A Lutish Lover and his Lovely Lass

I can hear the music wafting from Shakespeare's poetry, whenever I read his plays, but to listen to a lovely performance like this by soprano Valeria Mignaco and lute player Alfonso Marin makes the reading more special.  Thomas Morley was the composer for "It was a Lover and his Lass," and while he and Shakespeare were contemporaries, there is no evidence (yet) that they collaborated directly on this or other pieces.  

It was a lover and his lass,
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green corn-field did pass,
   In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
   In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that life was but a flower
   In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

And, therefore, take the present time
   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crown`d with the prime
   In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

It was a Lover and his Lass is a poem by Shakespeare, in his play "As You Like It" (Act V, scene iii).

3.24 Hamlet (1599) in Full

Film Adaptation

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Shakespeare's immortal "To be, or not to be" takes on a whole new meaning (and medium) as classical stage and screen actors David Tennant and (recently-knighted) Sir Patrick Stewart reprise their roles for a modern-dress, film-for-television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) 2008 stage production of Hamlet.

Reference:  Hamlet.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

Hamlet

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.24) and publication year (1599), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.  

3.14 A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595) in Full

Film Adaptation

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A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1935 American film of William Shakespeare's play, directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, and starring Ian Hunter, James Cagney, Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland, Joe E. Brown, Dick Powell, and Victor Jory. Produced by Henry Blanke and Hal Wallis for Warner Brothers, and adapted by Charles Kenyon and Mary C. McCall Jr. from Reinhardt's Hollywood Bowl production of the previous year, the film is about the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the story is set. The play, which is categorized as a comedy, is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world. Felix Mendelssohn's music was extensively used, as re-orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The ballet sequences featuring the fairies were choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.14) and publication year (1595), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.  

3.13 Romeo and Juliet (1595) in Full

Film Adaptations

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Romeo and Juliet is a 1968 British-Italian romance film based on the tragic play of the same name by William Shakespeare. 

The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and starred Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design; it was also nominated for Best Director and Best Picture.  Laurence Olivier spoke the film's prologue and epilogue and reportedly dubbed the voice of the Italian actor playing Lord Montague, but was not credited in the film. 

Being the most financially successful film of a Shakespeare play during that time, it was popular among teenagers partly because the film used actors who were close to the age of the characters from the original play for the first time. Several critics also welcomed the film enthusiastically.

I've seen many productions of "Romeo and Juliet," but the Zeffirelli one is my favorite. 

Behind-the-scenes.  Rebecca Saire was only fourteen when the production was filmed, an unusually young age for an actress playing Juliet (even though she is only thirteen in the play itself). During publicity for the production, Saire gave several interviews in which she criticised director Alvin Rakoff, stating that in his interpretation, Juliet is too childlike and asexual, much to the horror of the series producers, who cancelled several scheduled interviews with the actress in the lead up to broadcast.

Saire's criticism notwithstanding, I have a special fondness for the BBC productions, because they came on TV just as I had discovered Shakespeare and was falling in love with his plays.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

Romeo and Juliet

Note.  The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.13) and publication year (1595), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.

3.28 Othello (1603) in Full

Film Adaptation

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Othello is a 1995 film based on William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. It was directed by Oliver Parker and stars Laurence Fishburne as Othello, Irène Jacob as Desdemona, and Kenneth Branagh as Iago. This is the first cinematic reproduction of the play released by a major studio that casts an African American actor to play the role of Othello, although low-budget independent films of the play starring Ted Lange and Yaphet Kotto  predated it.

Fishburne and Branagh are standouts as the accomplished hero and as the scheming Iago.  "Othello" is a Fall of Man drama - at the hands of evil, that is.  The fact that Iago undoes Othello so methodically and effectively is breathtaking.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

Othello

Note.  The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.28) and publication year (1603), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.

3.31 Macbeth (1606) in Full

Film Adaptations

High school was very much a time of mathematics, chemistry and Spanish.  But university was a radical shift to psychology, philosophy and literature.  For example, I studied Shakespeare, Drama and Poetry, each, for a year.  I excelled in the hard sciences, but I gravitated to the arts and did just as well there.

As a student at Northwestern University, then, I was enthralled to find out about the BBC Television Shakespeare.  "Macbeth" aired in 1983.   

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This 1997 production was directed by Jeremy Freeston, and stars Jason Connery (yes, son of the famous Sean) as the murderous Scottish King and Helen Baxendale as his eviscerating wife.  I especially liked the cinematography and soundtrack of this film.  So, for example, at points in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's evil deed, the camera goes hand-held (i.e., shakes) and we feel their balance- (i.e., order-) jarring purpose.

The couple unravel mentally and emotionally, each in their own ways, so I would've preferred that the Freeston captured this through more disheveled clothing, more disjointed speech, more horrific expressions.  Macbeth, for instance, seemed too put-together, still, after having just stabbed Duncan to death.  In fact, he was absolutely horrified at what he had done.

In all, this was a captivating production, and it impressed me with how compressed the plot was.  "Macbeth" was one of his shortest.  The descent from celebrated war hero, to beheaded murderer was rapid indeed.

Full Theatrical Reading

Complete Text

Macbeth

Note. The numbers in the title refer to the play number (3.31) and publication year (1606), which Wikipedia noted based on the Oxford chronology.  

A Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays

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Arden presents the plays alphabetically without any attempt to construct an overall chronology. Oxford, Riverside, Norton and RSC all present chronologies which differ from one another. Accordingly, dates in the following lists are approximate means. This list adopts the Oxford Shakespeare chronology, although none of the major chronologies has any real authority over any of the others.

Reference:  Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays.

In the 1980s, I sought a chronology for a simple, practical purpose.  I wanted some recognized order by which to set my many Shakespeare books on the shelf.  What I chose was that of the Signet Classic.  But the following from the Oxford edition serves the purpose perfectly fine:

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