Indeed, it is time for the wonderful week of Shakespeare. Thus far, I have been to two of the events, though I am quite certain I will go to a third. Indeed, tomorrow our normal play reading is a scheduled event. I'm sure Wheeler has at least some of the cast set, though I don't know how he's going to get that many parts handed out or divided up or whatever. Maybe a bunch of random Shakespeare people will want to come watch Julius Caesar, and they can take part.
Anyway, back to the events of the week. Tuesday night, a large number of us watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a rather post-modern, existentialist look at life using Shakespeare's characters. As always, this play (or movie) provides great fun for the whole... no, not family... group of philosophically aware college students. Though, I still say the ending of the play is better. The scene is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are standing on different parts of the stage, a spotlight on each, no other light, no other characters. Rosencrantz says his piece, as in the movie, ending with, "To tell you the truth, I'm relieved." The spotlight goes out. Guildenstern takes no notice. He continues musing about life for a few lines, realizes it is his fate, and ends with, "Now you see me---" when his spotlight also goes out. I seem to recall the play ending there, but I may be mistaken, as everywhere I look online suggests that the play ends in the last scene of Hamlet, with the ambassador announcing the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It does not end with the Player in the scene, and does not end with them being hanged. On the whole, the ending of the play does a better job of conveying the theme of fate than the movie did, and is much more existentalist than the movie.
Wednesday, Wheeler and I watched A Midsummer Night's Dream with a goodly number of people from the Shakespeare class and other various folk. This was certainly an... interesting rendition of the play, which I'd never seen before. (Sorry, Wheeler, I must have been thinking about Thanksgiving last semester.) Even for Shakespeare, it was bawdy. Certainly body at the end. *cough, cough* Um, so... yeah. On the whole, it was still a great movie, though a greater play. I suppose there are certain things that just couldn't be captured on the stage that they could do on film. The play-within-a-play at the end was marvelously hilarious, as it should be.
I suppose I could be coerced into writing about other proceedings of Shakespeare week, but good luck with that.
Posted by Gallagher at April 22, 2004 12:22 AM