Kyle’s Reviews > Living with Shakespeare: Actors, Directors, and Writers on Shakespeare in Our Time > Status Update
Kyle
is 50% done
Who are these people writing about Shakespeare? More a rhetorical question, as each author has a short bio before their article. But the question bears repeating: who are they, really? Actors who played many roles, artists cashing in on the cultural capitol, writers who casually drop the "f" bomb like it has never been done in academic papers? Posing as a scholar, yet not citing anyone else, it all opinion, not art..
— May 29, 2013 11:34PM
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Kyle’s Previous Updates
Kyle
is finished
Taymor is one of the best directors and it is great to see her write so much about my new favorite movie The Tempest. She could write her own book on adapting Shakespeare, or better yet, I could write it for her! Franco, on the other hand, could have written a bit more on Henry IV and bit less of his man-crush on River Phoenix, but all is good when discussing the Bard, as Allende eloquently sums up.
— Jun 25, 2013 08:31AM
Kyle
is 90% done
"Lovers, poets and madmen" plus a couple of Dames take to their keyboards to write about Shakespeare's fools, heroines and tragic lovers. Many of the essays in this section express the age-old problem with performing any type of theatre: plenty of female interest in the plays yet a disproportionate number of roles for women to play compared to what men get to do. Eve Best explains how Beatrice and Lady M are sisters.
— Jun 16, 2013 05:36PM
Kyle
is 67% done
While the first half of these collected essays had many ups and downs, Carson arranges to have the more scholarly articles cluster around the three-quarter mark. Some very deep observations from Scholar and Fletcher reminded me of what I like most about reading Shakespeare: the intertextual notes. However it is Dromgoole's, the best one so far, which showed me why seeing the plays makes their magic.
— Jun 05, 2013 11:27PM
Kyle
is 28% done
Hit a rough patch in the otherwise well-intentioned book, and it is the anti-academic stance taken by some of the actors and authors. It is their own business how much they want to understand from scholars, many of whom may have lost sight of the forest by examining individual trees. Yet to present their own interpretations as real is like removing every leaf from this forest and admiring the beauty of bare branches.
— May 21, 2013 12:55PM
Kyle
is 25% done
Definitely not your typical theory-based collection of essays nor a paint-by-numbers guide to understanding the plays, Carson takes an apt approach by letting those who have lived with Shakespeare to write about both him and it. Once I got past a troubling foreward by an overly zealous Harold Bloom, the humble essays are thoughtful and witty. I detect the pattern of dull school lessons followed by electrifying shows.
— May 10, 2013 12:34AM
