Washburn Shakespeare (Spring 2019)

One fun thing about reading Shakespeare's plays (or anything) in a group is how we can all joke around about it. Shakespeare does his best to bring in jokes from time to time (the entire existence of the Porter in Macbeth), but it's interesting to compare it to some of the things we can come up with when we read as a group. For example, when my high school class was reading Hamlet, we all made jokes about how Hamlet was some emo kid and how funny it would be if he was dressed as a stereotypical emo in modern clothing and just thrown into this where everyone else is dressed in period appropriate clothing. Shakespeare has had an impact on storytelling, literature, and is an important figure when it comes to modern interpretations (or interpretations for garden gnomes even). His humor certainly had some kind of impact; the Porter in Macbeth being king of knock-knock jokes (but to himself). Since our Qualities of Mercy project turned into "Qualities of Me(me)rcy" I ...

Content Warning: A lot. (Blood, guts, nudity, drug abuse, the list goes on) So I started this post with the idea of talking about final battles and tragedies in general, but after the playlist assignment with Othello, Repo! The Genetic Opera and the Devil's Carnival movie soundtracks have been taking up the majority of my Youtube history. I feel like these movies simply don't get enough attention. Horror movies as musicals  - why aren't there more of them (though it's also understandable considering how graphic they are)? Heck, I don't even watch horror movies yet I really got behind these. So in revisiting Repo! and still being required to make blog posts, there's no denying the Shakespearean quality to the story. Just as there's no way to explain it without massive spoilers. You have been warned.  First off, what defines a Shakespearean tragedy? A tragic hero? A fatal flaw? Comedic relief? An ending with no clear winners? The internet says all...

Tuesday's lecture about Shakespeare’s domination over early modern literature raised an interesting question for me. Dr. Sperrazza’s talk included stories about three female contemporaries of Shakespeare: Emilia Lanier, Margaret Cavendish, and Hester Pulter. The detail that piqued my interest particularly was that Cavendish and Pulter, both writing during the upheaval of English civil war, used their rhetoric to support monarchy and speak against the democratic Parlaiment. This created a sort of cognitive dissonance for me. As a supposed beneficiary of the rise of Democracy and as a chronic advocate of the underdog, I would expect to hear these women’s voices championing prior changes in society that I understand as “progress.” The idea that these proto-feminist voices might stand up in female solidarity with a ruling power that is now generally viewed as highly patriarchal caused a moment of pause. But then I realized that equating monarchy to patriarchy is an incorrec...

For my WUmester event, I went to Washburn's first annual drag show. The Wumester theme is freedom of speech and expression, and I thought this event went really well with that theme. The environment at the drag show was supportive and encouraging to the performers, and I did not really see anyone tearing them down or being negative (at least for the time that I could be there). Now, how does this relate to Shakespeare? If we go back to old productions of different Shakespearean plays, female characters were played by young boys. There were no female actors allowed to act in these plays, and they still couldn't until long after Shakespeare's death. This idea of men playing women was not seen as taboo as it is today because women were not allowed to act. Today, a lot of times people scoff at the idea of a man playing the roll of a woman. After going to this event though, I feel as though that drag is becoming more popular and more appreciated. I provided more information ab...

You know that point where you're so far into a semester and everything's due at once but your creative juices are spread too thin to produce any actually good content? Yeah, that. So it's time to make like WatchMojo and turn to Shakespeare as a whole. Besides, people like lists, right? Just as people like silly things. So, in this time of stress, let's take a moment to relax, sit back, and look at the sillier/more questionable things featured in these plays. 5: Ball is Life | Henry IV Someone insults your tennis game? Start a war. Flawless logic there. Sure, if you look at what was actually being implied, it's not so silly at all, but who wants to do that? I definitely don't at the moment. 4 Don't See Gender | Merchant of Venice "The hammer of justice is unisex." - Batman And apparently Batman knows what he's talking about, as seen in the trial in Merchant. Woman in a man's world? Have no fear, cross-dressing is here! One has to wond...

As I’m reading Measure for Measure , I find it interesting how Shakespeare stuck to the genre of comedy besides uniting every couple in the end. Just like in Othello   where  the tragic end is created by Iago explaining his evil plan at the beginning, the Duke provides the audience with his plan that can be a comfort as his presence bring  twist s  to the whole plot. The audience know there is something  to expect although his motivation is unclear. When Isabella is forced to a dead end, he shows up to  reveal a brand new story of Mariana and provides Isabella with  a better solution. It’s unfair that Isabella has suffered from the faults of men, so she absolutely deserves a second chance to fix the problem just like in the romance plays . Apart from that, even Barnardine ,   a  secondary character ,  is free form death . As I was reading, I questioned that if it c ould  be justified to sacrifice him for Claudio who wa s not a v...

Shakespeare's tragedies will always be my favorite genre for him, they have everything I like in a story most of the time. They can make me laugh and can make me cry. For example, in Hamlet and Macbeth there are times where jokes are made and we can all laugh and then one page later someone gets stabbed. They were made for experiencing emotions and all that junk I love when it comes to storytelling. I think Shakespeare's tragedies may have made great "tragicomedies". Then there are plays like Othello where it's all tragedy, it's frustrating, it's dramatic, it's sad, but I don't recall cracking a smile once during this play. I think this play just has the potential to be fixed up and be super cool, villains like Iago can be really cool (though we could all do without the racism). Othello, in modern day, is a very sympathetic character to us. We are all more sensitive to racism and try to prevent it so when we see a character like Othello experie...