———. More Tales from Shakespeare: Seven Plays Presented and Illustrated by Marcia Williams. Candlewick Press, 2000.
I'm occasionally surprised to find that a resource I've used for years has never made its way onto Bardfilm.
Marcia Williams' great takes on Shakespeare are one such example. In my Modern Shakespearean Fiction class, for example, I can't expect (or require—there just isn't enough time) students to have read Hamlet recently, yet they need to know at least the broad strokes of the plot to appreciate the Hamlet-based works we encounter.
I also recommend Tales from Shakespeare, and More Tales from Shakespeare to our English Education majors as an entrée for teaching Shakespeare. It provides the plot and some key lines from the play, but it also can be a starting point for deeper discussion.
Each illustrated play has four parts. First, there's the illustration, which is clever and whimsical and detailed. Next, the setup provides actors putting on the play and audience members reacting to it. Finally, we have narration that fills in the gaps. That gives us the basic plot, some of the key lines from the play, and some possible areas to explore.
Following Bardfilm's Fair Use Policy, I'm not providing any play in full, but I will give you a few sample pages to encourage you to seek out the books themselves. To start, here's the opening of A Midsummer Night's Dream:
You've already gotten the hang of all that, but here's the opening of Richard III as a sample:
And here's a bit of Hamlet. It's a bit light on Ophelia, but strong on ghosts and the play-within-the-play.
More Tales from Shakespeare is more of the same, but it also provides this interesting playbill to show what's on offer and to explain a bit of the methodology:
You've already gotten the hang of all that, but here's the opening of Richard III as a sample:
Marcia William's Tales are terrific for kids, college students, and professors alike. Do everyone a favor a track down a copy!
Click below to purchase the books from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).
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