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Howdy there, friends and countrymen!

I haven't been working too diligently on this project with my recent move and an autumn where I never unpacked my suitcase, but I'm still committed, oh yes. I finished Henry V and decided to take a little break from the bloodshed. Expect to see my plea that you read this play very soon.

In the meantime, it may be of interest:

Consummate hottie and super spy* Christopher Marlowe has been given an official writer's credit on all three of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays. I know I've said this before, but one of my favorite things about doing this project has been that my Google alert for all things Shakespeare keeps paying off. The guy still gets around.

Speaking of which, "Minneapolis Shakespeare" led me to this gem: Masquerade at Bernard's, which is nothing less than Weekend at Bernie's done in the style of Shakespeare. Playing now at the Phoenix Theater if you're interested. (And you know you are.)

I'll be back soon. The plan, now that I've read Henry V, is to read the other plays theorized to have been written in 1599: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and As You Like It, followed up by James Shapiro's A Year in the Life biography.

So now you know.

* He'd tell you more, but he'd have to stab you in the eye. Also, he's dead from being stabbed in the eye.

HIATUS.

Don't worry, friends. I'll be back after my move with big stories to tell, some of which might actually be about Shakespeare.

Weekly Wrap-Up #6

Not a lot got done this week, and not just because adorable kittens like to fall asleep in my text. The lag is most due to the fact that:

* I'm still stuck in Henry V, but I have started to move forward. I'm once again attempting the help of the Chop Bard podcast which I LOVE but is so glitchy on every platform I try that it's still 50/50 whether I would recommend it to anyone. (I have one major malfunction every episode but have been able to push through.) So, hopefully, by next week I'll have something else to talk about.

* I also watched 1985's Just One of the Guys, which is loosely based on Twelfth Night. It was ridiculous in both good ways and bad ways and, since it was directed by a woman, killed two birds with one stone.

See also:

* Peace, Good Tickle-Brain. This site is awesome and all Shakespeare comics all the time. I seriously need The Complete Works of Shakespeare... in Three Panels Each. Right up my alley.

I'll be back next week having seen another performance, but you'll have to wait to see which. I'm going into this one blind - knowing absolutely nothing about the play at all - so it should be a fun experiment.

Weekly Wrap-Up #4 and #5.

A couple weeks' worth since I went on a jaunt to Minnesota last weekend. In the past two weeks, I:

* saw South Dakota Shakespeare Festival's production of The Winter's Tale, which was wonderful even in 100 degree (38 C) weather. Pictured above is the most excellent stage direction ever: [Exit, pursued by a bear].

* watched RSC/Tennant's Hamlet and started out kind of upset that it wasn't my favorite thing ever: it took a while to get on board with the direction they went with this production. (I expect it to be polished like a movie with good sound, good editing, etc, OR a filming of a stage production. In reality, it's halfway between the two which is kind of jarring.)

The acting is top notch, though, and by the time Hamlet kills Polonius I was all in. I know that scene is pretty far into the play, don't get me wrong, but I still think you should probably watch this. The soliloquies made me a feel a lot of things and raised goosebumps that I wouldn't have thought possible given that I have heard those speeches a thousand times.

* read Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 and wrote about both here.

* read Henry V in a tent in the woods. If you can believe it, I didn't get through much of it, but I do hope that I get to whip that out in the future. "Oh, Henry the Fifth? I read that in a tent in northern Minnesota on the eve of my 32nd birthday." Bam.

I'm sort of stuck in the middle of this, so it doesn't seem likely that I'll get to reading A Midsummer Night's Dream like I planned this summer. Might jump straight to the 1599 biography, which I bought this week... on solstice, so maybe that makes up for it.

* participated in an online watchalong of the 1999 A Midsummer Night's Dream. Hoping to get invited to a MND-themed party someday. Seriously, if you've never watched a movie with someone hundreds of miles away over Twitter (especially if that someone wasn't an iggle), you should get on it.

Also also also:

* Pre-orders are live for the computer game Elsinore, based on Hamlet. I'm not a gamer by nature, but I want to figure out how to be one to play this. Very female-driven, which is sometimes hard to find in the world of Shakespeare.

* Check out Hogarth Imprint's Shakespeare Project. Seriously. Margaret Atwood's The Tempest? Gillian Flynn's Hamlet? Dreams do come true.

Speech of the week: Richard II, II,1

This speech is delivered by John of Gaunt, who is having a rough time. His son has been banished and, just before his own death, he delivers a harrowing and beautiful prediction of what is to become of England.

I first heard this speech given by Simon Russell Beale during the RSC's Shakespeare Live broadcast. It was bone-chillingly dark, though you are more likely to hear it given as distressed and mad.

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...