O is for Ophelia

Painting by John William Waterhouse

I am a Shakespeare geek. One of my friends once horrified me by saying he thought Aaron Sorkin was a better writer than Shakespeare and asking me to explain "why everybody thinks Shakespeare is so great." (Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed his scripts for The Social Network and Charlie Wilson's War. (To be honest though, I was bored to tears by Moneyball. I think Draft Day was the movie Moneyball wanted to be. It's disappointing that not more people are oging to see Draft Day.) But I digress.

The point is that because I love words and never quite outgrew my delight in ornate words (I blame Dr. Seuss with his silly, made-up words), I don't find Shakespeare's language a problem or a barrier to my enjoyment of his plays. I think most high school students learn to loathe the plays because they're forced to read Julius Caesar first.  that play is not the best gateway play into Shakespeare. (I think Macbeth is.  It's got a little bit of everything--a ghost. Murder. A strong female lead.

But wait, you say, Hamlet has a ghost. Hamlet has a murder. Hamlet has a strong female. To which I replay--if you're talking about Gertrude, I disagree. She marries the man who murdered her husband and then leaves her son to take revenge. (Wouldn't it have been kind of interesting if it had been Gertrude whoorchestrated the play that pricked the usurper's conscience?)  And don't even get me started on Ophelia.

I hate Ophelia.  I really do. Manipulated by her father. Mistreated by Hamlet. A suicide at the end. I always wanted her to have more gumption. (A word my grandparents used that has fallen out of favor despite being a great word.) Give me Lady Macbeth any time.

Separated at birth--Aaron Sorkin and Peter Dinklage

Ever since I saw Station Agent, I've had the nagging suspicion that Peter Dinklage  looks like somebody I' know and today when I saw this picture of Aaron Sorkin on the Deadline Hollywood site, it finally came to me.  Peter Dinklage and Aaron Sorkin look alike. I have worked for John Wells' Productions, the company that made West Wing, and have seen Sorkin a couple of times.  He's got real charisma.
He's also a fantastic writer as everyone who saw Social Network knows.  (He also wrote Moneyball, a movie that was full of fine acting and great moments.)

Like everyone else, I could watch Dinklage play Tyrion Lannister the rest of his life. (Only one more episode of Game of Thrones this year?  Noooooooo.) But the project I really hope is still alive is the one based on George Chesbro's books about Robert "Mongo the Magnificent" Frederickson. The book optioned was the third in the series, Affair of the Sorcerers, and Dinklage was attached to play Frederickson.
It's a great role. Frederickson is a criminologist who moonlights as a private investigator, often helped by his brother Garth, who's a cop. "Mongo" was his stage name when Frederickson worked as an acrobat in the circus and his best friends still call him that.
The books started out very real-world, but as the series went on, they got more and more out there.  The last of the books, called Lord of Ice and Loneliness (all the books have really poetic titles) is only available in a French translation; it has never been published in the U.S.