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Author Topic:   Shakespeare
indiedan
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posted December 08, 2004 08:55 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Radford: ''Merchant of Venice' Is Like the Iraq War'

British director Michael Radford has compared his modern take on William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice to the US-led military action in Iraq. The film-maker declared his observations during Sunday night's premiere of the movie - starring Al Pacino as Shylock - in New York, insisting the Middle East conflict inspired him to transport Shakespeare's to the 21st Century. He said, "Even though it's set in the 16th century, we tried to make this movie relevant to today." Radford added the play's premise - which centers on a clash of different cultures - is "rather like what's going on now" between Muslim nations and the West.

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AuthorAuthor
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posted March 15, 2005 10:19 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AuthorAuthor   Click Here to Email AuthorAuthor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Julius Caesar assassinated 44 BC

The Ides of March is of course the day on which Julius Caesar was stabbed
to death by a gang of senators in Rome, led by Cassius and Brutus. Caesar
is remembered as the great Roman general, but he was also the author of
Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. Shakespeare immortalised the events
leading up to the assassination in his play, written between 1599 and
1600. The only known source for Shakespeare’s play is Plutarch whose brief
biographies of Brutus, Caesar and Mark Antony were translated by Sir
Thomas North from the French version by Jacques Amyot. Julius Caesar
established the First Triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus in 60 BC, fought
in the Gallic wars between 58 and 51 BC, and invaded Britain in 55-54 BC,
acquiring immense power. He became dictator after defeating Pompey in a
civil war.

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NEWSFLASH
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posted April 21, 2005 05:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for NEWSFLASH   Click Here to Email NEWSFLASH     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Experts Confirm Shakespeare Portrait Fake


LONDON - One of the best-known portraits of William Shakespeare is a fraud, painted 200 years after the playwright's death, experts at Britain's National Portrait Gallery said Thursday.


Many art authorities had long suspected the work, known as the Flower portrait, was painted much more recently than the 1609 date on the image.


The work shows Shakespeare gazing out at an angle and wearing a wide white collar. It has been widely reproduced and is often printed on the covers of his plays.


Tarnya Cooper, 16th Century curator at the National Portrait Gallery, said an analysis had uncovered chrome yellow paint from around 1814 embedded deeply in the work.


"We now think the portrait dates back to around 1818 to 1840, exactly the time when there was a resurgence of interest in Shakespeare's plays," she said. Shakespeare died in 1616.


British Broadcasting Corp. television first reported the gallery experts' conclusion on Thursday night.


The gallery said scholars used X-rays, ultraviolet examination, microphotography and paint samples to test the Flower portrait, named for one of its owners, Sir Desmond Flower, who gave it to the Royal Shakespeare Company.


The painting is similar to another image of Shakespeare, the Droeshout engraving, which appeared with the first folio publication of his works in 1623.


"Some believed that it was the portrait which the engraver copied, but it now turns out that it is a copy of the engraving," Cooper said.


"There have always been questions about the authenticity of the painting," Royal Shakespeare Company curator David Howells said. "Now we know the truth we can put the image in its proper context in the history of Shakespearean portraiture."

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AuthorAuthor
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posted April 24, 2005 07:51 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AuthorAuthor   Click Here to Email AuthorAuthor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Shakespeare's Birthday

It’s hard to think of a set of plays so closely associated with one
particular theatre as the plays of William Shakespeare are with the Globe.
He wrote there, acted there, and because of his close association with the
theatre many of the plays were written with the size and dimensions of the
stage and the theatre itself in mind. On 29 June 1613, the original Globe
Theatre burned to the ground. It was rebuilt the following year but
eventually demolished in 1644, thus depriving England of what would have
ranked as one of its great historical sites. It was, of course, rebuilt to
its original design and reopened successfully in 1997. The Bard himself
was born on this day in 1564 and surprisingly little is known about his
life. He was married to Anne Hathaway, and died on his birthday in 1616.

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indiedan
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posted May 09, 2005 09:39 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
DVD RE-RUN INTERVIEW: Probing a Psychological
Battle, Michael Radford on "The Merchant of Venice"
(by Liza Bear, May 9, 2005)

Shakespeare knew how to get bums on seats, says British
director Michael Radford, ["1984," "Il Postino"]. It looks
like his livewire, rip-roaring adaptation of William
Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," set in 16th century
Venice, with Al Pacino in top form as a restrained Shylock,
will do that too. Adding a historical prologue about
conditions in the Jewish Geto and blasting off with an opening
shocker at the Rialto Bridge to demonstrate the hostility
between the religious groups, by judicious trimming Radford is
able to clarify the characters' key relationships and personal
agendas -- without foregoing the poetic magic of the original
text. As the story goes, seafaring Catholic adventurer Antonio
(Jeremy Irons) borrows 3000 ducats from Jewish moneylender
Shylock, using his ships as collateral. The loan is to enable
his profligate friend Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) to travel some
distance to Belmont to try his hand at wooing an heiress,
Portia (Lynn Collins). Pure gamble. The contract states
non-repayment within 3 months will entitle Shylock to extract
a pound of flesh from Antonio near the heart.

Whether or not the contract will be honored literally is the
crux of the action and Radford ably feeds all other plot
lines into it. The play's tone is tricky, with its lightning
shifts from romantic comedy to tragedy, but Radford makes
Shakespeare's portrayal of flawed humanity his main dramatic
focus, anchoring Shylock's desire for revenge in his repeated
humiliation and aggravated by the loss of his 19 yr old
daughter Jessica (Zuleikha Robinson), who has run off with a
Gentile. How do the ruling Christians treat their slaves,
Shakespeare asks, so are they merciful or hypocrites? The
film whips up edge-of-the seat suspense at trial with Shylock
whetting his knife blade as Antonio is strapped down and
gagged, expecting to die. Lynn Collins does a virtuoso turn
as Portia disguised as a male legal scholar brilliantly
arguing points of law. Liza Bear spoke with Michael Radford
in New York recently.

Read the Full Story @ indieWIRE.com
< http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_041228merch.html

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AuthorAuthor
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posted May 30, 2005 09:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AuthorAuthor   Click Here to Email AuthorAuthor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Christopher Marlowe is fatally stabbed in a tavern brawl 1593

Born in 1564 in Canterbury, son of a shoemaker, Christopher Marlowe
graduated from Cambridge in 1587 already a dramatist, with The Tragedy of
Dido and Tamburlaine the Great likely to have been written, at least in
part, at Cambridge. His wayward life has been a source of intrigue to
scholars through the centuries, his violence and criminal associations
having led to arrests and deportations. He was involved in a brawl during
which a man was killed in 1589 and was deported from the Netherlands on a
charge of fraud in 1592. Rumours of espionage also surrounded Marlowe yet,
despite his lifestyle, he was a highly regarded and influential playwright
of his day and his influence on the early work of Shakespeare is
undisputed. The Jew of Malta and Dr Faustus are among his most enduring
works. On this day in 1593, Marlowe was murdered by Ingram Frizer in a
Deptford tavern during an argument over the bill. A warrant had been
issued for his arrest at the time of his death for disseminating atheistic
opinions.

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AuthorAuthor
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posted June 29, 2005 10:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AuthorAuthor   Click Here to Email AuthorAuthor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Globe Theatre destroyed by fire 1613

It’s hard to think of a set of plays so closely associated with one
particular theatre as the plays of William Shakespeare are with the Globe.
Shakespeare wrote there, acted there, and because of his close association
with the theatre many of the plays were written with the size and
dimensions of the stage and the theatre itself in mind. On 29 June 1613,
the original Globe Theatre burned to the ground. It was rebuilt the
following year but eventually demolished in 1644, thus depriving England
of what would have ranked as one of its great historical sites. It was, of
course, rebuilt to its original design and reopened successfully in 1997,
after a restoration programme that set new records in fidelity to
architectural history. Also on this day, in 1900, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
published his much-loved children’s tale, The Little Prince.

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AuthorAuthor
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posted July 25, 2005 10:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AuthorAuthor   Click Here to Email AuthorAuthor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
On this day in literary history...

The Merchant of Venice is entered on the Plays’ Register 1598

Written between 1596 and 1597, William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of
Venice was entered thus on the Plays’ Register on this day a year later:
‘The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreme
crueltie of Shylocke the Jewe towards the sayd Merchant, in cutting a iust
pound of his flesh: and the obtaining of Portia by the choyse of three
chests. As it hath beene diuers times acted by the Lord Chamberlaine his
seruants. Written by William Shakespeare.’ The source of the bond theme
was Il Pecarone (The Simpleton) by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino and the idea of
the caskets was from Richard Robinson’s version of the Gesta Romanorum.
The play also contains some parallels to Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of
Malta.

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fred
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posted August 07, 2005 05:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for fred   Click Here to Email fred     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Merchant moves from Venice to Vegas
By Chris Hastings, Arts Correspondent

Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, two of Britain's greatest Shakespearean actors, are to star in a film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice set in modern-day Las Vegas.

The new £20 million movie will shift the action of the Bard's 1596 play from medieval Italy to the flamboyant Venetian Resort, Hotel and Casino in the heart of the Nevada desert.

The new version will keep Shakespeare's dialogue but will unashamedly set the action on the resort's versions of the Rialto Bridge, St Marks Square and the Grand Canal. No attempt will be made to pass off the replica settings as the real Venice.

On the contrary, Stewart, 65, who is also producing the film, believes that America's gambling capital is the perfect backdrop for Shakespeare's classic tale of reckless gambling, greed and money lending. Controversially, the film is also expected to make use of the city's thriving gay scene as it tries to explore the nature of the relationship between Antonio, the eponymous hero of the play, and Basanio, his young protégé.

McKellen, who is himself gay, is keen to be involved in the project, though last night he declined to go into details. "Patrick has approached me about the role and I am very interested," he said.

The film's modern-day setting is in stark contrast to Michael Radford's 2004 adaptation of the play, which was shot on location in Venice. Industry sources believe the film will be more like Baz Lurhman's fast-paced adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

Others, however, believe Stewart may be trying too hard. One insider who saw an early copy of the script said: "I think the idea of the Las Vegas setting is a step too far. I think it's an example of taking a simple idea and hitting it with a sledgehammer."

The project is a labour of love for the Yorkshire-born actor, who became a household name after starring in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He has played Shylock in numerous stage adaptations of the role. He is believed to be in talks with the owners of the resort and was unavailable for comment last night.

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NEWSFLASH
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posted August 08, 2005 09:14 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for NEWSFLASH   Click Here to Email NEWSFLASH     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Marilyn Monroe Planned To Do Shakespeare

Screen siren Marilyn Monroe dreamed of starring in a film based on a play by William Shakespeare and enlisted Laurence Olivier to help her achieve her dream. Monroe was determined to revamp her image and prove herself as a serious actress, according to tapes former Los Angeles prosecutor John W. Miner claims to have made for the late star's psychiatrist shortly before her death in 1962. According to the recordings, Monroe had already spoken to legendary method acting coach Lee Strasberg and Olivier about her plans. Miner's transcript reads: "I'll take a year of day and night study at Shakespeare with Lee Strasberg. I'll pay him to work only with me. He said I could do Shakespeare. I'll make him prove it. That will give me the basics Olivier wanted. Then I'll go to Olivier for the help he promised. Then I'll produce and act in the Marilyn Monroe Shakespeare Film Festival."

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indiedan
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posted October 19, 2005 09:51 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Who wrote Shakespeare this time?
New book claims plays written by Sir Henry Neville

LONDON, England (AP) -- Some scholars just won't let Shakespeare be Shakespeare.

A small academic industry has developed to prove that William Shakespeare, a provincial lad from Stratford-upon-Avon, could not have written the much-loved plays that bear his name.

The "real" author has been identified by various writers as Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere.

Now, a new book claims that the real Bard was Sir Henry Neville, an English courtier and distant relative of the Stratford Shakespeare. Shakespeare himself was simply a front man, claim Brenda James and William Rubinstein in "The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare." The book was recently published in Great Britain; it has yet to be released in the United States.

James, an English literature lecturer, said Neville "wanted (the plays) to go under another name and wanted a poor relation to have a hand up."

James and Rubinstein, a professor of history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, argue that Shakespeare of Stratford, who came from a modest background and did not attend university, could not have had enough knowledge of the politics, foreign languages and European cities described in the plays to have written them.

Neville, in contrast, was well-educated, had traveled to all the countries used as settings in the plays and had a life that matched up with what "Shakespeare" was writing about at the time, the book says.

"The more we looked into his life, the more convincing the matchup became," Rubinstein said.

James said that she began exploring the connection between Shakespeare and Neville about six years ago when she deciphered what she believes is a code on the dedication page of Shakespeare's sonnets. The code revealed the name Henry Neville.

"I thought I must be seeing things; nobody's ever heard of Henry Neville. To my great surprise, his birth and death dates were almost the same as Shakespeare's," she said.

Further research turned up more evidence pointing to Neville, who served for a time as ambassador to France.

The authors say Neville's life helps explain a switch in Shakespeare's plays, from histories and comedies to tragedies, at the turn of the 17th century. Neville was imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1601 to 1603 for his role in the Essex rebellion (the attempt by the Earl of Essex and his supporters to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I), which the authors say accounts for the more tragic tone of "Hamlet," written in 1601 and 1602, and the plays that follow.

'Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare'
Many Shakespeare experts dismiss the theory.

"Like most previous theories that challenge Shakespeare's authorship of the plays, this claim makes the mistake of assuming his education and general knowledge of the world were very limited," said Roger Pringle, director of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford. "There is plenty of evidence to suggest Shakespeare received a thoroughly good classical education at the Stratford grammar school and then, for well over 20 years, was involved in artistic and intellectual circles in London."

Jonathan Bate, a professor of literary studies at Warwick University and author of "The Genius of Shakespeare," said, "There's not a shred of evidence in support of the argument; it's full of errors. There's no reason to doubt that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare."

Bate said the authorship question emerged more than 100 years ago "out of snobbery."

"People began to say, 'How could a middle-class grammar school boy from the provinces write these plays?' " he said. "It shows how Shakespeare has become such a cult figure. The moment Shakespeare becomes regarded as the greatest of all writers, inevitably heresies start emerging."

But Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, called the book "pioneering."

"As this book rightly suggests, if the plays had not been attributed to Shakespeare in 1623, he would be the last person you would imagine able to write such matter," he wrote in the book's foreword.

Rubinstein said he hoped those who were convinced that Shakespeare wrote his own plays would consider the evidence rationally.

"What they must do is explain all the inconsistencies and inadequacies of Shakespeare's life as it's known to us and use it to explain the plays," he said.

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indiedan
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posted January 13, 2006 09:18 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Hopkins To Quit After Shakespeare Role?


Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins may be planning to quit acting after starring in William Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear. Hopkins has played the aging British king in the theatre and admits he wasn't completely happy with his performance and would like the chance to play Lear again on the silver screen. He tells Total Film magazine, "(I played Lear before) badly... no, it was OK. But I want do to Lear, then maybe say, 'Adios.' I want to see what I've got left in me. Make sure I had a good go at it. I know somebody that's interested in producing it, one of the money guys at Miramax. I think it would be interesting to go back to the old traditional thing of setting it in Denmark or a craggy area of Britain, shoot it near the coasts in winter, set it in the dark ages."

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indiedan
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posted February 27, 2006 08:09 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for indiedan   Click Here to Email indiedan     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Maybe nobody wrote Shakespeare's plays. Maybe they just appeared.

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AuthorAuthor
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posted March 16, 2006 10:06 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AuthorAuthor   Click Here to Email AuthorAuthor     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Julius Caesar assassinated 44 BC

The Ides of March is of course the day on which Julius Caesar was stabbed
to death by a gang of senators in Rome, led by Cassius and Brutus. Caesar
is remembered as the great Roman general, but he was also the author of
Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. Shakespeare immortalised the events
leading up to the assassination in his play, written between 1599 and
1600. The only known source for Shakespeare’s play is Plutarch whose brief
biographies of Brutus, Caesar and Mark Antony were translated by Sir
Thomas North from the French version by Jacques Amyot. Julius Caesar
established the First Triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus in 60 BC, fought
in the Gallic wars between 58 and 51 BC, and invaded Britain in 55-54 BC,
acquiring immense power. He became dictator after defeating Pompey in a
civil war.

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a
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posted March 30, 2006 10:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for a   Click Here to Email a     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Much ado about Shakespeare's first folio sale By Jeremy Lovell

A complete First Folio edition of William Shakespeare's plays, in prime condition and still in its 17th century calf leather binding, is expected to fetch up to 3.5 million pounds when it goes on sale in July.

Hailed by auctioneer Sotheby's as the most important book in English literature, the First Folio is credited with saving for posterity many of the bard's plays including "Macbeth," "Twelfth Night" and "Julius Caesar" which had never before been printed.

"The First Folio preserves 18 of his plays, including some of the most major, which otherwise would have been lost for all time," English literature specialist Peter Selley said as the volume was put on show on Thursday.

"Relatively complete copies of the Folio in contemporary or near contemporary bindings very rarely come to market. There is only one copy recorded as remaining in private hands," he added.

The only copy in private hands similar to the one going for sale was bought by Paul Getty in April 2002.

Printed in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death and containing 36 plays, only about 250 copies of the First Folio survive and most of those are incomplete.

The volume up for sale on July 13 has been in the William's Library -- a key research facility for English Protestant dissent -- since about 1716, making it the longest uninterrupted ownership by a public library of any copy in the world.

Daniel Williams, the leading dissenting minister of his time, acquired the Folio when he bought the library of fellow nonconformist William Bates who was probably the original owner.

"The library has been proud to own this remarkable copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, but its sale will secure the finance of the library and safeguard our important historic collections of manuscripts and printed books for future generations," said the library's director David Wykes.

The thick tome with its heavy, yellowing pages and portrait of England's leading playwright on the front is not only unique for its completeness and condition.

It contains detailed notes in the margins made, it is believed, by contemporary scholars and giving an insight into the understanding and interpretation of the wordsmith's masterworks soon after his own era.

"The profusion of markings in this volume does much to illuminate a contemporary or near-contemporary reader's taste for, and in some measure interpretation of, Shakespeare's works," said Sotheby's English manuscript expert Peter Beal.

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