#william shakespeare

[your-neighbourhood-antisocial]

[k-wame]

C H I L L S

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

i got a fucking. advertisement on youtube. from google ai. saying. without sarcasm and with complete sincerity. "if shakespeare is too hard for you, you can always have our ai explain it to you." im gonna throw up. im gonna throw a molotov cocktail. if i see that ad again im reporting it for hate speech. how fucking dare you. i will kill you with my bare hands. with my exit pursued by a bear hands. i will tear google headquarters down brick by brick. im going to start biting people.

[unhinged-soapbox]

So I just saw the most incredible production of Macbeth that wove parental grief into the whole regicide plot in such a fascinating way.

So at the very beginning of the play there was a scene where Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are at a funeral as the primary mourners. A stretcher is carried on with a covered body. The body was notably very small. They laid flowers on it and Macbeth immediately left for battle.

Now *I* studied Shakespeare in college so I immediately knew there is one single line that implies that the Macbeths lost a child at some point. Most of the time this isn't utilized in productions; it's just a throwaway line, intended to paint just how determined Lady M is for this regicide thing to work and how furious she is that her husband has cold feet. In this production she delivers "I have given suck, and know how tender tis to love the babe that milks me" nearly in tears. She takes a moment to steel herself before saying, "I would while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains pit, had I so sworn" and she very nearly SCREAMED this in Macbeth's face.

Also noted was how the Macbeths looked at Macduff's children. Lady M was clutching her heart, nearly breaking watching them embrace their parents. Macbeth could not even look at them.

At the end of Lady Macbeth's plot, when she is sleepwalking and sleeptalking, she is typically portrayed as speaking to no one or to her husband. However, at a certain point of her monologue she got on her knees, raised her voice to a comforting octave, and began miming tear wiping, hand holding, hair and face stroking, around a child-sized figure. "Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave." Then she stands and appears to take the child's hand. "Go to bed, go to bed. I can hear knocking at the gate-" then she looks down and realizes that no one is there, followed be the most heartbreaking shriek I've ever heard followed by a full minute of her just weeping while curled up on the floor before she stood up, finished her monologue and left the stage.

Most of the time when the loss of a child is utilized in a performance or adaptation, it is assumed that the child was an infant and lost some time ago. To imply that the child died IMMEDIATELY prior to the events of the play and had been cared for and loved by their parents for a few years adds such a fascinating layer to the desperation to ascend to the throne, Lady M's madness, and Macbeth's initial hesitation into "in for a penny, in for a pound" attitude, Macbeth's fury that Banquo's, not his, children will take the throne, and even Macbeth's eventual demise following a frenzied final battle.

How far will grief push you to fill a hole? How far will grief push you to desperation? And what happens when none of your new pursuits are filling the void left by the one you lost? And what happens when you realize you have nothing left to lose?

It was a PHENOMENAL production.

[samanyolututkusu]

Giresun Kültür

[pers-books]

Sir Ian McKellen is to open a new production of the Shakespeare classic Twelfth Night that will feature all trans and non-binary performers.

Sir Ian McKellen to open historic all-trans and non-binary production of Shakespeare classic

Sir Ian McKellen (Getty)

Sir Ian McKellen will open a brand new production of the Shakespeare classic Twelfth Night featuring all trans and non-binary performers.

The Lord of the Rings star, 86, will join in on the one-night only rehearsed reading by the theatre group Trans What You Will in July.

Staged at London’s The Space Theatre, the reading will be broadcast globally via a livestream. All profits are going to the UK-based trans charity, Not A Phase.

The performance will take one of Shakespeare’s most well known and gender-fluid works and reimagine it through a trans lens.

“With mistaken identities, cross-dressing, and declarations of love across shifting gender roles, Twelfth Night has long explored the complexity of identity,” a press release reads.

“This production makes that queerness explicit, reclaiming the story through the lived experiences of trans and nonbinary artists.”

Sir Ian McKellen (Getty)

Phoebe Kemp, who is directing, has said: “Twelfth Night already toys with gender and performance, it feels like Shakespeare wrote it for us. This reading is about joy, solidarity and showing what’s possible when trans and nonbinary artists are at the centre of the story.”

The performance, which will take place ahead of London Trans+ Pride, has also been billed as “a joyful act of protest and pleasure activism, celebrating gender diversity at a time when trans representation remains under threat.:

Twelfth Night – A Rehearsed Reading by Trans What You Will is set to take place on 25 July 2025 at The Space Theatre. Tickets to attend in person are available here. Tickets for the livestream are available here. Pay-what-you-can tickets are available.

-- Pay-what-you-can livestream?! I love you, Sir Ian!

[cto10121]

Oh, it’s even better than that.

What happened was the lease to The Theatre (actual name) was coming to an end, and the asshole landlord Giles Allen refused to extend it. He even tried to argue that since he owned the land, he also owned The Theatre itself (see: asshole).

So the Burbages and/or Shakespeare came up with a very clever solution: While they did not own the land The Theatre was on, they did in fact own The Theatre itself. So they hired people to dismantle The Theatre in Shoreditch on the sly and take the pieces to set up a new one in Southwark.

Across the Thames River.

In the winter when the Thames was frozen solid.

During Christmas.

The plan was successful, and they reconstructed their new playhouse by the summer of 1599: The Globe, now famous for being the home of Shakespeare’s later plays, from Henry V or Julius Caesar on.

Definitely one of the most badass moments in Shakespeare’s actual life.