TUESDAY
This line from Hamlet always makes me smile: |
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Of course, a "beaver" in this case is actually the hinged visor of a helmet. But that's not nearly as entertaining.
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THURSDAY
The Ides of March are on Sunday!
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Poor old Soothsayer. He never quite manages to get his message across.
Also, the Roman calendar is really confusing.
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This week was Ides of March week, so I posted a new Ides of March reenactment on Instagram: |
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A photo posted by Good Tickle Brain (@goodticklebrain) on Mar 13, 2015 at 10:45am PDT
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| Shakespeare & Co. (Stanley Wells) |
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Quick! How many Elizabethan/Jacobean playwrights can you name?
I'm not ashamed that for most of my life, after Shakespeare, I could probably only name Christopher Marlowe and maybe, if I was feeling particularly brilliant, Ben Jonson. Shakespeare is so exalted in popular consciousness that he all but eclipses his contemporaries. Fortunately, there is Stanley Wells's excellent Shakespeare & Co.
Shakespeare & Co. reminds the reader that Shakespeare did not operate in a vacuum, but was part of a thriving theatrical scene. In the very first chapter, Wells expertly recreates this scene, presenting a clear and comprehensible overview of what was involved in producing theatre during Shakespeare's lifetime, from the nitty gritty business details of managing a theatre company to the behavior of the audience. It's as neat a summary of Elizabethan theatre as I've come across.
Wells then takes a look at Shakespeare's theatrical career and the actors with whom he often worked. The subsequent chapters each deal with Shakespeare's fellow playwrights, starting with Marlowe and then proceeding to Dekker, Jonson, Middleton, Fletcher, Webster, and others. He presents a biographical overview of each playwright, and presents examples of their work, how their work was received by audiences, and how their careers intersected with that of Shakespeare. The chapters on Middleton and Fletcher and particularly fascinating, as they address the subject of collaboration in Elizabethan theatre, and examine how and when Shakespeare worked with other playwrights.
Wells manages to present some potentially dry material in a very clear and comprehensible style, and by the end of his book I had a much clearer picture of the theatrical universe in which Shakespeare lived and worked. If you're interested in learning about the people Shakespeare knew and worked with (and, by extension, learning more about Shakespeare himself), I highly recommend this fascinating book. |
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