Shakespeare meme liberated from stephen_dedman

[rattfan]

Bold the ones you've seen stage productions of, italicize the ones you've seen movies of, underline the ones you've read or listened to, and add a star to any you've performed in, done readings of or otherwise theatrically participated.

All's Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, Part I
Henry IV, Part II
Henry V
Henry VI, Part I
Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part III
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love's Labour's Lost
Macbeth *
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado about Nothing
Othello
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Winter's Tale

I've also read Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare (1807) which tells the stories of Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, the Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, The Tempest, As You Like It, Much Ado about Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Winter's Tale, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Cymbeline in a style "Designed for the Use of Young People." My mother received it as a birthday present on her 12th birthday, so says the inscription, in 1943. Can't remember when she passed it on to me but it's why I'm sometimes a bit hazy about which actual plays I've seen/read and which I remember only from this book. stephen_dedman; do you happen to remember which was the one we saw in an outdoor setting which featured a selection of '70s disco songs?

Comments

What Shakespeare have you seen/performed?

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

I've seen on stage all the Romances except Cymbeline, all the Henry plays except HIV part 2 and Henry VIII (if you count the Wars of the Roses, which was a compressed version of the three Henry VI plays), Antony and Cleopatra (during which I disgraced myself in the scene in which Enobarbus's dead body is found by saying, "He's dead, Jim!" Robert Jan, who was with me, nearly fell over laughing, though he was embarrassed for me), Julius Caesar (also the 1950s film) ... you know what? It's easier to say what I haven't seen. King John, seen but only on TV, likewise Titus, which isn't often performed because it's so gruesome, Merry Wives of Windsor (unless you count the opera Falstaff), Love's Labour's Lost, Timon, Two Gentlemen of Verona (unless you count the musical). Otherwise, I've seen the lot on stage, some on film as well, some several times. I've performed in Coriolanus and The Winter's Tale. In Tale, I was one of Hermione's ladies-in-waiting and the shepherdess Mopsa, so I got to sing. In Coriolanus, I was Third Citizen, Second Cleaning Lady (well, Second Officer according to the script, but someone had to clean up the palm leaves from Coriolanus's triumphal entry, so they gave the lines to two cleaning ladies), several messengers and a standard-bearer who was killed in battle. I nearly choked on the edge of my breastplate as I fell down dead. I also got to be Ariel in The Tempest, a performed reading at uni, though someone else, with a better voice than me did the singing.

I first fell in love with Shakespeare when I was about ten or eleven, after discovering a copy of Julius Caesar, which my sister had to study in year 10. I used to stand in the living room and declaim both Brutus and Antony's speeches and those of the tribunes. "You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! Knew you not Pompey?" Ah, that's the stuff! :-)

Re: What Shakespeare have you seen/performed?

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

Well, when I say "performed", all I mean is readings in a school class. We did Macbeth in year 10 and Romeo and Juliet at university, I think. I know I read the Lambs Tales when I was too young to even know who Shakespeare was or how old the book was!

Re: What Shakespeare have you seen/performed?

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. We did read Richard III aloud in class, I vaguely recall. My Year 11 English teacher actually told us about Daughter of Time and as a result of reading THAT I joined the Richard III Society.

But doing it on stage was a lot more fun. :-) And it was the belief of the English lecturers at Monash Uni that you really needed to perform Shakespeare to understand his work properly. Any excuse to ham it up. ;-)

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

It was Twelfth Night. Great fun.

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, featuring a Duke who had become a '70s rock star.

I remember now I've also seen a movie of Romeo and Juliet where Juliet was actually played by a 14-year-old girl. Beautiful production but I can't remember any more about it.

[ozdragonlady.livejournal.com]

I have read them all. I cant remember which ones Ive seen films of. I have seen performed HIV 1 and 2, JC, Dream, Twelfth Night, Merchant, Lear.

Reading them all in the order they were supposedly written gives you a whole new perspective on the development of the technique, the conventions, the presentation of the plot and characters. If you also read the contemporary plays - Marlowe, Kyd, Webster - it puts them in perspective.