shakespearelady

[shakespearelady]

every messenger character in shakespeare like

[shakespearelady]

is the blood on your hands dry? Is it slowly disappearing? Mine isn’t.

Ashley Mares, from “Psalm of Scattered Ashes,” published in Luna Luna (via lifeinpoetry)

[shakespearelady]

I’m doing an online course on Shakespeare and the teachers mentioned there are many similarities between Shakespeare’s playhouses and court rooms. I asked them what they meant by that but I received no reply. I was wondering if you knew? I’m curious

I don’t know what the context was that they mentioned that in, but it is true that there are similarities between early modern playhouses and the Inns of Court (I’m assuming they mean that and not court as in the Royal Court).

In fact, plays were regularly performed at the Inns of Court, especially the Inner Temple as prestigious performing spaces for an aristocratic audience. They could do evening and winter performances there, since the place could be candlelit, and could seat about 500 people. Shakespeare’s company performed there too: according to the records that have survived, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men played The Comedy of Errors at Gray’s Inn in 1594, and Twelfth Night at Middle Temple in 1602. It’s very likely they performed others at the Inns of Court too.

Most of the Halls were altered, damaged or destroyed in some form or another through the ages, but Middle Temple Hall remains in almost its original condition today because it survived the Great Fire and was only damaged rather than destroyed in the blitz, so you can actually go to see a place that Shakespeare’s company performance:

We also have photographs from before the blitz that shows what it would have been like before the damage. This is Middle Temple Hall:

And here is Gray’s Inn Great Hall:

Now, as you can see from these photographs, the Middle Temple Hall has two doors at the end, and Gray’s Inn is even bigger, with five arched doorways. Both have a sort of balcony arrangement above, so while they don’t have a raised apron stage (they might have created these for the performance occasions too, mind), the halls provide a similar exit, entrance and ‘above’ space to an early modern theatre like the Globe. This makes the halls an ideal location for temporary performances. The plays may even have been written with these places in mind. For instance, there have been surmises that in The Comedy of Errors, the three indoor locations were indicated by which doors the actors entered or exited.

I hope that satisfies your curiosity!

[shakespearelady]

give me a Hamlet who believes he must be cruel to be kind

a Hamlet whose “I loved you not” is choked out like the lie it is. whose words to Ophelia begin stumbling and contradictory but build to viciousness, tears in his eyes barely in check. Hamlet, whose attacks upon her femininity are calculated and careful, hitting her where it hurts most. a Hamlet who tragically mistakenly believes aiming for her most intimate insecurities, betraying that trust born of a tender love, will make a cleaner break of it all and keep her away from him, away from the doom that he sees settling over Elsinore like a black cloud.

give me a Hamlet who acts, as he always does, from a sense of necessity. Hamlet who protects those he loves by betraying them. Hamlet whose mistake was acting too much on his own, making true the isolation and single-minded purpose he promised the ghost of his father. Hamlet who walks away from Ophelia disgusted with himself, self-loathing and heartbroken but that’s nothing new. 

give me a Hamlet whose lamentations and rage at her graveside don’t feel hypocritical. a Hamlet who loved her and hates how he failed to keep her away from all this death, driving her to it instead. a Hamlet who sees that the pain he caused with good intentions only continues to build.

give me a Hamlet quietly begging that, in Ophelia’s orisons, all the sins he is about to commit against her be remembered.

[shakespearelady]

[shakespearelady]

[shakespearelady]

                                          To bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. 

                                        Come, come, come, come give me your hand. 

                                               What’s done cannot be undone. 

                                                       To bed, to bed, to bed.

[shakespearelady]

Cate Blanchett by Robin Sellick

[shakespearelady]

Alexandra Grecco Bridal

[shakespearelady]

It occurs to me that Richard III never did make a plan for what he was going to do AFTER he got the crown. It was just like:

Kill everyone

Become king

Party

?????

[shakespearelady]

The signs as plays by Shakespeare

Aries: Julius Caesar

Taurus: King Lear

Gemini: Macbeth

Cancer: Much Ado About Nothing

Leo: Othello

Virgo: The Tempest

Libra: Hamlet

Scorpio: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Sagittarius: Love’s Labours Lost

Capricorn: Romeo and Juliet

Aquarius: The Taming of the Shrew

Pisces: As You Like it

[shakespearelady]

Ophelia Photography by Dorota Gorecka

[shakespearelady]

Hamlet, William Shakespeare This is 1 of 50 vintage paperback books that comprise our current giveaway.

[shakespearelady]

Hamlet analysis/ theory

( I am going to get so much annon hate for this) In English class we are reading Hamlet and I have a theory, the ghost of the King is not real, he is actually a demon who pretended to be the king to drive hamlet crazy

[shakespearelady]

[shakespearelady]

Cate Blanchett as Richard II in Sydney Theatre Company’s 2009 marathon eight-hour performance of The War of the Roses, directed by Benedict Andrews. Photograph: Tania Kelley/Sydney Theatre Company

[shakespearelady]

tag yourself as bad shakespeare discourse

tycutio

hamlet is a love story

what’s a king lear

if you think iago’s an interesting character you’re a racist

historical context whom?

hermia and helena are straight

viola is straight

anything other than “kill claudio” is the best line from much ado