company: Time-Life Television Productions | BBC
    Main Cast:

      • Helen Mirren as Rosalind
      • Brian Stirner as Orlando
      • Richard Pasco as Jaques
      • Angharad Rees as Celia
      • James Bolam as Touchstone
      • Clive Francis as Oliver
      • Richard Easton as Duke Frederick
      • Tony Church as Banished Duke
      • John Quentin as Le Beau
      • Maynard Williams as Silvius
      • Victoria Plucknett as Phebe
      • Marilyn Le Conte as Audrey
      • Tom McDonnell as Amiens
      • David Lloyd Meredith as Corin
      • Arthur Hewlett as Adam
      • Jeffrey Holland as William
      • Timothy Bateson as Sir Oliver Martext
      • David Prowse as Charles
      • John Moulder-Brown as Hymen
      • Paul Bentall as Jacques de Boys
      • Peter Tullo as Palace Lord
    • Mike Lewin as Palace Lord
    • Carl Forgione as Banished Duke’s Lord
    • Max Harvey as Banished Duke’s Lord
    • Chris Sullivan as Dennis
    • Paul Phoenix as Page
    • Barry Holden as Page

    Synopsis (via Letterboxd):

    Orlando is forced to work like a servant for his brother Oliver, so he goes to win his fortune in a wrestling contest, where he meets a lady of the court, Rosalind. Rosalind (daughter of the deposed duke) is companion to Celia, niece of the deposed Duke, and when the current duke banishes Rosalind from the kingdom, she, Celia, the court jester (and incidentally Orlando) all end up in the forest or Arden, where the deposed Duke holds court. Romantic mixups, cross-dressing, love poems nailed to trees, and a lion await them all.

    My Thoughts:

    I’ve returned to BBC Television Shakespeare which is always a good option for Shakespeare’s plays that don’t get as many movie adaptations.  I was hoping to watch a 1961 Royal Shakespeare Company performance with Vanessa Redgrave as Rosalind, but couldn’t find the film anywhere (although the audio is on YouTube).  Of course, Helen Mirren is no slouch and she shines in her performance of Rosalind.  Unlike most of the BBC productions which are filmed on sound stages, As You Like It is filmed entirely on location with the better part of the movie set in the forest.  With that being said, it is a bit strange that all the characters just hang out in the woods with no tents or other structures.  The cast is talented but the script doesn’t allow anyone to stand out apart from Mirren.  Dave Prowse, famous for playing Darth Vader, makes an appearance as a wrestler.  As one of Shakespeare’s more musical plays, there are some delightful songs as well.  The problem though is that this production is just too much of a straight, by-the-book run-through of a play that really needs a more compelling dramatic approach.

    Rating: ***

     

    #BBCTelevisionShakespeare #BookAdaptation #Comedy #MovieReviews #Movies #RenaissanceDrama #Romance #TV #WilliamShakespeare
  6. A quotation from Shakespeare

    VIOLA: I hate ingratitude more in a man
       Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness,
       Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
       Inhabits our frail blood.

    William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
    Twelfth Night, Act 3, sc. 4, l. 372ff (3.4.372–375) (1601)

    More about this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #shakespeare #williamshakespeare #twelfthnight #character #ingratitude #thanklessness #thoughtlessness #trait #unappreciation #ungratefulness #vice #flaw #favors #returnthefavor

  7. Experiencing Shakespeare’s Globe

    By Christine Swan

    Although I have now returned to work and the weather is turning its back on the summer, I still have plenty of stories to tell of my holidays. Before the end of August, I was excited to visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for the very first time. Even I am surprised that I have visited prior to this year.

    In truth, I have visited the Swan Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon, and, this year, watched A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. The evenings are becoming increasingly chilly so I was prepared for being somewhat exposed to the elements.

    Tudor theatre-goers would have experienced similar conditions – the groundlings would have paid an affordable price but would have baked in the sunshine, and been soaked by the rain. London had a choice of venues, including the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch, now the site of the new Museum of Shakespeare. The Globe was built on the southern banks of the Thames but was moved from another site in Shoreditch when the land owner called in the lease. The Theatre, as it was known, was demolished in 1598 but the timber carefully and stored in a warehouse, before being transported to the Bankside area on the southern shore. When rebuilt, this became the original Globe, just one year later, in 1599. It is believed that the first play performed was Julius Caesar.

    The Globe burned to the ground in 1613 and William Shakespeare retired to his home in Stratford Upon Avon, to die in 1616, just three years later. The wooden construction and thatched roof caught alight

    The Globe was rebuilt after it burned down. This is a sketch dated 1638 of the new building. By Wenceslaus Hollar – https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Wenceslaus-Hollar-The-second-Globe-playhouse-detail-from-A-View-from-St-Marys_fig16_254362678, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=149975427

    It is incredible that the current Globe Theatre stands close to the site of the original. it is testament to the incredible vision and resilience of the late Sam Wanamaker who researched the original theatre, but sadly passed away before construction finished in 1997.

    Bankside, including the Globe Theatre, from Southwark Bridge

    I walked through the City on a warm late summer evening. Workers were standing outside every pub spilling out onto the pavements, along with their beer. I crossed Southwark Bridge and considered how much more difficult it would have been for early seventeenth century theatre goers from North of the River. They would only have had the choice of crossing crowded London Bridge, or, more likely, have crossed by ferry, rowed by many of the watermen working that stretch.

    Arriving in Bankside

    I arrived to enjoy the general hubbub of a pre-performance theatre. The entrance forum feels very modern, with attached restaurants, cafe, and excellent shop.

    An announcement encouraged us to take our seats for the performance of As You Like It. I had booked a seat cushion so collected this first. “Please bring it back after the performance. “, was the final instruction. Seated patrons can either brave the wooden benches or, as I did, opt for a little more comfort. Groundlings mill about before the performance, and, as I discovered, some like to move about during too.

    Before the performance

    The auditorium is breathtaking. The plasterwork is decorated with ornate and delicate painting. The timber columns, thatched roof, and metal gutters are exceedingly impressive. They give visitors plenty to talk about and to look at, prior to the performance beginning.

    The detailing is exquisite

    When the music begins and the actors arrive, we are transported to the most exaggeratedly embellished or Georgian era dress. Enormously wide skirts coupled with gravity-defying hair, transported viewers to the eighteenth century and muddled our minds and transports us somewhere else.

    The play is beautiful, and fun. It is witty and results in everybody allocated their correct partner – “No sooner met than they looked, no sooner looked than they loved.”

    As with other outdoor theatres, as the sun sets, the light shifts and the stage lighting shifts the focus and increases contrast. I never notice this in an indoor venue. The frequent passing of aeroplanes overhead is a minor distraction which the actors acknowledge with a joke.

    The use of the set was very clever, turning white canvases into the Forest of Arden during the performance using paint, and then adding more leaves and flowers as the season blooms. This simple transition focuses the eye and changes the scenery. Musical interludes, with audience participation keeps everybody involved.

    The Forest of Arden is created during the interval

    After the performance ended, to rapturous applause, the groundlings filed out first, and I followed, with my cushion, and returned it to the cushion shed. The throng moved to Bankside and gradually spread out towards their various destinations. I recrossed Southwark Bridge, passed through the City, where some workers were still celebrating Friday night. past the Aldgate pump, that marked the end of the City and the beginning of the East End. The night was clear with only a light breeze. Autumn was definitely on its way but not yet at the front door.

    St Paul’s Cathedral lit for the evening

    I wondered what Shakespeare might have made of the night’s performance. Would he have approved? Would he be pleased to think that an Elizabethan-style theatre was still to be found in London’s Bankside.

    I retired to my non-Elizabethan hotel and dreamt of the world as a stage and all of the people merely players.

    #england #history #literature #London #shakespeare #Theatre #Travel #williamShakespeare
  8. Book Review: King Henry V by William Shakespeare


    Author: William Shakespeare
    Title: King Henry V
    Publication Info: London : Arden Shakespeare, 1995, 2002 [written circa 1599]
    Summary/Review:

    I may be wrong, but I think Henry V is the most famous and highly-regarded of all of Shakespeare’s English history plays.  In the chronology of when they plays were written, it is the last of eight plays in a continuous sequence from the 1390s to the 1480s, albeit in the middle of that historical chronology.  Shakespeare saved the best for last.

    The drama of the play is conveyed by a Chorus who introduces each act.  The structure of the play is fairly simple.  In the first act we see that the King has matured since the days of Prince Hal, and is determined to secure his birthright in France.  In the next act, he uncovers a plot by members of his court to assassinate him.  Act III depicts the English in their successful siege of Harfleur. Now surrounded by the French army, Act IV depicts Henry visiting his soldiers in disguise and then rallies the troops with his St. Crispin’s Day speech.  In the final act, having achieved a tremendous victory at Agincourt, Henry charmingly woos the French princess Katharine in a marriage that will seal the peace.

    This play is an example of English patriotism and nationalism but it’s complex in a way that goes beyond jingoism.  Henry is depicted as a scheming and sometimes flawed leader, and in his speech at Harfleur he threatens war crimes.  Shakespeare was writing during the reign of Elizabeth I and the last of the 8 plays ends with her grandfather Henry VII “rightfully” gaining the throne. In this context, it makes sense that Shakespeare is willing to depict previous monarchs as less than great.  This is also a war play that doesn’t shy away from the horrors of war.  While some adaptations make it an anti-war play, I think it’s most likely that Shakespeare is recognizing that the great achievements of war can come at great moral and mental costs.

    Rating: *****

    I’m reading every Shakespeare play, one per month, in chronological order.  Here’s my progress thus far:

    1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
    2. The Taming of the Shrew
    3. Henry VI, Part 1
    4. Henry VI, Part 2
    5. Henry VI, Part 3
    6. Titus Andronicus
    7. Richard III
    8. The Comedy of Errors
    9. Love’s Labours’ Lost
    10. Richard II
    11. Romeo and Juliet
    12. A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream
    13. The Life and Death of King John
    14. The Merchant of Venice
    15. The History of Henry IV, Part 1
    16. The Merry Wives of Windsor
    17. The History of Henry IV, Part 2
    18. Much Ado About Nothing
    #BookReviews #Books #Classics #Drama #EnglishHistory #EnglishLiterature #Theater #WilliamShakespeare
  9. Theater Review: Julius Caesar by Dream Role Players


    Julius Caesar

    Hannah Baker – Director
    Aza Pietropaolo – Assistant Director 

    Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

    July 10, 2026: Longfellow Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts

    Cast

    Julius Caesar – Robin Abrahams
    Brutus – Jaryn Wilcox
    Cassius – Elizabeth Ross
    Marc Antony – Angelo Alexander
    Casca – Mary Parker
    Metellus – Lisa Burdick
    Cinna – Lucia A. Grunko
    Decius – Crow J. Traphagen (u/s Brutus, Caesar)
    Octavius/Funeral Citizen 1 – Delaney Walkes
    Lucius/Artemidorus/Funeral Citizen 2 – Hayley Haggerty
    Calpurnia/Lepidus/Popilius/Funeral Citizen 3 – Paula Hawthorne (u/s Cassius, Antony)
    Soothsayer/Cobbler/Servant/Funeral Citizen 4 – Kris Kim (u/s Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus)

    Last night I enjoyed free Shakespeare in the park, courtesy of the Dream Role Players and an almost all-woman and nonbinary cast. The park in question is Longfellow Park, overlooked by the house of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who I would expect would love seeing Shakespeare performed in his front yard.  Hannah Baker’s direction of the play takes a dark political humor approach.  Shakespeare’s words are not changed but they are delivered in a humorous manner emphasizing the pettiness of political infighting and misguided notions of honor.  Also, for some reason Cassius rides a Segway scooter for the entire play.  I don’t know if it’s supposed to represent a chariot or just a bit of absurdism. Like many Shakespeare works, I had several moments of “oh, that’s where that phrase comes from,” perhaps more often than typical.  Previously, I was only familiar with the scenes from Julius Caesar that my high school Latin teacher had us act out every year on the Ides of March.

    Familiar faces in the cast include Robin Abrahams (A King and No King), Jaryn Wilcox (Mariette in Ecstasy), and Mary Parker (director of A King and No King).

    Julius Caesar continues at Longfellow Park tonight and tomorrow and then July 17-19, before moving to Herter Park in Allston for two shows on July 24-25.  All performances begin at 7pm.

    #Drama #DreamRolePlayers #PerformingArtsReviews #Theater #TheaterReviews #Theatre #WilliamShakespeare
  10. A quotation from Shakespeare

    MARCUS: Sorrow concealèd, like an oven stopped,
       Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.

    William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
    Titus Andronicus, Act 2, sc. 4, l. 36ff (2.4.26-37) (c. 1590)

    More about this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #shakespeare #williamshakespeare #titusandronicus #concealing #emotion #grief #hiding #repressing #sadness #sorrow

  11. Book Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare


    Author: William Shakespeare
    Title: The Merry Wives of Windsor
    Publication Info: New York : Washington Square Press, 2004. [written circa 1597]
    Summary/Review:

    Sir John Falstaff is back, this time thrust into the center of madcap comedy and romance. Seeking money as always, he sends identical notes attempting to woo married women, Alice Ford and Margaret Page.  They catch on to his Falstaff’s plan and conspire to go along with meeting him in order to play trick on him.  Unaware of the plotting, Frank Ford becomes exceedingly jealous of his wife and goes about in disguise.  And while all of this happening, three men court the Page’s daughter Anne but she only desires one of them, a gentleman named Fenton.

    This is one of three plays featuring Falstaff, but scholars are uncertain whether this play was written before or after Henry IV, part 2.  I haven’t read that one yet, but of the two I’ve read, I can’t say that I particularly like Falstaff.  I mean,  I know he’s  rogue, but he’s not even a funny one.  And the comic hijinks of this play don’t feel up to Shakespeare’s best.  The legend is that he wrote it quickly on the request of Queen Elizabeth to create a play about Falstaff in love, and it feels like a rush job.

    It’s still better than The Two Gentlemen of Verona, but otherwise it doesn’t rank highly in the Bard’s oeuvre for me.

    Rating: **1/2

     

    I’m reading every Shakespeare play, one per month, in chronological order.  Here’s my progress thus far:

    1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
    2. The Taming of the Shrew
    3. Henry VI, Part 1
    4. Henry VI, Part 2
    5. Henry VI, Part 3
    6. Titus Andronicus
    7. Richard III
    8. The Comedy of Errors
    9. Love’s Labours’ Lost
    10. Richard II
    11. Romeo and Juliet
    12. A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream
    13. The Life and Death of King John
    14. The Merchant of Venice
    15. The History of Henry IV, Part 1
    #BookReviews #Books #Classics #Comedy #Drama #EnglishLiterature #WilliamShakespeare
  12. A quotation from Shakespeare

    SIR THOMAS MORE:                     Say now the king
       (As he is clement, if th’ offender mourn)
       Should so much come to short of your great trespass
       As but to banish you, whether would you go?
       What country, by the nature of your error,
       Should give you harbor? Go you to France or Flanders,
       To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
       Nay, any where that not adheres to England, —
       Why, you must needs be strangers. Would you be pleased
       To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
       That, breaking out in hideous violence,
       Would not afford you an abode on earth,
       Whet their detested knives against your throats,
       Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
       Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
       Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
       But chartered unto them, what would you think
       To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case;
       And this your mountanish inhumanity.

    William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
    Sir Thomas More, Act 2, sc. 4, l. 105ff (c. 1592)

    More about this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

    #quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #shakespeare #williamshakespeare #sirthomasmore #cruelty #expulsion #foreigner #immigrant #inhumanity #other #outsider #immigration

  13. "Cherish" is a song by American singer #Madonna from her fourth studio album, #LikeAPrayer (1989). It was written and produced by Madonna and #PatrickLeonard, and was released by #SireRecords as the album's third single on August 1, 1989. "Cherish" was built around the themes of love and relationships, with #WilliamShakespeare's #RomeoAndJuliet being one of the major inspirations. The track also included a line from "Cherish" by the 1960s band #theAssociation.
    youtube.com/watch?v=hiUHbqKIBdM

  14. "Cherish" is a song by American singer #Madonna from her fourth studio album, #LikeAPrayer (1989). It was written and produced by Madonna and #PatrickLeonard, and was released by #SireRecords as the album's third single on August 1, 1989. "Cherish" was built around the themes of love and relationships, with #WilliamShakespeare's #RomeoAndJuliet being one of the major inspirations. The track also included a line from "Cherish" by the 1960s band #theAssociation.
    youtube.com/watch?v=8q2WS6ahCnY

  15. Stephen Frears – „The Lost King“ (2022)

    Hier geht es um Wahrheit, Obsession und die Wiedergewinnung weiblicher Deutungshoheit – und letztlich ist es auch ein Lehrstück über das, was verloren geht, wenn sich ein erfahrener Regisseur zu sehr auf das Kunsthandwerk verlässt und zu wenig auf das politische Jetzt. Dabei hätte dieser Film das Potenzial gehabt, ein feministisches Manifest zu sein.

    […]

  16. This weekend, the Ohio Shakespeare Festival concludes it's run of William Shakespeare's pastorale inspired fantasy masterpiece "The Tempest"! We hope to take a break from preparing our own commedia dell'arte pastorale at Pennsic next month to catch one of the final performances at the beautiful Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in Akron!

    "I long to hear the story of your life, which must captivate the ear strangely." -- William Shakespeare

    #MondayMotivation

    #CommediaDellArte #Commedia #Improv #Improvisation #Theater #Pennsic #PennsicWar #SCA #SocietyForCreativeAnachronism #MySCA #Shakespeare #WilliamShakespeare #Tempest #Fatnasy

  17. An Island of Strangers

    In the light of Keir Starmer’s deplorable Faragist rhetoric about Britain becoming an ‘Island of Strangers’, and the obscene deportations and detentions without legal process of immigrants in the United States, I thought I’d repost this speech from the play Sir Thomas More which is widely attributed to William Shakespeare. It’s from Act 2 Scene 4, at which point in the drama Thomas More (who was then London’s Deputy Sheriff) is called upon to put down an anti-immigration riot in the Parish of St Martin Le Grand, that took place on 1st May 1517. In reality  More’s intevention wasn’t effective, and it took the arrival of 5000 troops to disperse the mob.

    As well as being powerful for many other reasons, this speech especially fascinating because a hand-written manuscript (thought to be by Shakespeare himself) survives and is kept in the British Library.

    The backdrop to this story is that, between 1330 and 1550 about 64,000 immigrants from all across Europe came to England in search of better lives. Locals blamed them for taking their jobs and threatening their culture. Tensions reached breaking point in 1517 and a mob armed with stones, bricks, bats, boots and boiling water attacked the immigrants and looted their homes.  Five hundred years on, and we still haven’t learned.

    Here is the text of the opening part of the speech ‘This is the strangers case’.

    Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
    Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
    Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
    Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
    Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
    And that you sit as kings in your desires,
    Authority quite silent by your brawl,
    And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
    What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
    How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
    How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
    Not one of you should live an aged man,
    For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
    With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
    Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
    Would feed on one another….

    Say now the king
    Should so much come too short of your great trespass
    As but to banish you, whither would you go?
    What country, by the nature of your error,
    Should give you harbour? go you to France or Flanders,
    To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
    Nay, any where that not adheres to England,
    Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
    To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
    That, breaking out in hideous violence,
    Would not afford you an abode on earth,
    Whet their detested knives against your throats,
    Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
    Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
    Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
    But chartered unto them, what would you think
    To be thus used? this is the strangers case;
    And this your mountainish inhumanity.

    Better an Island of Strangers than an Island of Starmers, I’d say…

    #IslandOfStrangers #KeirStarmer #SirThomasMore #WilliamShakespeare