Shakespeare meme

[mamculuna]

Shakespeare plays I've both seen and read

As You Like It
Hamlet
Macbeth
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Henry V
The Merchant of Venice
Richard III

Read, but not seen

Antony and Cleopatra
All's Well That Ends Well
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV Part 2
Richard II
The Comedy of Errors


Seen, not read

Titus Andronicus (this seems a widespread condition, thanks to Julie Taymore)

Neither seen nor read

This is a little long, if you consider that I've taken a graduate course in Shakespeare. I still have the first two on my list, but may never get to the others.

Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Henry VI Part 1
Henry VI Part 2
Henry VI Part 3
Henry VIII
King John
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Pericles
Timon of Athens
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Troilus and Cressida
Loves' Labours' Lost

Comments

[haytanbello.livejournal.com]

That's a lot! I think I read somewhere that Gertrude Stein read one W.S. play per day as part of her routine.

I haven't been on here in a long time. How was Italy?

My wife is nearly obsessed with Hamlet. In the last 6 months she's watched the movie version starring Ethan Hawke (& Bill Murray playing Polonius) maybe 4 or 5 times. Plus she's read a couple books of criticism on it.

Maybe she's drawn to Hamlet for the same reasons that she's drawn to me. Hamlet and I are a lot alike, except that I'm not a prince.

Have you ever seen "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [sp?] Are Dead"?

By the way, it looks like Griselda, that girl from S. Carolina who's fighting deportation, will probably beat the system. Have you been following that?

Take care.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Hi Haytanbello! It's good to hear from you again. Glad you're still around. Yes, I've been keeping up with Griselda, and am very happy for her. I contacted her lawyer who gave me some good leads--I've written to my own state rep about changing the SC situation, and he was interested. Don't know where we stand since the election (our good liberal guy was unopposed)--will wait till the SC Assembly reconvenes and start bugging him again. Thanks again for your good leads, too.

I'm a devotee of Hamlet, and have indeed seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern... and understand your wife's obsession with the Ethan Hawke version--I really liked that too. But if she can find it, the Kevin Kline, while not as imaginatively staged, is a really fine version.

I suspect you're a lot nicer to her than Hamlet was to Ophelia, though!

Italy was truly great, and I ate my way through Florence, Venice, and Lake Como. Since then (retirement is wonderful) I also went to China. You can read a bit and see a few pictures at http://kreml.home.mindspring.com/china.htm and http://kreml.home.mindspring.com/lydiachina.htm

Glad you're around again. Looking forward to your posts.

[cwx.livejournal.com]

Actually, I (the originator of the meme) didn't count movies, or I would've moved Titus Andronicus and Richard III into "Read & seen." But I suppose you have to standardize these things at the outset, or all hell breaks lose. ;)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

OOoh sorry for misinterpreting. So TA is neither read nor seen for me! and possibly one of the ones I've seen is film, too. If only memes came with their originator's tag somehow...no, maybe it's just as well they don't.

Thanks, though--this was a good one, though I did it wrong.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Do see Troilus and Cressida. I saw it on stage a few years ago in a very good production, and was absolutely gobsmacked by how much it subverts the original myths in a way that I hadn't previously imagined anyone doing in the Tudor/Stewart era.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have longed to see that, and may really have read it around the time, many years ago, that I read Chaucer's work on the same topic.

Comedies

[rebekahroxanna.livejournal.com]

Oh do see the comedies. We were lucky. when d'H was young, Cleveland had the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival and did 5 plays a summer (then fewer and now it is the Theater Festival). It was in a high school auditorium. Tom Hanks got his equity card there (I am almost sure).

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Sounds wonderful! I'm hoping to get more Shakespeare opportunities in Chicago. I should say that "Two Gentlemen" and "Loves' Labors" are still on my list of things I long to see.