Skye Allen's Blog, page 3
April 22, 2019
What happens in The Comedy of Errors
April. Again. Somehow. In between the income tax all-nighter and explaining to the young people how the Easter Bunny rose from the dead on the 3rd day to lay chocolate eggs, join me for an interval of birthday cakes and ale. I’m celebrating Shakespeare’s 455th with an early, jokey, morally dicey play: The Comedy of Errors.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company tweeted: “Twins is funny. MORAL: Adoption is a choice, too.”
What happens in The Comedy of Errors
Egeon, a man from Syracuse, goes to Ephesu...
March 25, 2019
What happens in Coriolanus
Some critics think of Coriolanus as one of Shakespeare’s truly genius tragedies. It has plenty in common with King Lear (leader is misunderstood) and Macbeth (combat veteran tries politics). T.S. Eliot thought it was better than Hamlet. Me, I’m a sucker for everything by the late-period, slightly cynical, completely incandescent Shakespeare. So as a birthday present to myself, this month on What Happens in Shakespeare let’s boil down Coriolanus.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company tweeted: “Aloof...
February 25, 2019
What happens in Titus Andronicus
I read Titus Andronicus all in one sitting a few years ago and I still have a bad taste in my mouth. Once I started, I never wanted to have to get back into the right state of mind to pick it up partway through. I had to finish, though. I’m reading the complete works of Shakespeare, not the palatable works of Shakespeare.
But that doesn’t mean you have to join me, fair reader. I’m going to go ahead and put a trigger warning here.
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Titus Andronicus is a nonstop gore-fest that includes some of...
January 21, 2019
What happens in Love’s Labour’s Lost
To soften these harsh January days, where what little savings you had just evaporated and the seasonal encouragement to coat your misery in whiskey, sugar, or retail also just evaporated – this month on What Happens in Shakespeare I give you the sexy, funny, feminist diversion that is Love’s Labour’s Lost.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company tweeted: “Swearing off women is harder than it looks.”
What happens in Love’s Labour’s Lost
The king of Navarre and his three friends have bad hangovers. The...
December 17, 2018
What happens in Cymbeline
Shakespeare wrote Cymbeline just a few years before he died. It has some divine, confident, heartwrenching language, the kind you would get late in the career of the finest writer in English of all time.
The plot, though. Critic Kerry Reid had this to say:
“Cymbeline at times feels as if William Shakespeare were going through some of his favorites, tossing them in a blender and hitting “frappe.” (Yes, there were no blenders in Elizabethan England. Work with me. Or substitute “mortar and pestl...
November 19, 2018
What happens in The Taming of the Shrew
For this month on What Happens in Shakespeare, I picked a Thanksgiving-appropriate play. It’s chock full of holiday traditions: family feuding, daytime drunkenness, and men judging women on their eating habits.
The Taming of the Shrew is one of the top most-hated Shakespeare plays, and for good reason. There have been some retellings that attempt to bring it up to date but don’t make me like it any better. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler at least cuts out a lot of the implied violence, and Cole Po...
October 22, 2018
What happens in Timon of Athens
Timon of Athens is grimmer than Richard III (murders a guy and seduces his widow), Titus Andronicus (murders a guy and serves him for dinner), maybe even Macbeth (murders a guy and then murders everyone else). There’s no gore to speak of; not even that many important characters die. It’s just that there’s no redemption. Zero. People suck. That’s the moral.
But if you like grimness in your grimness, and I do, Timon will haunt you.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company tweeted: “A fool & his money ar...
September 17, 2018
What happens in Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida is from what my friend David refers to as “Shakespeare’s bad-mood period.” There is moral dubiousness. There is (I’ll call it) character lurch, where a main character becomes a completely different person for reasons that are not clear. There is interminable holding-forth by important leaders, which you can get for free at a staff meeting. But! The play is based on the real Trojan War as recounted in The Iliad and I love anything about the ancient Greeks. In some ways Tro...
June 18, 2018
What happens in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Summer Solstice falls in the 3rd week of June. That fine pagan festival is also known as Midsummer. For June’s edition of What Happens in Shakespeare, let’s dive into A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Reduced Shakespeare Company tweeted: “ ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’ ” (III,2). Everyone likes a nice ass.”
What happens in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
You have your fairies: Oberon and Titania, the Fairy King and Queen; and Puck, Oberon’s right-hand man.
You have your hot young...
May 22, 2018
My BayCon 2018 schedule
BayCon is this weekend! This year’s theme is Patchwork Fandom: Stitching the Generations Together. Baycon.org/bcwp/ has the full program, location, and all your other fannish needs.
Here’s my schedule:
Saturday 5/26
11:30 a.m.
Saving What We Love: The Different Layers of Resistance
A look at how the concept of resistance in SF has changed as well as kept a continuity and what different generations have to teach each other.
With Jennifer Nestojko (moderator), Colin Fisk, Deborah J. Ross
...
