If it be not now, yet it will come

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Hamlet finally reconciles the inevitability of the deed that he must do and the consequence of doing that deed. I cannot think of another tragic hero in Shakespeare who finds the fatalistic calm that is the eye of the storm, before he is completely swallowed up by that storm.

Jude Law, as Hamlet

Shakespeare is Not too Hard to Understand

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The question was Is Shakespeare Too Hard to Understand?  The Shakespeare Standard gathered recent views on this, for example:

The BBC spoke with Fiona Banks from Globe Education in response to Julian Fellowes’ statements about Shakespeare only being understandable to those with expensive educations, and Banks replies, “Shakespeare’s for everybody. We can all understand him.” Banks isn’t the only one speaking out against Fellowes’ assertions of who can understand Shakespeare’s language. The Guardian gives voice to actors and educators from the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Globe who dismiss Fellowes’ opinions as “patent piffle.”

To which I also weighed in, after Anzin Hoshin Roshi shared the article above on Google+:

 

"Patent piffle" ... I like that!

Shakespeare takes time to understand, along with patience, reflection and study. He's probably the antithesis to modern day texting, Tweeting, and posting, where language is often reduced to its simplest, most parse elements. So, not surprisingly, he comes across as complex to many.

"Is Shakespeare too hard to understand?" I don't think so, but it's a matter of personal judgment. For those who've really had no encounter with him, then reading a play or watching one on stage is just the beginning of understanding him. Besides literature and drama, his plays are so rich in psychology, history and culture, that it can all seem daunting and impossible.

That said, Shakespeare is for everybody and he does belong to us. From the very beginning, for instance, I found that he spoke to me. But maybe Julian Fellowes was right, after all: I've had very expensive education (lol).

Sir Ben Kingsley Makes Shakespeare Magical

Ben Kingsley

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes was criticised for saying that people needed a “Shakespearean scholarship” to understand his verse. Some of Britain’s leading actors, including Sir Michael Gambon, Mark Rylance and Zoe Wanamaker, also admitted struggling with Shakespeare. However, Sir Ben said: “After leaving the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company] and before I did Gandhi [in 1982], I had the privilege of visiting schools in America with a group of Shakespearean actors. And instead of bashing their way through the text, we walked into the classroom and we performed scenes in the classroom for them. The pupils were slapping their hands on their foreheads and saying, ‘Wow — that’s what he meant!’ 

“A good actor, a focused actor, can unlock a 400 to 500-year-old text and make it hit you as you’ve never heard it before. A short answer to the question of whether we need to do more to stimulate the interest of children is, ‘Yes please’, but let it be done under the right conditions. 

“Let’s go into schools and say, this is our little group of actors, this is the first scene of Henry IV part II, listen … Honestly, they’ll be jumping out of their seat. It’s magic stuff.”

Reference: Sir Ben Kingsley: Shakespeare’s magic is lost on children if they can’t see his plays.

What Julian Fellowes and these actors have said is the truth: Shakespeare is not an easy read, even for native English speakers, mainly because, I think, he wrote in verse.  We're simply not used to hearing poetry as we try to follow dialogue on stage.

I commented in the Google+ Shakespeare community:

I agree with Sir Ben! What I imagine him and other actors doing in a classroom is this: In the play ("Pyramus and Thisbe") within a play ("A Midsummer Nights Dream"), Nick Bottom is so excited about his little repertory performing, that he gives on-stage direction and running commentary, all the while acting, too. So it isn't just a formal, straight-forward performance, but a highly interactive and engaging show. The audience of Theseus, Hippolyta et al. loved it all!

"Henry V" of The Hollow Crown Tetralogy

Henry V (Tom Hiddleston) has the makings of a fine king. The French ambassador brings a challenge from the French Dauphin. Inspired by his courtiers, Henry swears that he will, with all force, answer this challenge. The Chorus (John Hurt) tells of England’s preparations for war and Henry's army sails for France, where Henry and his meager forces prove victorious against all odds.

In this excerpt from Shakespeare's Henry V, the king (Tom Hiddleston) rallies his English troops prior to battle with the French. Second only to Hamlet's "to be or not to be," Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech at Agincourt is one of the most famous monologues in English literature.

Henry V:

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Just before fighting begins at Agincourt, the French Herald Montjoy rides up to the English camp with a message from the French Constable - give up or be obliterated. Henry (Tom Hiddleston) tells the Herald that there will be no surrender.

Henry V motivates his men, and no doubt himself as well, so masterfully as to make them believe that not to fight along with him is to bring shame upon themselves forever.  But of course it isn't just this speech that does it for the outnumbered few, but also Henry's balance of fierceness and humility and his on-the-horse and on-the-ground example.  Maybe Shakespeare had Henry V already sketched, and well in mind, when he drew up "Henry IV, Part 1."  After all Prince Hal can speak for the common people, for he has regularly been among them and he knows them well.

Moreover, disguising himself as a common soldier, so we can walk about and talk with his men is a brilliant ploy.  Again we have seen this brilliant little ploy with Falstaff in "Henry IV, Part 1." His intent was not to shake out any man who spoke ill of the King, but earnestly, I think, to know what made his men tick and perhaps to offer them, unwittingly, further incentive to fight for the King.  It is a personal, military ploy that is worthy of Sun Tzu and "The Art of War."

Finally, Henry V is nervous and awkward in courting Kate, who is Catherine of Valois and daughter of the defeated King Charles VI of France.  It takes a whole different set of motivational and influencing skills to woo her.  Nonetheless, it is the same sincere, impassioned Henry V that wins over Kate as well.

Such a brilliantly rendered character by Shakespeare.

PBS makes the entire Henry V available (free) November 7th.  So if you happen to read this article, watch it before then.  This, and the rest of The Hollow Crown series, are a superb production indeed.

"Henry IV, Part 2" of The Hollow Crown Tetralogy

The frail Henry IV (Jeremy Irons) is finally reconciled to his son, Hal, before his death. When Hal (Tom Hiddleston) comes to the throne as Henry V, he is left to bury the ghosts of his father’s past while fighting both the French forces as well as his own inner demons.

Henry IV fights his frailty and dismisses the ministrations of his ministers, but there is no denying the approaching end.  From tumbling to the floor, to lying beside with his crown, to handing it over to Prince Hal, the stellar drama of The Hollow Crown thus continues.

The fact that I could hardly pay attention in the first half of this film is just my personal thing.  I can be easily distracted.  It doesn't speak to the drama Shakespeare so deftly and patiently unfolds in Part 2.  As I mentioned to my friend, Paul, I had read this play only once and had never seen it performed.  I was polite when I said that it's a very different tone than Part 1, which meant that I was frankly bored halfway through the film.

But, oh, how the second half is the fruition of Shakespeare's dramatic patience and prowess.

That sequence of scenes with Henry IV is superb.  When he awakens in a startle, with his bedside pillow empty, he rushes to his throne, only to find his eldest sitting on it and wearing his crown.  We know that things were not as they appeared.  So as Henry IV expends quite a lot of breath chiding Prince Hal, we cringe and want to say 'Dear King, it isn't so.'

But it's the "I know thee not, old man" passage in Act V, scene v that I found most heartbreaking.  It was the most heartbreaking when I read this play 30 years ago, too.  Falstaff is of course the ringleader among the demons of Prince Hal's youth, made incarnate as a jolly, cagey and lying fellow.  This exchange breaks my heart, because in the drama he is no abstract figure but a real person.  To be dismissed so flagrantly in public like that is mighty cruel of the now Henry V.  Simon Russell Beale acts this scene so so poignantly brilliant.  
After Falstaff finally catches the new King's attention with:

My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

The King responds thus:

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.

PBS makes the entire Henry IV, Part 2 available (free) November 5th.  So if you happen to read this article, watch it before then.  This, and The Hollow Crown series, are a superb production indeed.

"Henry IV, Part 1" of The Hollow Crown Tetralogy

The heir to the throne, Prince Hal (Tom Hiddleston), defies his father, King Henry (Jeremy Irons), by spending his time at Mistress Quickly’s (Julie Walters) tavern in the company of the dissolute Falstaff (Simon Russell Beale) and his companions. The king is threatened by a rebellion led by Hal’s rival, Hotspur (Joe Armstrong), Hotspur’s father Northumberland (Alun Armstrong) and his uncle.

I wrote in the Shakespeare community on Google+:

I am so enthralled with this series! Like Richard II, Henry IV Part 1 is very well-directed and -acted. For example, much of the exchange between Prince Hal and Falstaff is nonverbal - which we can sense from the text - and actors Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale pull it off brilliantly. There are so many moments when the line between bawdy and serious gets blurred, then crossed, and they act those moments with their faces. Plus, Jeremy Irons as Henry IV is a longtime favorite, so it was a pleasure to see him act.

PBS makes the entire Henry IV, Part 1 available (free) for eight more days.  So if you happen to read this article, watch it right away.  I did say it was a superb production, right.

Hiddleston previews The Hollow Crown, and persuades that this historical tetralogy does have all the drama in the world.  I did say that I was enthralled by it all, didn't I.  

"Richard II" of The Hollow Crown Tetralogy

Richard II is a vain, self-indulgent man who rules with little regard for his people's welfare. He is ultimately overthrown by his cousin Bolingbroke, who ascends the throne as Henry IV (Jeremy Irons). In this scene from the Shakespeare history play, King Richard (Ben Whishaw) relinquishes the crown to Henry Bolingbroke (Rory Kinnear).

This is the first play in "The Hollow Crown" series - so beautifully filmed, so superbly acted.  It had been a long time, since I last read and watch "Richard II," but this film reminded me how much I love this play.  The King is narcissistic, even histrionic, but, oh, how I loved his poetry.  He does the kingdom wrong, and makes for an overall weak leadership.  But Ben Whishaw makes us (me, at least) sympathize with Richard.

In the above clip especially, I wondered about the allusion to Jesus Christ.  Whishaw's hair and beard make for a Jesus in his mid- to late-20s, and his outstretched arms like so is the posture of statues I've seen in Catholic churches.  Then, later in the film, while imprisoned in the Tower, Richard is dressed only in loin cloth, a very familiar bare attire for Jesus.  Once killed, and put into a wooden coffin, his bent legs strikingly resemble those of Jesus on the cross.  The director makes the tie explicit, when the camera pans from Richard in the coffin on the ground, to the crucifix high up on the Henry IV's throne.  

Did Shakespeare suggest a messiah in our midst in "Richard II"?  Were there any hints of such in the actual Richard II?  Or was this a director's artistic license?  I am very intrigued.

PBS makes the entire Richard II available (free) for three more days.  So if you happen to read this article, watch it right away.  I did say it was a superb production, right.  

I memorized the passage of this prison scene, as a university student, and recited it everywhere. I was so enamored with Richard's poetry, and I evidently still am.

Films I Didn't Know Were Based on Shakespeare

The Twist: The bulk of the story and several key scenes remain intact, with Denmark swapped for the African savanna, and people swapped for animals (mostly lions). 

It's easy to overlook the relationship between "Hamlet" and The Lion King, since Shakespeare certainly didn't invent the idea of an 'evil uncle.' But any theater fan would be able to follow the parallels along: the proud king (Mufasa) is killed 'accidentally' by his evil, power-hungry brother (Scar), and after a time away from the kingdom, the prince and rightful heir (Simba) returns to bring the truth to light. The film even includes the ghostly vision of Mufasa, and Simba's pair of fast-talking friends Timon and Pumbaa (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the original). 

A musical treatment and happier ending, of course, but "Hamlet" nonetheless.

Reference: 10 Movies You Didn’t Know Are Based on Shakespeare.

I didn't know that "The Lion King" (1994) was based on "Hamlet," and my first reaction was, Isn't it a bit of a stretch to say that?  I just didn't buy the tie between the two.  Then, I thought, Shakespeare must've influenced and inspired generations of creatives - from writers and directors, to poets and painters.  So the princely Simba may be Hamlet, which writers - Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton - evolved into a lavish African story and a more complete family story.

The Twist: The supernatural elements of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" are re-skinned into an alien world, and sci-fi fans would have no idea they're witnessing a story with elements written centuries before space travel. 

Forbidden Planet is remembered for many reasons: as one of the original true science-fiction feature films, its style and imagery helped influence the genre for decades. But the wealth of laser beams and robots help disguise one of the film's main influences - "The Tempest," Shakespeare's tale of magic and revenge, considered one of the playwright's greatest works. 

The shift from a remote island to an alien world means that much of the play has been adapted beyond recognition, but major themes and story arcs follow those set down by the Bard. And we can't help but think that Shakespeare's comedy and Leslie Nielsen is a match made in heaven.

Reference: 10 Movies You Didn’t Know Are Based on Shakespeare.

I may have seen "Forbidden Planet" (1956) several years ago, but I don't have much memory of it.  "The Tempest," if we imagine it from the text, may well be another planet altogether, with its magical landscape and odd characters.  Wholly from that planet, Dr. Edward Morbius' "alluring daughter" Alta had never seen a man before, and is apparently so enthralled at meeting Commander John Adams, that we recall Miranda's exhilaration upon meeting Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples:

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

The Twist: Change a shipwreck to a new high school, and Shakespeare's tale of gender-bending, disguises and love triangles is tailor-made for a new generation. 

In Shakespeare's original comedy, the young Viola is separated from her twin brother after a shipwreck, and disguises herself as the male Cesario. Eventually acting as go-between for a wealthy Duke and his romantic interest, he/she begins to fall for the Duke, as the Duke's would-be lover develops feelings for Viola/Cesario. 

Amanda Bynes takes over the role of Viola' when updated to a high school setting, posing as her brother to play on a boy's soccer team. Although the film didn't garner the same accolades as the source material, Shakespeare can't be blamed for this one. 

Reference: 10 Movies You Didn’t Know Are Based on Shakespeare.

"She's the Man" (2006) hadn't crossed my radar until now.  But it looks to be frolicking fun, based, as it were, on Shakespeare's masterful, gender-bending "Twelfth Night."  Is the full film on YouTube?

Women Cast as Male Characters

Harriett Walter, as Brutus in "Julius Caesar" 

Cush Jumbo, as Mark Antony in "Julius Caesar"

In Once More into the Breeches, Alexis Soloski writes that women playing male characters in Shakespeare isn't anything new.  The Bard's plays offered up more plum roles for men than for women, and so enterprising productions going back to the 17th century broke boundaries and let women have at it.  Why not?

Rachel Gluck and Isa St. Clair, as Romeo and Juliet

Besides Harriet Walter and Cush Jumbo in male roles in "Julius Caesar," Rachel Gluck takes on Romeo in a lesbian-themed production about the star-crossed lovers.  Again I ask Why not?

William Shakespeare was not only a paradigm of creativity, but also wrote plays that in and of themselves are a springboard for creativity for scores of directors, scriptwriters and actors.  So Romeo and Juliet can be female lovers and certainly male lovers, too.  Prospero in "The Tempest" can be Prospera, as Helen Mirren was in a recent film adaptation.  

But actors being actors in a fantasy world really can play any role that their talent and creativity will allow.  So we don't necessarily have to change the gender of the character.  A male character can remain male, but perhaps played by a woman.

Soloski points out, however, not all critics and aficionados are going to like these gender-bending productions.  But if the troupe can pull off a truly deft, unique production, and market it well, then it should draw enough of an audience to hit the troupe's and producer's financial targets.

If it works, it works.  For me, I simply marvel at the talent of people in theater, and this talent may involve bending gender.

Tomb Scene Variations in "Romeo and Juliet"

Learn how David Garrick changed Shakespeare. Scholar Denise A. Walen, curator of Folger exhibition, Here is a Play Fitted, looks at Garrick's 1754 adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" in which the young lovers get to speak to each other one more time before their tragic death, an idea that Baz Luhrman later adapted for his 1996 film. With actors Michael Goldsmith and Kate DeBuys.

Several years ago my wife and I saw "Romeo and Juliet" at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.  It starred Phoebe Cates, and was set in the Little Italy neighborhood  in the 1930s.  

If I recall the tomb scene correctly, Romeo had taken the poison, and was dying, when Juliet awakened.  For a moment, he saw her awaken with all the unimaginable emotions on his face - surprise, joy and horror.  He had only that moment before he died.  In her own confusion and devastation, Juliet shot herself.

Baz Luhrman's 1996 re-interpretation of this tomb scene works for me.  The dying Romeo and the astounded Juliet have a few last words together, which makes for a tragic yet tender ending.  

David Garrick and George Anne Bellamy, as "Romeo and Juliet," painting by Benjamin Wilson

Denise Walen points out: There is definitely something wrong with this picture.  If David Garrick actually had the two lovers position themselves like this and carried on relatively animatedly, I wouldn't have liked it.  It would've diluted the tragic denouement of the scene.  

Here is how William Shakespeare wrote it:

ROMEO

O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love!

[Drinks]

O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. 

[Dies]

[ Enter, at the other end of the churchyard, FRIAR LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade ]

FRIAR LAURENCE 

Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?

BALTHASAR

Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,
It burneth in the Capel's monument.

BALTHASAR 

It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,
One that you love.

FRIAR LAURENCE 

Who is it?

BALTHASAR 

Romeo.

FRIAR LAURENCE 

How long hath he been there?

BALTHASAR 

Full half an hour. 

FRIAR LAURENCE 

Go with me to the vault.

BALTHASAR 

I dare not, sir
My master knows not but I am gone hence;
And fearfully did menace me with death,
If I did stay to look on his intents.

FRIAR LAURENCE 

Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me:
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

BALTHASAR 

As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

FRIAR LAURENCE 

Romeo!

[Advances]

Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?
[Enters the tomb]
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?
And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
The lady stirs.

[JULIET wakes]

JULIET

O comfortable friar! where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo? 

[Noise within]

FRIAR LAURENCE

I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns:
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
Come, go, good Juliet,

[Noise again]

I dare no longer stay.

JULIET

Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.

[Exit FRIAR LAURENCE]

What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative. 

[Kisses him] 

Thy lips are warm.

FIRST WATCHMAN 

[Within] 

Lead, boy: which way?

JULIET

Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger! 

[Snatching ROMEO's dagger] 

This is thy sheath; 

[Stabs herself] 

there rust, and let me die. 

[Falls on ROMEO's body, and dies]

Reference:  Romeo and Juliet.

In reading these lines, I see, once again, the extraordinary complexity and frenzy of the tomb scene.  Friar Laurence was the engineer, and it was all going horribly wrong.  He thought to save Juliet at least, but even this he couldn't pull off.  

Some day, if I ever get the chance to stage this play myself, I will have had the benefit of Garrick's, Luhrman's, the Goodman Theater's adaptations, plus scores more, at my disposal.  

Orlando Bloom does Romeo, before Juliet's Balcony

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Ay me!

She speaks:
O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

I imagine it's difficult for an actor to do a monologue, that is, perform a scene alone, outside of its dramatic context.  Orlando Bloom articulates his Shakespeare quite well, but it comes across a bit flatly.  Romeo is in such wonder in this balcony, riding the roller coaster of emotion, helplessly down with Rosaline, now spiraling up to Juliet.  

No matter.  I love this In Performance.

3.22 Julius Caesar (1599) in Full

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Director Herbert Wise felt that Julius Caesar should be set in the Elizabethan era, but as per the emphasis on realism, he instead set it in a Roman milieu.  Wise argued that the play "is not really a Roman play. It's an Elizabethan play and it's a view of Rome from an Elizabethan standpoint." However, of setting the play in Shakespeare's day, Wise stated "I don't think that's right for the audience we will be getting. It's not a jaded theatre audience seeing the play for the umpteenth time: for them that would be an interesting approach and might throw new light on the play. But for an audience many of whom won't have seen the play before, I believe it would only be confusing."

Reference: Julius Caesar.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

Julius Caesar

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.22) and publication year (1599), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.

3.38 The Tempest (1610) in Full

The Tempest is a 2010 American fantasy film based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare, featuring Helen Mirren in the principal role of Prospera. The film is directed by Julie Taymor and premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2010.

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The role of Prospero was originally taken by [Sir] John Gielgud, but contractual conflicts delayed the production, and by the time [producer Cedric] Messina had sorted them out, Gielgud was unavailable.

Reference:  The Tempest.  

One of the things I love about The Tempest is Miranda's bristling innocence and natural desires:

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

I might call him
A thing divine, for nothing so natural
I ever saw so noble.

Another thing I love about the play is WH Auden's tour de force poetic commentary - The Sea and the Mirror.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

The Tempest

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.38) and publication year (1610), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.