Fun with Shakespeare--the Games Edition

A few years ago the Shakespeare Country Tourist Board commissioned an online game based on Romeo and Juliet. Much to t heir delight and surprise, the game became an online hit, with more than 22 million people worldwide taking on the role of Romeo as he wanders through the streets of Stratford collecting roses for Juliet and dodging wild boars and skeletons.  (The Royal Shakespeare Company has given its seal of approval to the game, despite the skeletons, saying, "Although its not entirely representative of the way we perform the play, it's a good hook to get people interested in Romeo and Juliet."  I love that "not entirely representative" part.)You can play Romeo Wherefore Art Thou here at LorenzGames.  (I got turned into a skeleton after encountering a wild boar.)

Shakespeare in Fiction

 Who knew that Shakespeare's life and plays (and poetry) would inspire fan fiction? Who knew that some of those fans would be well-known writers? One book I'm particularly intrigued by is My Name is Will by Jess Winfield,subtitled "a novel of sex, drugs and Shakespeare.  The "Will" of the title is Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a modern grad student who's up to no good, with a parallel story back in the 16th century.  It sounds ambitious and it's got a ton of four-star reviews on Amazon, so I'm going to check it out.  (I also love the cover.)

Christopher Moore, who wrote the delightful Practical Demonkeeping, has a novel called Fool that's based loosely (and hilariously) on King Lear.  Here the story is told, as the title suggests, from the point of view of the court jester. The story is Lear-centric but touches on the entire Shakespeare canon in passing and if you're a fan of Moore, you will love it and if you don't know Moore, this is the book to read after you've read Practical Demonkeeping, which is one of the funniest urban fantasies out there. (In fact, if I ever do an Amazon "listmania" list, it will be first on my list of "Urban Fantasies without vampires or werewolves.")

Another novel that intrigues me (and is, in fact, already resident in my Kindle) is AJ Hartley and David Hewson's Macbeth: A Novel, a reimagining of "the Scottish play." Set in 11th century Scotland but conceived like a 21st century thriller, the book sounds like a great read.

Several different sources have compiled lists of books inspired by Shakesoeare, including Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, and A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.  Here's Matt Haig's top ten novels inspired by Shakespeare.  Here's another list from Hub Pages. And finally, from the New York Public Library, a reading list of fiction based on or inspired by Shakespere.

Gender and Shakespeare

In Shakespeare's Women,  a documentary about Claire Bloom and her one-woman show (she calls it a "recital"), the actress muses about the more difficult female roles and wonders just how well equipped the boys of the time were equipped to play them. She points out that the boy-actors playing the women would have all been prepubescent, very young to have the knowledge she believes is needed to pull off some of the roles. (Bloom has a lot to say about sexual power in some of Shakespeare's most famous characters, particularly Juliet, and it's worth tracking down the documentary, which is available used on Amazon and also streaming on Netflix.)

I was thinking about this documentary when I stumbled across the website of the Los Angeles   Women's Shakespeare Company. The company's artistic director is actress/director Lisa Wolpe, who is currently working with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon.  This is their mission statement: 

The Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company (LAWSC) is a nonprofit organization which produces professional productions of Shakespeare's plays with an all-female ensemble. We provide opportunities for collaboration between multiracial, highly accomplished artists who are actors, producers, directors, choreographers, designers and educators. LAWSC contributes to a transformation of the perceptions of women's roles in our society by working to create a deeper, more powerful, unbounded view of women's potential. Our productions illuminate contemporary issues through a classical context, offering a unique political and social perspective. Our ongoing mission is to provide a creative forum for the exploration of violence, victimization, power, love, race, and gender issues, and to provide positive role models for women and girls. 
 
I'm intrigued by the goals of the group because I've always felt that productions where women play male roles were a little ... gimmicky just like white actors playing Othello in black face (like Olivier did back in the day and more recently, Anthony Hopkins). In the context of what the LAWSC is trying to do, though, such productions make sense. I look forward to Wolpe returning to Los Angeles so I can attend one of her productions. Her version of Iago (pictured) won rave reviews.

Here's an interview with Wolpe in Footlights. Interesting stuff.

A quest for the story "Spidersong."

While searching for a story to post for today's 365 Short Story Challenge, I ran across a mention of a story called "Spidersong" by an author named Susan C. Petry. The story won the Hugo Award for best short story in 1981, the year after Petry died. There is a Clarion Workshop Scholarship dedicated to her memory (writer Kathe Koja won it in 1984) and that's about all I can find out about her. On the scholarship site there's a mention of a book that compiled her stories (Gifts of Blood) but they don't make it easy for you to buy it. (No link, no way to buy it online from them.) You can buy the book new on Amazon for $49 or used for a penny and $3.99 postage.  Most of the stories seem to be about a race of healer/vampires with intense world-building involved.  I had hoped to find the story online, perhaps in the Magazine of SF&F, where it originally appeared, but no such luck.  You know what that means?  I HAVE to buy another book. 

Adventures in Shakespeare--San Diego's Old Globe Theater

Neil Patrick Harris & Emily Bergl; photo by Ken Howard

I used to drive down to San Diego's Old Globe Theater pretty regularly to get my Shakespeare fix. (This season they're doing As You Like It, Richard III in rep with Inherit the Wind.) The last play I saw there (in 1998!) was Romeo and Juliet starring Emily Bergl and Neil Patrick Harris, who was very good in the role. The play was performed on the theater's outside stage, which was fine until... the seals at the zoo next door started barking during some of the play's most intense moments.
The actors stayed in character, the play went on, but the seals did not shut up. 
Not your usual audience participation moment.

Feminist Fiction Friday--odds and ends

Janet Evanovich has signed a deal to write several more Stephanie Plum novels, but more excitingly, she's teaming up with crime writer Lee Goldberg (co-creator of the Dead Man series, amongst other thing) to write a new series. starring a female FBI agent and a dashing male fugitive. Will lovejinks ensue as well as crime? You can read the details here.

The Library of Congress has released a list of 88 Books that Shaped America.  (Why not 100 or 50?  Eighty-eight seems like a really odd number.)  They are listed in the order they were published and the first woman author appears at #9--Amelia Simmons' American Cookery (1796).  Billed as "the first American cookbook," an exact reproduction of the book is available on Amazon. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is number 18, with Louisa May Alcott's Little Women coming in at a few notches lower.  (Seriously--it's like a rule you have to read this book if you are a girl.  It should have been #1 no matter when it was published.) Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved is the last book written by a woman on the list, at #86.

In the oldies department, I just ran across an anthology called This is Not Chick Lit, published in 2006.  Subtitled "Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers," it's crazily affordable.  Amazon -affiliate sellers offer it for a penny plus $3.98 shipping.  (And btw, I don't have an Amazon affiliate account--they were discontinued in California awhile ago, so I'm not making any money by shilling books and videos for them.)  Of the women listed, I only know the work of two of them, so I am looking forward to my introduction to Dika Lam, Judy Budnitz, Samantha Hurt, and the rest of the ladies.

You sir, are a whoreson zed! Shakespeare's insults

I am bored with the F-word. I have heard it used too many times in too many dreary ways for it to have any power any longer. And when it is used as part of an insult, the person hurling the invective often descends into word salad, sputtering the expletive over and over without a hint of art or grace.
I admire someone who can curse with conviction and originality. (The movie Sexy Beast offers a very good example of fluent cursing.)
Shakespeare's curses are marvelous things, layered and nuanced and pointed as a dagger.  Take "whoreson zed' for example. "Whoreson" has the advantage of combining the notion of bastardy with the ever-popular "son of a bitch." Then add "zed" and the insult takes on an extra gloss of intelligence--especially for Americans, since we don't use the word and it sounds exotic.
It certainly sounds more insulting than calling someone a douche-bag.
I'm not the only one who thinks we need a better caliber of swear. Check out a couple of offerings available on YouTube.
Here's a woman named Simone Haruko sharing her 50 favorite Shakespearean insults (including "Thou whoreson zed."
Here's TedEd's deconstruction of a couple of Shakespeare's famous insults in a way that makes you want to now more.