Romeo and Zooliet, Othello Tongue Injuries, and Ophelia Lattes
Plus: "It's great not having syphilis"
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New News
First came Gnomeo & Juliet. Then Romeo and MOOliet. Now Romeo and Zooliet, a “delightfully playful take” by the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.
The Perth Museum will open a Macbeth exhibition in April featuring Dee, Dæmonologie, and a bloody great sword.
Elliot Levey playing Polonius at the RSC: “It's irritating to be suddenly old and wise.”2
…what you want to do is say, “Go, be free, learn the mistakes I made, but don't catch anything,” which is essentially all Polonius is really saying! [Laughs] He's going, “Go off, go, but it's great not having syphilis!”
“Alexander died, Alexander was buried, [Alexander was eaten by a shark?]”
A Shakespeare-inspired fashion show featuring “a Lady Macbeth-inspired black velvet corset dress.”
Production photos from the Bridge Theatre’s Richard II starring Jonathan Bailey.
The Folger’s new cafe, Quill and Crumb,3 is a hit, as is “Ophelia’s Bloom, the current signature coffee drink [with] pistachio plus elderflower and lavender.”
Why the odds were stacked against Sigourney Weaver’s Prospero.4
Helen Castor, author of The Eagle and the Hart, makes an argument for Richard II as “Shakespeare’s greatest play.” (h/t to Korey for the link. Fair warning that there is a paywall, the full text is available through archive.today.)
If you thought that maybe illegitimate York and Lancaster children would have creative names instead of being Edwards and Henrys all the way down, I have bad news.
You too can design a poster for Montana Shakespeare in the Parks.
UK Artistic Directors on their favorite performances. The description of Helen Mirren’s Phèdre at Epidaurus is worth the price of admission. Also this from Elizabeth Newman:
…at 17, school took us to see the revival of Simon McBurney’s Measure for Measure at the National, and three people made a helicopter land on stage just by moving their arms and bodies.5 I was just thinking, this is amazing, and it was mixed together with the most beautiful language and extraordinary acting.”
Othello News
Denzel Washington gave an interview to David Marchese at The New York Times ahead of Othello previews starting on Broadway next week. It is a bit of an uncomfortable read at times (“I’m not trying to get all up in your business” / “But you are all up in my business”) and the headlines have all been about his “almost career-ending injury”6
I bit my tongue almost half-off a few months ago. It’s affecting my speech. It forces me to slow down. I have to use it. I have a line: “Whither will you that I go to answer this your charge?” It’s hard because my tongue is swollen. It has affected everything.
Speaking of Othello, it now has merch. I’m not sure I’m prepared to “Think on [my] sins” before coffee, but sure.7 I’m less confident about the “Unisex Heart Hoodie” given that the second half of the line, "I will wear my heart upon my sleeve" is, “For daws to peck at.”8
Vintage Othello news courtesy of John Kani9
When Kani headlined alongside a White actress in a 1987 “Othello,” the production sparked controversy. He remembers being detained and interrogated with such specificity about an onstage kiss that he marveled to himself, “My God! The policeman read the play!”
Recommendations
U.S.-based folks can see an ice puppet Oedipus now and Tennessee Williams on ice later.
I previously recommended a left-handed Gandhi letter. Here’s Nelson’s first left-handed letter: “I am become a burden to my friends and useless to my Country.”
A new statue of Aphra Behn will be revealed in Canterbury next week.10
“Many people vilify the diva because she is a woman who insists on having her needs met.”
Like this one.
He learned one of my favorite speeches, “that famous speech of the King who can't sleep, that speech” for his youth theater audition. (The Henry IV one. Not the Henry V one or the Macbeth one or the…)
Which the article reveals could also have been named Mugbeth, Taming of the Brew, and – my favorite – As You Lick It.
This was utterly new to me: “Shakespeare himself borrows lines for Prospero from Ovid’s version of Medea.” (More)
“Shakespeare and helicopters” returns significantly more results than I would have thought, including this image of Raul Julia in The Tempest and multiple grumpy Post articles about Shakespeare in the Park disruptions.
Other highlights: like the director’s Much Ado, this Othello is set in “the near future” (2030 specifically), and Jake Gyllenhaal is “nuts.”
I do however want a “I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly” wine glass please and thank you.
And it is IAGO for &$@#’s sake! In other “please for the love of all that is good and holy read the rest of the quote” news, I present this Valentine’s Day email from Classic Stage:
Is the image romantic? Absolutely. Is the quote in context? Absolutely &#%$ing not. (It’s Macbeth spiraling post-murder). A remember to all the beloved and underpaid marketing folks out there that you cannot Control-F “heart” in the Complete Works and call it a day. While we’re on the subject, “What you egg” is not the adorable Easter quote you think it is.
Note to all: “King Lear is on his bucket list.”
Thoughts about the finalist statues. I have them.