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Did MacBeth at school so have seen a few versions of that, I enjoyed the film Richard III with Ian McKellen set in a fascist 30s England, and the latest Shakespeare production I saw was Romeo and Juliet at the Globe theatre. If you ever get the chance I suggest you go there as it adds a whole new depth to the production.

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I didn't fall in love with Shakespeare until after I'd finished my English degree, which is a bit of a shame! I think after I'd seen a few of the plays live I really began to see what all the fuss was about. Although I'd seen Ben Jonson and Marlowe plays the first Shakespeare I saw was Branagh's Richard III at the Crucible. It was brilliant and since then I've hardly been able to feed my live Shakespeare habit enough!!

 

I go to the RSC whenever I can (hence my avatar) and my favourite play is now Richard II. I saw most of the Histories cycle at the RSC and it was one of the most amazing experiences ever. Wonderful speeches and vivid action (the French on trapezes!!)

 

I'm steadily reading my way through all of Shakespeare's plays and this year I'm off to see King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleaopatra, and, er, Le Morte D'Arthur.

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I have horrid memories of an english teacher jumping up on desks and grinding up against doors as he tried to act out the opening scenes of Romeo and Juliet. Luckily I had less crazy english teachers as I got older and I was able to explore The Tempest, Macbeth and Hamlet without the fear of being scarred for life! :D

 

I have been fortunate enough to seen a beautiful performance of hamlet at the Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol. It is a small studio theatre and so the experience was made more personal.

 

I have also seen The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. I had an amazing time despite the man a few seats in front of us who snored for the entire production. Sir Patrick Stewart was mind blowing as Prospero, and the rest of the cast were definitely on par with him. Although I did find it funny that Caliban, who is supposed to be a disfigured monster of some sort, was in fact played by a man who we all thought was kind of gorgeous.

 

I hope that I will be able to see more performances in the future as I really enjoyed the experiences. :)

Edited by xNatx
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I have been fortunate enough to seen a beautiful perforemance of hamlet at the Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol. It is a small studio theater and so the experiance was made more personal.

I saw Othello at the Tobacco Factory and I agree with you totally - it was a brilliant experience.

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I Have never seen or read Othello, although it does look good.

 

According to my dad we have the complete works of Shakespeare hiding somewhere in the house. I have been searching through the many boxes that we we keep under the stairs that still haven't unpacked from our move a couple of years ago with no success. I may have to send him up to the loft one day soon to have a scout around for them.

 

I bought The Sonnets and a Lover's Complaint in the Penguin clothbound format. It was too pretty to pass up and I'm a sucker for the pretty covers. :blush:

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Hamlet is a really funny play I must say. I can see why it is so popular. Shakespeare had humor, that's for sure.

 

It does have some really funny bits (thinking particularly of the way Tennant did the 'antic disposition' for the RSC, just hilarious), however - is it just me who actually finds it a very moving play at times? I once wrote an essay about this which was shot down, so probably it is just me :blush:!

 

I have also seen The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon... I hope that I will be able to see more performances in the future as I really enjoyed the experiances.

 

Now is perhaps a good time to announce to the forum that I've actually just moved to Stratford-U-Avon and will be living here for the next four years, therefore anyone who needs help planning a theatre trip in Shakespeareland should just let me know & I'll see what I can do :).

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Don't worry it's not just you who thinks that Hamlet is moving. Many emotions are stirred up during the play, predominantly for me when Ophelia is rejected by Hamlet, when she kills herself and her brother Laertes finds out, and also when Hamlet confronts his mother about her marriage to Claudius. I find that the comedy was needed to offset the drama in the play otherwise I would have ended up depressed when it came to an end.

 

One of my friends went to see the Hamlet production with Tennant in (which I was very jealous about)and she spent the entire week beforehand planning ways to steal him.

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One of my friends went to see the Hamlet production with Tennant in (which I was very jealous about)and she spent the entire week beforehand planning ways to steal him.

 

I went to see him with college :D He was brilliant in it, but when I went there were an awful lot of people that had gone to see 'The Doctor' and had no interest in the play whatsoever grrrrr!!!!

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Oh good, glad to know it's not just me Nat :) I agree with you entirely - the funny bits are needed to counterpoint the tragic elements. Much in the same way, I might add, that tragic bits are needed in comedy. A professor of mine always says that all comedies are tragedies averted, and exactly the same thing in reverse could be said for tragedies.

 

I also went to see Greg Doran's RSC production of Hamlet (twice actually, although this was in no way planned... long story), and I too thought Tennant was quite good. Not the best serious Hamlet I've seen, but his funny bits were funnier than I've ever seen them performed. I must say, I'm absolutely fine with fans - my sister's one and if it hadn't been for her, I would probably not have made it to the play either time - so long as, like she does, are aware and respectful of the fact that Tennant (like Patrick Stewart before him) was a Shakespearean actor first and a cool dude in space after :wink:.

 

Just had my Debating Shakespeare training today, by the way :cool: going to help coordinate a group of GSCE kids argue about Macbeth at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust next week, can't wait.

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an awful lot of people that had gone to see 'The Doctor' and had no interest in the play whatsoever grrrrr!!!!

 

 

so long as, like she does, are aware and respectful of the fact that Tennant (like Patrick Stewart before him) was a Shakespearean actor first and a cool dude in space after :wink:

 

I think it just goes to show how good an actor/actress they are if people see them as the character they most famously played. For example my younger sister was suprised to find out that David Threlfall who plays Frank Gallagher in Shamless is also a Shakespearean actor. She just couldn't picture him in a different role.

Plus it can never be a bad thing if it encourages more people (who generally wouldn't go) to go to the theatre, and they get a nice suprise when they find out that said actor or actress can actually play more than one role.

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For example my younger sister was suprised to find out that David Threlfall who plays Frank Gallagher in Shamless is also a Shakespearean actor. She just couldn't picture him in a different role.

 

It is indeed hard to picture him in any role other than Frank Gallagher, but he is such a brilliant actor that I don't doubt for a second that he could pull off any role he set his mind to. :)

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Now is perhaps a good time to announce to the forum that I've actually just moved to Stratford-U-Avon and will be living here for the next four years, therefore anyone who needs help planning a theatre trip in Shakespeareland should just let me know & I'll see what I can do :).

Hubby and I are hopefully coming to Stratford on the weekend of 25-27 March.

 

Sadly we can't go to the theatre as they only have two seats in the upper circle with a very restricted view left. :( I'm gutted, I'd have loved to have seen Romeo and Juliet, but sadly the RSC isn't something you can decide on on the spur of the moment. I'm still looking forward to our visit though. :)

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Hubby and I are hopefully coming to Stratford on the weekend of 25-27 March. Sadly we can't go to the theatre as they only have two seats in the upper circle with a very restricted view left. I'm gutted, I'd have loved to have seen Romeo and Juliet, but sadly the RSC isn't something you can decide on on the spur of the moment. I'm still looking forward to our visit though.

... no despairing allowed. One can always try look for returns between now and then, there usually are. Maybe I can help, seeing as the RST is only a stone's throw from where I study :)?
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Shakespeare is one of the best author.I know one of his famous book Romio and Juliet. that book is base on love story. he shows the true love between Romio and Juliet.every people love that book. I think many people know Shakespeare with this book Romio and Juliet.

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I've had relatively few experiences with Shakespeare so far, and as an literature student I am quite disappointed in my lack of Shakespearian knowledge; something I aim to rectify, however. My earliest experience of Shakespeare was performing A Midsummer Night's Dream all the way back in year six. At that point I imagine I was ignorant and unaware of the greatness of Shakespeare, and I was probably more content to grumble and complain that I had to perform (although I did have a good part in Puck).

 

My next experiences of Shakespeare were not until I was in 6th form studying English literature at AS, and then was when I probably began to understand him for who he was. We studied Othello and Macbeth critically as texts on the curriculum, and I read and was told of others such as The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing. I was also lucky enough to visit the Globe theatre in London twice to watch two plays on the texts we were studying on the course. I've also seen Hamlet with Tennant and the RSC, which was fantastic.

 

While at university I've studied Venus & Adonis which of course is a poem, not a play, in great detail. I do, however, aim to improve on this meagre Shakespeare knowledge, and in January I do a 'Shakespeare's Comedies' module. We are advised to buy a big book which contains all his comedies, and the following are the ones we shall study in length (although I do intend to read them all).

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Merchant of Venice

Much Ado About Nothing

As You Like It

Twelfth Night

 

I'm quite excited to say the very least. As a literature student I feel I should have a better knowledge of the great Bard of Avon himself.

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I've only read Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet but I really enjoyed both of them. I'm going to be taking a Shakespeare class this year in school, which I'm really excited about. 

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I'm a fairly new Shakespeare fanboy. I somehow avoided him in school. Earlier this year my girlfriend took me to see a production of Richard III by our neighborhood theater company and it was incredible. I immediately bought The Norton Shakespeare. So far I've read Romeo & Juliet (terrible), A Midsummer Night's Dream (incredible), The Merchant of Venice (incredible), and The Tempest (incredible). I also went back and read the actual text for Richard III and it was ,of course, incredible. So far so good! 

Edited by davidh219
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On ‎30‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 9:57 AM, Madeleine said:

I don't remember the Merchant of Venice as a comedy when we studied it!:o

 

It's a comedy!? :huh: I mainly remember the 'pound of flesh' parts and that wasn't what I'd call comedic!  

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I guess Shakespeare plays are usually classified very generally into comedy, tragedy or history, but as the following article says he often blurred the lines.

 

Quote

It is not always easy to categorically say whether a William Shakespeare play is a tragedy, comedy, or history, because Shakespeare blurred the boundaries between these genres, especially as his work developed more complexity in themes and character development.

 

Quote

Shakespeare's comedies are sometimes further subdivided into a group called romances, tragicomedies, or "problem plays," which are the dramas that have elements of humor, tragedy, and complex plots. For example, "Much Ado About Nothing" begins like a comedy but soon descends into tragedy—leading some critics to describe the play as a tragicomedy. Others debated or cited as tragicomedies include "The Winter's Tale," "Cymbeline," "The Tempest," and "The Merchant of Venice." 

 

https://www.thoughtco.com/tragedy-comedy-history-plays-2985253

Edited by ~Andrea~
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