Mad for TWELFTH NIGHT?

[ellenkushner]

My friend Dan Jacobson (who once played Malvolio, and has the photo - and the voice - to prove it!) sent me this miraculous link:

http://www.rsc.org.uk/picturesandexhibitions/action/viewExhibition?exhibitionid=11§ionid=5

The breadth and variety of portrayals is fantastic, and fascinating.

Dan is dragging us off to the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival
http://www.njshakespeare.org/season/illyria.html
next month to see a musical adaptation of it called ILLYRIA, which he swears is worth the trip.

...Of course, Delia & I are so nuts we actually flew to Chicago this time last year to see the all-male Globe Theatre touring production - and it was so worth it!

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view.php?ArtID=216
has a cool photo of the actor playing Viola smooching the Duke, but Mark Rylance's Olivia
http://members.aol.com/actorsite/citz/mrindex.htm#Olivia
was a thing of wonder.

http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/
is the Globe website, and someday I am going to go stand in the pit and howl!!

Comments

[ktempest.livejournal.com]

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Twelfth Night is my absolute favorite of all his plays. Thanks for the link. I now waaaaaaaaaaaant to see Illyria, and probably never will. Sadness!

P.S.

[ktempest.livejournal.com]

Standing in the pit of the Globe is just as big a rush as you'd imagine.

Shakespeare fun

[hangedwoman.livejournal.com]

A little while back another LJ'er collected a wonderful list of "What NOT to do when directing Shakespeare" - found here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/angevin2/148520.html). It has been frequently updated to include additions from comments.

104. Henry V is Henry V and Blackadder is Blackadder. Cast members who are playing members of the French nobility shall refrain from speaking deliberately execrable French; neither shall they speak English with a comic accent. Violators will be tossed to bilingual members of the audience for chastisement.
132. If you are setting Macbeth in the modern era, there is no excuse for people fighting with broadswords in the subway, no matter how much you loved Highlander.
332. Techies should never be forced to play fairies in Midsummer just so they can move sets. They're disgruntled enough as it is.

Re: Shakespeare fun

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oh, boy! Thank you for this!

I particularly loved #81, re. the relative pronunciations of "Antipodes" and "nematodes."

[patoconnor.livejournal.com]

Hello, multiply cyber-savvy Ellen! And how did you end up going to see an all-male Twelfth Night in Chicago without inviting me? (I know, it makes you sound like James James Wellington Wellington etc.'s mother: "You must never go down/ to see boys in Boyztown/ If you don't go down with me.")

But thanks for alerting me to your Live Journal --I should be very much afraid to open up my journal to the world --a sheaf of blank pages interrupted by cries of despair, like the diaries of Kafka, if he lived in rural Ohio--

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Hello, O Best Beloved Pat! Do publish your journal online; it will give me something sensational to read on the train.

And congratulations on your book's publication, as noted on your User Bio page. I am afraid I must kill you, though, since you fail to mention its final title, and are therefore forcing me to go through Amazon's list of over 150 books by people with your name... If you did write _Digital and microprocessor technology_ and _The Safe and Effective Use of Pesticides_ and _Atlas of Irish place-names_ as well as your book on queer Latin American theory, I am going to be very impressed.

They were the last 2 Twelfth Night tickets, and I got them through shady means.

Hey there

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Ellen, welcome to the blogosphere!

I love the "How Not to Direct Shakespeare" link (can't see the comment in this screen, so don't remember the name of whoever posted it).

And when you go to the Globe, buy Groundling tix--you have to stand, but it is indeed a rush.

your coz (http://elswhere.blogspot.com)

Re: Hey there

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oy! Gotteynu! Such a cousin I have - such a bright girl - not only the blogosphere she navigates, but even she knows how to make the link under the word with the colors and everything . . . .

So howcome nobody told me there was such a nice Cousin blog, and so well-written with the cute quotes and trenchant observations and so smart you could just bite her little nose off? Hah? What am I, chopped livah?

* * *

Love you, babe - except for the fact that you've been to the Globe and I haven't. Give little Sarah a hug for me. Aw, hell, she's a relative, let me brag on her by quoting you, blogging about her 4th birthday party in August, at which she received fairy wings:

<< "Did they take these off real fairies?" And in response to my comment that that would hurt the fairies: "No, I mean after they're dead.">>

Atta girl, Sarah.