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Tag Archives: Shakespeare
“The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.” — Keanu Reeves
In 1987, Interview did a small profile on Keanu Reeves because River’s Edge had dropped and he was the hot new thing. I saved that profile all these years because something about him really struck me, then and now. (To … Continue reading
“Language most shows a man. Speak that I may see thee.” — Ben Jonson
“O rare Benn Johnson.” — Jonson’s incorrectly-spelled epitaph in Westminster Abbey It’s his birthday today. Ben Jonson did everything. Plays, poems, satires, elegies, epigrams. His talent was wide and flexible. Everything he wrote feels inevitable. However, as Michael Schmidt writes … Continue reading
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, / Hath put a spirit of youth in everything …
Today is (supposedly, roughly) the birthday of William Shakespeare. April 23, 1564. (Title of the post from Sonnet 98.) One of the things I think about when I think about Shakespeare, is my late great teacher Doug Moston, who died … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Ben Jonson, Ford Madox Ford, George Bernard Shaw, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Shakespeare, W.H. Auden
9 Comments
“Every choice I’ve ever made has been dictated by a formless hunch rather than by strict logic.” — Peter Brook
“I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space, whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.” … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged Ellen Terry, Glass Menagerie, Laurette Taylor, Orson Welles, Shakespeare
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“Imagination! Imagination! I put it first years ago, when I was asked what qualities I thought necessary for success on the stage.” –Ellen Terry
“It is only in comedy that people seem to know what I am driving at!” — Ellen Terry It’s her birthday. In 1907, great English actress Ellen Terry (approaching her 50th year onstage) appeared in George Bernard Shaw’s satirical Captain … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged Ellen Terry, George Bernard Shaw, Henry Irving, Shakespeare
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“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, Shakespeare, Ted Hughes, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden
23 Comments
Finding Elvis Shakespeare in Edinburgh
I’ve been in Scotland for the last 8 days. I haven’t had a ton of free time, but there was kind of an unexpected afternoon off so I decided to go out into the streets of Edinburgh and seek out … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Elvis Presley, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Scotland, Shakespeare
11 Comments
On This Day: October 25, 1415: “We Few, We Happy Few.”
Happy Anniversary of The Battle of Agincourt Today is the feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, cobblers by trade (and patron saints thereof, although Vatican II nixed them from the calendar), fierce warriors of their faith, martyred in 286. … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged England, Laurence Olivier, Shakespeare, war
9 Comments