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Tag Archives: Hamlet
2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
My progress: Shakespeare Reading Project Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona The Taming of the Shrew Titus Andronicus The Comedy of Errors Love’s Labour’s Lost Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard … Continue reading
Posted in Theatre
Tagged Camille Paglia, Hamlet, Harold Bloom, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, W.H. Auden, William Hazlitt, William Shakespeare
4 Comments
Review: Hamlet (2026)
Perfect timing, what with my Shakespeare reading project and all. Riz Ahmed plays Hamlet in a new – and streamlined – version of the script, taking place in present-day London among the South Asian community. I reviewed for Ebert.
“Never write from your head; write from your cock.” — Wystan Hugh Auden
W.H. Auden was born on this day in York, England, 1907. I first encountered Auden in my “Humanities” class, senior year in high school. I got a lot out of that class, and I remember we analyzed Auden’s famous most-anthologized … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, England, George Orwell, Hamlet, Harold Bloom, Hugh MacDiarmid, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord Tennyson, Louis MacNeice, Marianne Moore, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, William Shakespeare
23 Comments
My new column at Liberties magazine: First up: acting and film criticism and how the twain meet
I have some exciting (to me) news. I’ll be writing a regular column for Liberties – the website for the quarterly magazine – host to a daunting lineup of writers! I launched my column with a piece about being a … Continue reading
Posted in Movies, Personal, Theatre
Tagged Actors Studio, Hamlet, James Dean, Liberties, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Martha Graham
9 Comments
Today in history, February 21, 1907
W.H. Auden was born in York, England. Two pieces of advice for writers from Mr. Auden: To keep his errors down to a minimum, the internal Censor to whom a poet submits his work in progress should be a Censorate. … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, writers
Tagged Christopher Hitchens, Dylan Thomas, George Orwell, Hamlet, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, William Shakespeare
3 Comments
The rehearsal for “Jack Crew’s Hamlet” at the New Burbage Theatre Festival
Season 1 of Slings and Arrows (which we discussed, beautifully, here.) Yes, an obsessive post. Fun for me. Hopefully fun for all of you diehard fans of the show out there. What is so gorgeous to me about this TV … Continue reading
“Hamlet is a tragedy where there is a part left open”
Excerpt from W.H. Auden’s lecture on Hamlet, February 12, 1947, at the New School for Social Research in NYC: If a work is quite perfect, it arouses less controversy and there is less to say about it. Curiously, everyone tries … Continue reading
Acting Notebook
A transcription of the notes I kept during one of my semesters in grad school. There were multi-pronged projects going on – and I kept myself organized by labeling them in the notebook. I had the dreaded “PD Unit”, which … Continue reading
Images of Ophelia
Here is a scene from the great Canadian television series Slings and Arrows. The company of actors is rehearsing Hamlet, and it is not going well. The actress playing Ophelia, Claire, is terrible and nobody knows what to do about … Continue reading
The Books: “The Story Of My Life” (Ellen Terry)
Daily Book Excerpt: Entertainment Biography/Memoir The Story of My Life, by Ellen Terry This is one of my favorite books in my entire collection, just in terms of it as an object. Second only to the first-edition Ulysses that my … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books
Tagged Ellen Terry, entertainment biography, George Bernard Shaw, Hamlet, Henry Irving, Lewis Carroll, Lord Tennyson, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare
4 Comments