Sonnet 142, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
     If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
     By self-example mayst thou be denied!

Sonnet 142, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

Well-dramatized, well-scored.  A sinister, foreboding air.  So much so we just feel in our bones that this love interest will simply fester further, twist in dark alleys.  We feel in our bones that it is not going to end well in the least.

Sonnet 52, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special blest,
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
     Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
     Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope.

Sonnet 52, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This is exquisitely, deftly crafted poetry about the quandary of longing for someone from a distance.  In those quiet, reeling wee hours of the night, imagination can make that love feel real.  And intimate.  But alas it is not.

Sonnet 145, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
To me that languish'd for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away;
     'I hate' from hate away she threw,
     And saved my life, saying 'not you.'

Sonnet 145, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

This is a delightful, and therefore refreshing, rendering of what otherwise would be a dramatic, romantic - proper - sonnet.

Henry V, at Folger Elizabethan Library

The Chorus gives us a dramatic walk-through of and emotional heads-up on Henry V.  The Folger Elizabethan Theater keeps it straight to the text, without bells and whistles, which is probably how Shakespeare and his troupe performed it 400 years ago.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

Twelfth Night, at Folger Elizabethan Theater

It is one of the more quoted lines in Shakespeare, and it opens Twelfth Night, with the half-exhilarated, half-pining Duke Orsino:

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.

Romeo and Juliet, at Folger Elizabethan Theater

The perfect poetry of Shakespeare’s tragedy reveals the heart-breaking loss of “star-crossed” love. Helen Hayes Award-winning director Aaron Posner leads an outstanding ensemble into the heart of this powerful, provocative play.

Romeo and Juliet just closed at the Folger Elizabethan Theater in Washington, DC., always a must-visit for me whenever I travel to the US capital.  I will always love The Prologue, the sonnet that literally sets the stage for this timeless romantic tragedy:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

3.36 The Winter's Tale (1610) in Full

The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have re-labelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W. Lawrence, consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending. Directed by Jeremy Cole.

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Brilliantly juggling drama, comedy, romance and suspense, The Winter's Tale is filled with twists and turns, laughs, surprises, and fascinating characters (including one of the first feminist roles ever written) – all this, and Shakespeare’s glorious poetry, as well. 

It’s no wonder the Observer wrote that “this tragi-comi-romance is possibly Shakespeare's most emotionally complex and breathtakingly theatrical play.

Reference: The Winter's Tale.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

The Winter's Tale

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.36) and publication year (1610), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.

3.34 Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1607) in Full

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Director David Jones used a lot of long shots in this episode to try to create the sense of a small person taking in a vast world.  Annette Crosbie thought of Dionyza as an early version of Alexis Colby, Joan Collins' character in Dynasty.

Reference: Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.34) and publication year (1607), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.

3.29 King Lear (1606) in Full

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2009 Emmy Nominee Ian McKellen recreates his recent stage performance of the tragic monarch in a special television adaptation. Directed by Trevor Nunn, the telecast includes nearly all the original cast members of the sold-out Royal Shakespeare Company production that premiered in Stratford-Upon-Avon in April 2007.

Reference: King Lear, Great Performances on PBS.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

King Lear

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.29) and publication year (1606), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.