Brush Up My Shakespeare

Productive morning. I created a couple of new tumblr.com blogs though neither is quite ready for public viewing. One will be my own personal tumblr area and the other will be a self-contained blog about our trip to France in early July. It occurs to me that tumblr is a good place to chronicle a trip via a smart phone, allowing you to upload pictures and observations as you go. The France blog will use the same theme as Martin Scorsese's tumblr blog, which can be found here. As you can see you can make the blog mostly pictures with observations in between. I'll be working on this blog so we can have a permanent place to remember our visit - which was wonderful, by the way. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed myself so much. For nine days, I was walking on air.

This afternoon I'm going to read Marjorie Garber's essay on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in preparation for seeing the play this coming Friday night at the Shakespeare Theatre's free-for-all. Normally they do one of the comedies during the summer free-for-all but this year they decided on a history, which is fine. We saw this production a few years back when the Shakespeare Theater performed it during the season (we are season ticket holders) and both my wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I always like to brush up my Shakespeare before going to see one of the plays. My two main sources are Mark Van Doren's Shakespeare and Ms. Garber's Shakespeare After All. Van Doren famously taught Shakespeare for years at Columbia and his book is taken from  the lectures he gave in class. With a deeply insightful chapter on each of the plays, it is deservedly revered as a guide to Shakespeare. As good as the book is, and it is very good, I prefer Ms. Garber's, who teaches Shakespeare at Harvard and is considered one of the most respected Shakespeare scholars in the country. Her book also contains a chapter for each of the plays - on average about 30 pages per - where she takes the reader through the origins and sources of the play, its changing meaning throughout history, its place in the culture, its famous productions and perfomances. She has an uncanny ability to get to the bottom of what makes Shakespeare work for each generation and why each remains important and interesting for audiences and readers. If you plan on seeing one of Shakespeare's play, reading Ms. Garber's essay is the perfect preparation. And this week I've discovered and added bonus: her lecture series on Shakespeare's later plays is available to view for free at Harvard's Extension School site.  "Caesar" is not among those she discusses in the series but I will keep the site bookmarked for future shows.

Almost time for lunch, the Sunday crossword, and a relaxing afternoon with a book and some music. For you own enjoyment, you can brush up your own Shakespeare by watching the video below. We saw this production of "Kiss Me Kate" twice back in 2001 and I still consider it the best Broadway show I've ever seen. Enjoy.

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