The Grapes of Wrath: Poor People Suffering Under Unjust Capitalist System Make Really Angry Symbolic Grapes
Wicked: SJW Badass Undone By Unjust Totalitarian Society and Ten-Year-Old With Bucket of Water, Is Tragic As Fuck
Moby Dick: Captain Is Dick to Symbolic Whale
Life of Pi: Bullshit Story About Tiger Taken As Legit By Unsuspecting Reader, Reader Is Strangely Okay With This
The Kite Runner: Kabul Local Is Dick to Friend, Atones By Running Symbolic Kite
Perfume: Look At This Creepy Talented Fuck: The Oderiferous Edition
The Poisonwood Bible: Religion Is Poison and Your Country’s A Dick: The Africa Edition
To Kill A Mockingbird: Society Is Racist, Classicist, and Sexist, Also Kills Innocent Birds
Heart of Darkness: Imperialist Shit Trippy As Hell, I Want Out
Crime and Punishment: Sympathetic Creep Tries To Forego Conscience Through Murder And Fails: The Russian Edition
Hamlet: Complexity of Moral Dilemma Undoes Charismatic Intellectual
Macbeth: Sympathetic Creep Tries To Forego Conscience Through Murder And Fails: The Scottish Edition
King Lear: Bad Character Judgment Undoes Idiot King, Established Order Falls Apart
Romeo and Juliet: Love Is Great And Then You Die. Or It Dies. Either Way It’s Terrible
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Love Is Like A Dream: Fickle, Random, and Trippy as Fuck
Pride and Prejudice: You Can Marry For Love And Be Filthy Rich!: Every Girl’s Fantasy, Admittedly
Les Misérables: Isn’t Suffering Ennobling and Beautiful?: A Christian-Friendly Love Story
East of Eden: Moral Complexity Subverts Garden of Eden Bullshit
Of Mice and Men: Cruelty Kills, Er, Cruelly
The Phantom of the Opera: Look At This Creepy Talented Fuck: The Musical Edition
The Magic Mountain: Sanitorium Is Trippy As Hell, I Want In
One Hundred Years of Solitude: Superstitious Bullshit Causes Vicious Cycle of Suffering, Is Hilarious
Great Expectations: Oppressive Class System Is Full of Shit, Protagonist Slowly Realizes
A Tale of Two Cities: Oppressive Class System Leads To Violence, Also Poignant Redemption of Drunkard
Harry Potter: Boy Wizard Fights Evil Wizard In Battle Between Good and Evil, Is Better Than It Sounds
Love In the Time of Cholera: Love Is A Lot of Things But It Ain’t True Pal: A Love Story
The Scarlet Letter: Symbolic Letter Screws Up Local Woman’s Life, Also Patriarchy
The Odyssey: Very Long Trip Home For Dick Protagonist
Frankenstein: Science Makes Me Uncomfortable I Think It’s Evil: A Symbolic Cautionary Tale
Dracula: Sexuality Make Me Uncomfortable I Think It’s Evil: A Conservative’s Musing
Stargirl: Unconventional Girl Gets Bitch-Slapped By Conventional Society, Says Sayonara
The Casual Vacancy: Vacuous Small Town Bullshit Has A Death Count, No Joke
The Great Gatsby: Aren’t Rich People Glamorous and Tragic?: A Sycophant’s Love Story
there was a disastrous performance of Macbeth at the Old Vic by Peter O’Toole and apparently there was this one part in the play one night where a Servant comes in and should say “Your wife, my lord, is dead” but what ACTUALLY happened was
OK, I’m trying something a bit different today… a review! I love going to the theatre, but I’ve never written actual reviews of the productions I’ve seen. Mostly this is because I am a terrible reviewer. I’m fairly easy to please and without any of the critical discretion of more seasoned reviewers. I’m also very soft-hearted, so if I didn’t enjoy a production I am more likely to pretend I never saw it in the first place rather than say anything negative about it. But let’s give it a try! The guinea pig I have selected is the first show that I saw at the Stratford Festival this season…. Pericles!
Now, the gentleman I was sitting next to might just be overly full of joie de vivre, but to have someone who, at the beginning of the show asked me “is the language in this play the sort of Shakespeare language you have to translate constantly in your head?”, turn around at the end and say “That was terrific, everyone should see this!” is quite a positive testimonial. Especially because this was Pericles. And, let’s face it, Pericles is nowhere near one of Shakespeare’s more accessible plays.
The only other time I’ve seen Pericles was again at the Stratford Festival, about twelve years ago. That was a decent production too, but this one was definitely cleaner, much easier to follow, and more stylistically cohesive. As I always say, I’m fairly frivolous and can get quite impatient with directorial Concepts (with a capital C) but in this case the Victorian concept definitely served the play, as opposed to being imposed upon it. I particularly enjoyed the double-casting (which I enjoy anyways, but which actively enriched the production in this case.)
I really don’t need to say that the acting and the language-speaking were superb, because that’s almost always the case at Stratford. Special mention to Deborah Hay, whose gigantic brimming limpid eyes in the already emotionally-fraught reunion scene managed to sneak through the chinks in my fairly robust emotional armor.
Pericles isn’t performed all that often, so, if you can, take an opportunity to see this production. (If you’re on the other side of the continent, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is also mounting a production this season, and so you should totally see that one and then tell me how it is.)
a game called “hamlet, kanye west, or dril” in which you are given a quote without context and subsequently must determine whether or not it originates from shakespeare’s extremely well-known tragedy hamlet, highly influential rapper/fashion mogul kanye west, or noted Weird Twitter account dril. it may sound easy but i have a feeling it’d be at least a little bit harder than it sounds
if you think this is easy, please remember dril said “I will face god and walk backwards into hell” Kanye West said “Nothing in life is promised except death” and Hamlet said “Words! Words. WORDS.”
“average person hath borne me on his back 3 times” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person hath borne me on his back 0 times. Alas, poor Yorick, who hath borne me on his back a thousand times, was an outlier adn should not have been counted
Kimchi and Justice 