It was a dark and stormy night… Shakespeare’s last solo-authored play, The Tempest, opens with a storm (the eponymous tempest) in which a group of elite passengers (a king, a duke, relatives, and courtly hangers-on) gets washed overboard (or jump) while the working sailors remain safe onboard their ship. In
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Scripturient: Musings on Reading the Bard Over a Year
Wonderful thing, the internet. You can type “complete works reading list Shakespeare” into a search engine and come up with dozens of lists with a recommended order for reading The Bard’s plays and poems over the period of a year. And none of them the same or seemingly made with
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on Shakespearean Apocrypha
When the First Folio was published in 1623, it had 36 of the Bard’s plays, listed in three categories: histories, tragedies, and comedies (it didn’t include his longer poems, or the sonnets)*. And even then, these were not all of his plays. Several were not included, although they were known
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on Shakespeare’s Anachronisms
When the clock struck three in Julius Caesar, you probably scratched your head, knowing that striking clocks didn’t exist two millennia ago in the play’s setting. In Caesar’s time, people checked sundials or water clocks (clepsydra), neither of which — inconveniently for the Bard — chimed. It would be almost
Continue readingScripturient: The gems of Salomé
I was perhaps 11 or 12 when I first encountered Oscar Wilde’s play, Salomé. Some of it, at least. At the time, I knew nothing of Wilde, his writing, or even much about theatre in general. After all, I was in grade seven or eight. It would be a …
Continue readingThe Equivocator: Giving the Devil the benefit of the law
A Man for All Seasons (1960) —————————————————————————————————- Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law! More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I’d cut down every law in England … Continue reading →
Continue readingArt Threat: Vancouver Fringe brims with political plays
The Troubles (Resounding Scream Theatre) The Vancouver International Fringe Festival is underway in Canada’s westernmost metropolis, with 97 shows on offer during a program that lasts over two weeks. This year there are several plays that tackle political issues, touching on themes like human trafficking, homelessness, teen suicide, bilateral relations,
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