Monday, October 7, 2024

Book Note: The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet

Bloedel, Peter. The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet. In Random Acts of Comedy: Fifteen Hit One-Act Plays for Student Actors, edited by Jason Pizzarello. Playscripts, Inc., 2011.

By circuitous routes that I can't quite remember at present, I chanced up The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet.

It's a madcap comic romp through the world of Shakespeare's tragedy performed in the style of Dr. Seuss (while loudly denying that that's what it's doing).

I'd like to see a performance, but I'm hesitant to recommend it. I've read a fair number of things in the style of Dr. Seuss, and the most successful ones rigorously adhere to the Dr. Seuss rhythm.  It's very difficult to do at all, and it's even harder to do well—yet it can be done. When it isn't, we're basically left with rhymed couplets that fall flat rather than flying glibly and energetically above a world of words.

This one doesn't do that. To make the rhythm work, you must stress unstressed (and often unstressable) syllables, and it all bogs down.

Here's a quick sample that includes their version of the play's infamous prologue:


I don't mind the zaniness of the plot, and I like the way they keep the ending from being tragic—but it has to start with perfection in the rhythm of Seuss.

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Friday, September 20, 2024

Shakespeare in FoxTrot's Some Clever Title: A FoxTrot Collection Blah Blah Blah

Amend, Bill. Some Clever Title: A FoxTrot Collection Blah Blah Blah. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2016.

Welcome back for another FoxTrot Friday!

The volume Some Clever Title: A FoxTrot Collection Blah Blah Blah is the third of the Sundays-only FoxTrot books. 

There are fewer comics in those volumes, which means less opportunity for Shakespeare to find his way in. 

Yet there are a number of possibilities in this one! The first has an allusion to Hamlet:


Hamlet has to be cruel only to be kind to his mother; here, the mother is considering whether to be cruel or kind to her son.

The next one is more about Shakespearean costuming than the text of Shakespeare:


Martin Goldthwait is going for "muse" here, but I'm reading Puck or the person representing As You Like It's Hymen, the god of marriage ceremonies or (at a pinch) Julius Caesar.

The last in this collection is one I've written about before (for which, q.v.), but it loses nothing in the retelling.


Thanks for joining us for FoxTrot Friday. We shall see what the future holds.

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Wednesday, September 18, 2024

General Shakespeare in Specific Friends

“The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding: Part 1.” By Greg Malins. Perf. Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, and Gary Oldman. Dir. Kevin Bright. Friends. Season 7, episode 23. NBC. 17 May 2001. DVD. WarnerBrothers, 2013.

Alert readers will know that I prefer more Shakespeare to less, but my ears are attuned to picking up Shakespeare in even minuscule quantities. 

Having already found many more obvious or more direct connections to Shakespeare in Friends episodes (cf. Friends and Lady Macbeth, What Role did Friends' Joey play in Macbeth?, A Tiny Bit of Shakespeare in a Friends Subplot, Shakespeare Puts Joey to Sleep in Friends, and A Quick Line from Romeo and Juliet in a Friends Episode), we can move on to ever-more-obscure ones.

The first of these involves only the mention of an actor known for Shakespearean roles—and for producing spit when enunciating his lines. The famous actor's name (within the world of the show) is Richard Crosby, and he's played by Gary Oldman (a famous actor outside the world of the show), whose major Shakespeare role (to me) is Rosencrantz in the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead directed by Tom Stoppard. 

The only allusion to Shakespeare is in Joey's line. He says, "Okay . . . uh, look I know you’re a great actor, okay? And you play all those Shakespeare guys and stuff." That's it. But the premise is that this great Shakespearean actor is enunciating so well that he's spitting all over Joey. And the gag is carried out brilliantly:


“The One with the Mugging.” By Peter Tibbals. Perf. Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer. Dir. Gary Halvorson. Friends. Season 9, episode 15. NBC. 13 February 2003. DVD. WarnerBrothers, 2013.

A couple seasons later, we have a reference to an imagined movie. This episode also has a pseudonym for an actor. Jeff Goldblum (a real actor) plays the famous actor Leonard Hayes (not a real actor), and we learn that Hayes is known for a film version of Macbeth.

My first reaction, naturally enough, was to search IMDB for the Leonard Hayes Macbeth (I had never heard of it—and I wonder if the details would help me get the joke about Jackass: The Movie.

Eventually, I realized that it wasn't a real Macbeth and it wasn't a real actor. But it's a Shakespeare reference nonetheless! 


That's all.  But you should all realize, that, for obscure Friends references to Shakespeare, Bardfilm is your site of choice.

Links: The Episode at IMDBThe Other Episode at IMDB.

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Book Note: The Bookshop of Yesterdays

Meyerson, Amy. The Bookshop of Yesterdays. New York: Park Row, 2019.

I found The Bookshop of Yesterdays while searching for anything Shakespeare-related that I could load from my library onto a Kindle to dip into easily. 

Its plot involves a woman named Miranda Brooks (so we see the connection to The Tempest right away) who receives a mysterious package from her estranged uncle. Almost immediately after, she learns that he has died (that's a spoiler, but it happens in chapter two). Eventually, she traces the train of clues he leaves her back to Prospero Books (Miranda Brooks and Prospero Books, see?), the bookstore her uncle ran and she loved to go to as a child.

I'll avoid any other spoilers, but I will say that my clarion cry applies to this book: "Needs More Shakespeare!"

Apart from that, it's not terrible. And it has something to say about the relationship between Prospero and Miranda in The Tempest and Prospero Books (and its owner) and Miranda Brooks in this novel.

Let me share the opening of the mystery; you can determine whether you wish to read on.





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Monday, September 16, 2024

Book Note: Then We Came to the End

Ferris, Joshua. Then We Came to the End. New York: Back Bay Books, 2008.

This summer, I read Then We Came to the End. I knew nothing about it except that it was supposed to be humorous.

I found it hysterical and compelling—but not in any obvious way.  The most intriguing thing about it was the narrator. The narration is provided not by a third-person omniscient (or even limited omniscient) point of view—nor by a first-person protagonist or participant. Instead, the narrator is a collective first-person plural: "We" relates the story.

And it's done seamlessly. The reader almost doesn't notice as the novel takes us into the ups and downs of an advertising agency in New York City.

All of that is a great endorsement of the novel, and you all should read it. But if that isn't enough, there's also the Shakespeare. It's limited, but it's clever.

In this scene, the ad agency has been challenged to come up with public service ads that provide a humorous take on breast cancer.

One of the employees recalls a past triumph—when he consulted with his Uncle Max on a printer ink advertisement:



First, it's a great idea for an ad. Second, I'm fond of the Dickens / Shakespeare uncertainty.

There's only one more Shakespeare reference. It occurs late in the novel when the same employee is asked about the names of characters in a Shakespeare play:


It's just incidental—except that it gives a roundness to Jim's character. Having found Shakespeare useful in selling ink cartridges, he went further and decided to take a course.

Shakespeare . . . he gets the job done.

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Friday, September 13, 2024

Shakespeare in FoxTrot's Jasotron: 2012

Amend, Bill. Jasotron: 2012: A FoxTrot collection. Andrews McMeel: Kansas City, 2012.

I hope you didn't think I'd forgotten about FoxTrot Fridays. 

Heaven forfend! 

It's just that the school year started, and that makes it difficult to prioritize blog posts on Shakespeare-related comic strips.

As things fall into place in the fall semester, free time becomes less of a chimera. 

And that means a return to FoxTrot Friday is in order.

Our first Shakespeare-related strip from Jasotron: 2012 is one of those that has more of an implicit connection to Shakespeare. Paige is, once again, somewhat reluctant to do her homework:


To me, it seems pretty self-evident that the binder is full of Shakespeare handouts. Since Quincy is attracted to it, I'm imagining that reptiles in Shakespeare feature prominently: "[I am] of the chameleon's dish," "I can add colors to the chameleon, "Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon," "Ay, but hearken, sir: though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat" et cetera.  Yes, I know Quincy is an iguana, but that doesn't mean he can't be interested in other reptiles in Shakespeare.

We move to another FoxTrot comic—one that talks about blogging in general but is likely to have Bardfilm specifically in mind.


I'm considering that business model myself. 

And last and most Shakespearean of all, we have a comic that I wrote about way back in 2013.


And there we have it! Thanks, Bill Amend, for all the great Shakespeare. Let's see what we find in our next FoxTrot Friday.

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Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Book Note: Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare?

Wells, Stanley. Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare? Ebrington: Long Barn Books, n.d. [Note: The edition I have isn't dated, but other sources offer 2007 as a publication date.]

Stanley Wells is one of the great popularizers of scholarship about Shakespeare. He writes clearly and entertainingly about both simple and knotty problems.

This volume is no exception. It's brief, but it's fascinating, and it's the kind of book anyone can dip into to get succinct, comprehensible answers to a number of questions commonly (and uncommonly) asked about Shakespeare.

I'm providing a number of examples below, starting with one I've investigated and written about before (for which, q.v.).



Some of the questions Wells addresses form part of the anti-Stratfordians arguments, like these that deal with the writing habits of his family:



Here's another question related to the argument that Shakespeare didn't write the plays attributed to Shakespeare:


The questions aren't all designed to put to rest the quibbles of the anti-Stratfordian camp (though there is an extensive section toward the end of the book that deals with a host of pretenders to the authorship of Shakespeare's works), but they are all enlightening—whether you're well-versed in the bard and his oeuvre or a relative newcomer to the man and his works. I recommend getting a copy to leave on your coffee table for everyone who comes into your home to dip into.

Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
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Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Book Note: A Wounded Name

Hutchison, Dot. A Wounded Name. Minneapolis: CarolRhoda LAB, 2013.

A Wounded Name is another retelling of Hamlet from Ophelia's point of view. I was mostly unimpressed by the prose, but I found some of the characterization and modernization to work in interesting ways.

The novel modernizes Hamlet and places the majority of its plots among the young adults—but not like Falling for Hamlet, which seems imminently inauthentic (for which, q.v.). There's something more convincing—more significant about these teens' struggles.

It's particularly true of Ophelia. We're not entirely sure how reliable she is as a narrator. She doesn't always take her medicine, and when she fails to do so, she sees the ghosts surrounding the area—including that of her departed mother, who keeps urging her to come back to the lake where she (Ophelia's mother—but possibly also Ophelia herself) drowned. Sometimes she takes her meds; sometimes she hides them. We're never sure quite where we are with Ophelia. At one point, she says, "I took my pills, but the pills are like words, they don't always mean anything even when they should" (40).

Here's a quick sample chapter—but remember that I'm not admiring the writing as much as the way the plot plays out and the characters are constructed.







I wasn't expecting much, but I was intrigued enough to keep on reading until the very end. I'm not the target audience, but I think this will appeal to that audience (certainly much more than Falling for Hamlet did).

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Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Introducing Infinite Variety: The Shakespeare Rewatch Podcast: “And Now for Something Completely Different”

kj & sg (a.k.a. Keith "Bardfilm" Jones and Duane "ShakespeareGeek" Morin)Infinite Variety: The Shakespeare Rewatch Podcast. Podcast. 
2024–Present. 
I was brainstorming with ShakespeareGeek the other day about all things Shakespeare and how to expand the audience for the conversation about his works—and then it struck us that we were uniquely situated to start a Shakespeare podcast.

We've both been blogging about Shakespeare for years. We both have a great passion for (nearly) all things Shakespeare. And we both have strong opinions and aren't afraid to argue about them.

After that, it was a matter of considering where we could best fit in and what an audience would like to hear. With the increasing number of "rewatch" podcasts out there and the relative paucity of rewatch podcasts focusing on Shakespeare, the choice became clear. We would put together the ultimate Shakespeare rewatch podcast, re-watching (or, for one or the other or both of us, watching for the first time) Shakespeare films in the infinite variety that exists out there. 

We are now pleased to present Infinite Variety: The Shakespeare Rewatch Podcast:

Infinite Variety: The Shakespeare Rewatch Podcast explores the enormous number of things that have been done with the works of William Shakespeare. Bardfilm and ShakespeareGeek, two longtime Shakespeare bloggers, offer insight, commentary, and argument on a vast array of projects inspired by Shakespeare—and on the plays and poetry of Shakespeare himself.

Please join us for our first endeavor in what we hope to be a long series of Shakespearean adventures: A rewatch of the Canadian television show Slings & Arrows. Even if you've seen it a dozen times before, you'll find new insights here. And if you've never seen it, you won't be lost! You'll find much of interest in our discussions and arguments (and you're likely to be inspired to track down a great television show to watch on your own).

Subscribe to Infinite Variety on your favorite podcast platform (links are found below), and spread the word. We want to invite as many people as possible to join the Shakespeare conversation.

p.s. All right, it's not something completely different. But it is a completely new medium for a continuing conversation!

Links: Subscribe on Apple PodcastsSubscribe on Spotify. Subscribe elsewhere. Read ShakespeareGeek's blog post on the podcast.

Click below to purchase Slings & Arrows from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so)
so that you'll be ready for this and future episodes 
of the newest Shakespeare podcast around!

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

A Little Shakespeare in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

“The House of Quark.” By Ronald D. Moore. Perf. Armin Shimerman, Max Grodénchik, and Mary Kay Adams. Dir. Les Landau. 
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Season 3, episode 3. Syndicated television. 10 October 1994. DVD. Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, 2021.

One of my hobbies has been the collection and collation of Shakespeare references in Star Trek (yes, you'd better q.v. to see the vast expanse of allusions, quotations, and references that have been worked into the Star Trek universe). But I haven't ventured far from The Original Series and The Next Generation.

But I've been listening to Star Trek: The Next Conversation, an enjoyable Star Trek rewatch podcast, and I've caught up with their past episodes and am trekking with them through Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

As is my wont, I've kept my eyes peeled for Shakespeare. This week, I spotted the first: a version of a speech from 1 Henry IV. Late in the play, Falstaff pretends to die in battle. When the danger is past, he revives himself, saying, "The better pat of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life" (V.iv.119-21). The phrase has most often been paraphrased as "Discretion is the better part of valour."

In "The House of Quark," Star Trek repurposes Shakespeare in the way it often does, having a non-earthling species claim a quotation as a bit of wisdom from their own culture. In this case, "Discretion is the better part of valour" is posited as an old Ferengi saying:


It's not much, but it's a start—and we'll see where the Star Trek / Shakespeare connections go from there.

Links: The Episode at IMDB.

For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Monday, July 29, 2024

What I Saw at the 2024 Great River Shakespeare Festival

Hamlet. Dir. Doug Scholz-Carlson. Perf. Tarah Flanagan, Melissa Maxwell, Will Sturdivant, Christopher Gerson, Michael Fitzpatrick, Emily Fury Daly, Benjamin Boucvalt, Daniel Ajak, and Diana Coates. Great River Shakespeare Festival. Winona, Minnesota. 2024.
Much Ado About Nothing. Dir. 
Gaby Rodriguez. Perf. Melissa Maxwell, Will Sturdivant, Tarah Flanagan, Christopher Gerson, Marina Narveaz, Izzy Heckman, Michael Fitzpatrick, Emily Fury Daly, Benjamin Boucvalt, Daniel Ajak, and Diana Coates. Great River Shakespeare Festival. Winona, Minnesota. 2024.

I was only able to get to the Great River Shakespeare Festival toward the very end. When that happens, I'm always sad. It means that I can't go back and see the plays again, and it means I'm limited in my ability to promote that season's plays.

But take this as an alert to set aside time, space, and funding to see all the plays in the Great River Shakespeare Festival's 2025 season!

Additionally, I'd like to share what I saw in each of this season's shows. I'll do that in my usual list of things that were, in one way or another, striking.

Hamlet

The Cast. First, Tarah Flanagan was a terrific Hamlet. She's an actress, but she played Hamlet as a male. There wasn't any Asia Neilsenesque backstory (for which, q.v.)—just a solid, multi-faceted performance of the deeply-troubled melancholy and manic Dane. I knew, more or less, the plot going in, but Flanagan's performance kept me wondering what she'd do next. I found that uncertainty refreshing; it helped us live through the actions of the play as if we didn't know what was coming next.

Chris Gerson's Horatio was played as an older mentor to Hamlet—as if, when Hamlet calls him "fellow student" (I.ii.177), he's making an ironic joke about a former university professor whose philosophy was that both he and his students are all in the business of being students together. Gerson played Hamlet as "that man / that is not passion's slave" (III.ii.71–72) through most of the play. The reading extended Horatio's declaration that "I am more an antique Roman than a Dane" (V.ii.341) back through the entire play, explaining both his skepticism and his stoicism.

The gravediggers (Michael Fitzpatrick and Emily Fury Daly) might have stepped right out of last's year's GRSF As You Like It with no questions asked. I enjoyed their over-the-top country-bumpkin comic relief.

Claudius (Will Sturdivant) and Gertrude (Melissa Maxwell) were very strong. Their performances (and other parts of this production) reminded me of Kevin Kline's Hamlet.

The Lighting. There wasn't any. 

Actually, that's the opposite of the truth. Hundreds of interesting lighting effects were worked in seamlessly throughout the production—which made the points where there wasn't much lighting that much more effective.

Many of those involved the appearance of "the ghost" (which I'm putting in air quotes because the production seems to question whether there is such a thing or not). In the opening scene, most of the lighting is delegated to a few flashlights held by Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio. No one was able to see much of anything. Indeed, I'm not yet certain whether Will Sturdivant (doubling as Claudius and Hamlet's Father's Ghost) was on stage for that scene or not.

When Hamlet confronts the Ghost in Act I, scene v, we see a bit more every now and that. What we see is mostly a shadowy figure—but the actor was wearing a shirt with luminous skeleton bones on it, and we glimpsed that when the lights came up. If that sounds a bit like a cheap Halloween costume or the Schoolhouse Rock song "Them Not-So-Dry Bones" to you, put the thought out of your mind. Mostly. 

The Pacing. This was a fast Hamlet. It started immediately after the house lights went down and ran at a very quick clip throughout. The pace added to the uncertainty principle of the production. Nothing seemed inevitable—it seemed more like split-second decisions that had to be made immediately and, if characters had only had a bit more time to think, they might have made other decisions.

Props. There weren't many, but, when Claudius realizes that Hamlet knows his secret (after the play-within-the-play), he comes on stage with a handgun. He sets this down to pray (always a good idea, even if you're not sincere in your repentance), and it's what Hamlet uses when he contemplates avenging his father's death then and there. Later, it's how Hamlet rashly and unthinkingly dispatches of Polonius, thereby fulfilling the "Checkhov's Gun" rule. This was a little bit of a missed opportunity, though. Claudius notices that his gun is missing, but he essentially just shrugs and exits. It might have been more effective if he had made a more thorough search for it and then realized that some madman might have taken it. He could then much more frantically run off to try to prevent a tragedy from occurring and have even more justification for exiling Hamlet to England.

Eavesdropping. This part, I'm genuinely sorry to say, is one of the only things that didn't work well in the production. Hamlet awkwardly conceals himself between the end of Act III, scenes ii and iii solely in order to hear Claudius' plan to send him to England. That does explain how he knows about the plan when he talks with Gertrude in the closet scene, but it's not really necessary. Or, if it proves necessary to have the audience know how Hamlet learns that, he should have deliberately eavesdropped through the rest of the exchange—and then been prevented from eavesdropping on Claudius' "O, my offense is rank" soliloquy in some way.

The Text. I love a production that invites its readers to return to the text to see something they've missed, and this one helped me notice things I hadn't seen before. Among the things I want to explore are the word "dew" (used twice by Horatio, once by Hamlet, and once by Laertes), the use of the word "passion" (used eleven times!—and I never clocked it until this production), the many places "ear" is used (I've noticed that before, but I'm called to re-examine its use now), and whether the Wittenberg connection can be found in a pun about the Diet of Worms in Hamlet's line "Your worm is your only emperor for diet" (IV.iii.21).  I also want to explore the words "murther" and "murder" and see when the text uses the one or the other—and why. 

Much Ado About Nothing

I don't have quite as much to say about the GRSF's Much Ado About Nothing, but that's not because it wasn't a solid production. I enjoyed it very much. It was also a fast-paced play with a lot of cuts that made its run time well under two hours.

Here are some things I appreciated about this production in particular.

Dogberry. Instead of having him deliver his instructions to the Watch in one fell swoop, they spaced out those lines throughout the play. Whenever the Watch would eavesdrop on some villainous plan of Don John et al., Dogberry would bring up another point about how the Watch doesn't have to do anything about it at that moment.

Don John. We're given a one-dimensional mustache-twiring (literally) villain, and that's fine. We know where we are with him from the beginning. And Gerson seemed to have a lot of fun knocking a picnic table over over and over.

Beatrice and Benedick.
 We saw lots of good chemistry between these two from the get-go. And we all rejoiced when they acknowledged their love for each other.

Leonato and Hero. The edits to this production enabled Leonato to be more empathetic toward Hero's plight. Indeed, he takes on the Friar's speeches, thereby coming up with the plan to restore Hero's name.

The Ending Scene. This production conflated the scene where Claudio offers a eulogy to Hero with the closing wedding scene. It sped things up considerably and avoided the awkwardness of a modern production trying to get us to believe that Claudio will marry anyone Leonato asks him to. 

Next Season

Whatever the GRSF decides to put on in the 2025 season (I'm hoping for Measure for Measure and Julius Caesar), plan on being there—I do and I will!







Friday, July 26, 2024

Shakespeare in FoxTrot's FoxTrot Sundaes

Amend, Bill. FoxTrot Sundaes. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2010.

It's been a very long time since Bill Amend stopped producing FoxTrots on a daily basis, but I still have a gnawing sense of emptiness in my weekdays.

For today's FoxTrot Friday, we turn to his first collection of Sunday-only strips. I'm certainly glad they exist since they mean we haven't had to go cold turkey, and they're often quite seriously funny.

In FoxTrot Sundaes, I found two tangentially-Shakespearean comics and one comic with a very solid set of Shakespearean puns.

We start with Paige's first day back at school:


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that there's no Shakespeare in that one. But I think it's very likely that Paige's teacher assigned the Shakespeare-related post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven (for which, q.v.) for her summer reading.

Our next comic is a little later in the school year; it again involves Paige:


I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that there's no Shakespeare in that one. But in panel two, Paige is clearly late for English class. And that's where she studies Shakespeare!

All right. I sense that you're not fully convinced. If that's the case, read on. I imagine you'll see the Shakespeare more clearly in this next one:


And with that, we can cycle back to the first comic and use Paige's line as support for the claim that she's studying Shakespeare in her classes during this school year.

Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

—The Tempest