Sonnet 113, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
     Incapable of more, replete with you,
     My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue.

Sonnet 113, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

It is about being in love, isn't it.  That all-consuming, all-encompassing love that intrudes into, and thus prevents, sleep.  Or any other thought, or, as in this sonnet, any other sight.  Well-dramatized, well-filmed, and well-acted.

Sonnet 40, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
     Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
     Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.

Sonnet 40, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

Bridget Crawford as the speaker is despondent, even bitter, yet in the end pleads for a practical bargain: That of friendship, if not romance.  It's a curious dramatization, though, isn't it.  Whom, or what, does the younger lady represent?  Maybe Shakespeare, who is the conduit for the lover to speak her despondency and bitterness.

Sonnet 17, by NY Shakespeare Exchange

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellowed with their age,
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
     But were some child of yours alive that time,
     You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.

Sonnet 17, from The Sonnet Project, by the New York Shakespeare Exchange.

Carey Van Driest makes this high romance approachable and contemporary.  Her reading, and her looks, are unforced, and it is how, I believe, a modern day audience can best relate to a love poem so skillfully written.  I love, too, the time-lapse cinematography, as if Van Driest, as the voice for this sonnet, were in fact traveling in time.

Winter of Richard III's Discontent

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain.

Richard III (Act I, scene i)

Antony Mourns Caesar and Questions Brutus

BRUTUS
My countrymen,--

Second Citizen
Peace, silence! Brutus speaks.

First Citizen
Peace, ho!

BRUTUS
Good countrymen, let me depart alone,
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony:
Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech
Tending to Caesar's glories; which Mark Antony,
By our permission, is allow'd to make.
I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.

Exit
First Citizen
Stay, ho! and let us hear Mark Antony.

Third Citizen
Let him go up into the public chair;
We'll hear him. Noble Antony, go up.

ANTONY
For Brutus' sake, I am beholding to you.

Goes into the pulpit
Fourth Citizen
What does he say of Brutus?

Third Citizen
He says, for Brutus' sake,
He finds himself beholding to us all.

Fourth Citizen
'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here.

First Citizen
This Caesar was a tyrant.

Third Citizen
Nay, that's certain:
We are blest that Rome is rid of him.

Second Citizen
Peace! let us hear what Antony can say.

ANTONY
You gentle Romans,--

Citizens
Peace, ho! let us hear him.

ANTONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Julius Caesar (Act III, scene ii)

Kate and Petruchio Suggestive Repartee

PETRUCHIO
Good morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear. 

KATHARINA
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katharina that do talk of me. 

PETRUCHIO
You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

KATHARINA
Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence: I knew you at the first
You were a moveable.

PETRUCHIO
Why, what's a moveable?

KATHARINA
A join'd-stool.

PETRUCHIO
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.

KATHARINA
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

PETRUCHIO
Women are made to bear, and so are you.

KATHARINA
No such jade as you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIO
Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;
For, knowing thee to be but young and light--

KATHARINA
Too light for such a swain as you to catch;
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIO
Should be! should--buzz!

KATHARINA
Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
O slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?

KATHARINA
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.

KATHARINA
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO
My remedy is then, to pluck it out.

KATHARINA
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,

PETRUCHIO
Who knows not where a wasp does
wear his sting? In his tail.

KATHARINA
In his tongue.

PETRUCHIO
Whose tongue?

KATHARINA
Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.

PETRUCHIO
What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

KATHARINA
That I'll try.

She strikes him
PETRUCHIO
I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.

KATHARINA
So may you lose your arms:
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

The Taming of the Shrew (Act II, scene i)

The Brutishly Bald Simon Russell Beale

Simon Russell Beale

Writer Jasper Rees headlines his article with Simon Russell Beale interview: Why I shaved my head for Lear.  Since I started to shave my head a handful of months ago, I was curious about the why:

Nowadays, with a full white beard and cropped silver hair, he looks comfortably grizzled enough to be handing over his kingdom to his progeny. 

The crop was [Director Sam] Mendes’s request. “The two nasty characters I’ve done with Sam – Richard III and Iago – for both of them I shaved my head. The first thing he said to me as Lear was, 'Can you shave your head because it makes you feel more of a brute?’”

Simon Russell Beale, as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2

Beale was terrific as the avoirdupois in the two Henry IV plays, Mendes among the producers of The Hollow Crown.  Clearly hirsuteness better suited his characterization of Falstaff.

a selfie, onboard a flight from Chicago to London, recently

As for me, the reasons why I shaved my head are positively plebeian.  I wanted to save money, and avoid inconvenient trips and waits at Great Clips.  Besides, I am bald on top anyway.  In any event, I don't imagine that a King Lear role is in the offing for me.

A Stunning Shakespeare, by Lena Levin

Lena Levin posted this painting and these notes on Google+:

So here is the last one for my #bestthirteenofthirteen album, two days in advance.

Sonnet 53: And you in every blessed shape we know 

Being, as it is, a portrait of #williamshakespeare, it sums up very well the core of my work, my passions and my obsessions both for 2013 and for the foreseeable future. Anyway, since I've finished this retrospective two days in advance, I can now turn to a more exciting topic of #newyearresolution2014 . Because however ridiculous this calendar-fascination is on all rational levels, the turn of the year still holds some fundamental emotional significance for me, so I might as well use it... :) 

It's a compelling portrait of Shakespeare: doleful eyes and dispassionate face, amid bold brushstrokes and stunning colors.

Breathtaking "Midsummer Night," by Julie Taymor

(image credits)

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a longtime favorite, and each production of it sheds light on how Shakespeare managed to make a dramatically complex play so easily delightful for all ages.  Magic fantasy may indeed be the trick, and if so, then Julie Taymor succeeds rather well:

In any case, Julie Taymor may not be at the height of her powers. There may be more heights, and different ones. But I woud urge audiences to delight unabashedly in her beautiful magic tricks, because they may end up with what she really wants to give them: a stronger sense of what Shakespeare knew about love--and that's no mean feat.

Reference: Why I Love Julie Taymor's Midsummer Night's Dream.

Yet, Taymor may bring a mixed bag of audience reactions:

But you don’t go to a Taymor production for the acting, or — let’s be honest — to exercise your deeper feelings. While I think you could make an argument for a sustained thematic interpretation here, this “Dream” exists more as a glittering necklace of breathtaking moments than as an emotionally affecting whole.

Reference: When the Sky is No Limit.

Many of the moments on the stage are without question spectacular – wondrous, thrilling, stunning. The clever uses of something as simple as a pole and as elaborate as a built-in elevator on the back wall, along with a myriad of other materials and equipment and maneuvers, create a world of live magic. But all these effects can make the language of the Bard feel beside the point; at times the stage visuals seem to serve as a substitute for plain good acting. At the end of the nearly three-hour production, one might leave the theater thinking: Who knew there is such a thing as being too creative?

Reference: A Midsummer Night's Dream Review: Julie Taymor Returns, In Brooklyn.

I remember seeing a British production of this play in Dubai, and it was clear that the director and his staff were too inexperienced and anxious about Arabic culture.  Public displays of affections, even those on stage, are frowned upon, at best, and censored and penalized, at worst.  It was too conservative, thought, and much of what ought to have been delightful and comic simply fell flat.

American culture is quite the opposite, of course.  But I wonder if Taymor swung the pendulum too far in a bold, creative fashion.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is on stage at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center until January 12th 2014.  If you end up watching it, please e-mail me your thoughts and experiences of it:  Ron.Villejo@drronart.com.