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Shakespeare's Plays

My favorite Shakespeare play is Midsummernight's dream... I saw it a few years ago in a theatre.. It was played by students, they danced, sang and spoke it... they had a beautiful stage...
since then i love this play...
 
ValkyrieRaven88 said:
I could sympathize with Hamlet because he, like me, often seems confused about what course of action to take. He was a vivid, very three-dimensional character, and one that I cared deeply about.
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My favorite play is Hamlet, and I really agree with you! I think the torments in his life infect readers greatly. And when he goes back and forth of if he should kill Claudius or not, he shows the interminable struggle in his mind.

Greek tragedy always shows the misfortune of life. Does anyone think it is this heaviness of life which makes the characters alive and meaningful? And does a easy life lead to pointlessness?
 
Dayspring said:
Does anyone think it is this heaviness of life which makes the characters alive and meaningful? And does a easy life lead to pointlessness?
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Welcome to the forum Dayspring :) . I think you're onto something with your above inquiry! Have you watched Little Miss Sunshine? Those very questions are approached spectacularly in that film.

Far as Will goes, The Taming of the Shrew is my favorite comedy, and King Lear or Othello my favorite tragedy. Or is it Macbeth or Hamlet, oh my such a tricky question!
 
Flor said:
Welcome to the forum Dayspring :) . I think you're onto something with your above inquiry! Have you watched Little Miss Sunshine? Those very questions are approached spectacularly in that film.
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Thanks for your reply, Flor. I've never watched Little Miss Sunshine, but I got the idea of this question from a book called The unbearable lightness of being by Kundera Milan. It is this book which asks me the question but I can't break through it for a long time.

I read Romeo and Juliet before I went to the play, and I feel it's not enough to just read the book. When the actors and actresses act through scenes, it's just amazing how the whole play become a living story with real characters in it.;)
 
Dayspring said:
Greek tragedy always shows the misfortune of life. Does anyone think it is this heaviness of life which makes the characters alive and meaningful? And does a easy life lead to pointlessness?
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This question brings to mind Woody Allen, whose best characters are comics trapped in tragic situations. The outcome is either whistful or farcical, but never really tragic.

Some might say that comedy is just tragedy with a slightly better outcome, and that the same situation can be tragic for one type of character and comic for another.

In other words, tragedy does not build character, and comedy does not negate character, but character creates either comedy or tragedy.

For instance, Kurt Vonnegut dies after a lifetime of amazing work without ever having received a major literary award or recognition. For some that might have been a tragedy. For him, it was a comedy. I heard him interviewed about that, and he was extremely funny.


As for an easy life leading to pointlessness, what would Bertie Wooster say about that? His scrapes with bachelorettes and Auntie Whatever are matters of profound gravity.
 
Reply to novella

novella said:
In other words, tragedy does not build character, and comedy does not negate character, but character creates either comedy or tragedy.
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Yes, I agree with you that it is the character's life which makes the story either comedy or tragedy. But I think you might misunderstand what I meant.

I meant the misfortune in character's life make audience feel the character is alive. The audience can compassionate the pain in the character's mind and feel with them, as all lives have sadness, frustrations in them.
 
Dayspring said:
Yes, I agree with you that it is the character's life which makes the story either comedy or tragedy. But I think you might misunderstand what I meant.

I meant the misfortune in character's life make audience feel the character is alive. The audience can compassionate the pain in the character's mind and feel with them, as all lives have sadness, frustrations in them.
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We had a thread going on this some time ago, about how there is a prejudice that says tragedy is more valuable than comedy. Comedy is just character and fate triumphing over tragic circumstances. But yet there is the notion that tragic characters have more weight. It's a strange truth at is defied in real life.

In life, do we admire the person who succumbs to tragic circumstances or the person who keeps going, conquers adversity, and laughs in the face of ugly fate?
 
Novella, when I read your first comment about tragedy being more valuable, I thought "That's so true," but by the end I was like "No, laugh in the face of fate!" This is an interesting little paradox.

My favorite is The Tempest. I didn't read it until my last year of college and felt like I'd missed out on something great.
 
Macbeth is my favourite, but I haven't read Hamlet or Othello. I plan to tackle these soon.

Julius Caesar is one of note too. It was the first Shakespeare play I read.
 
Othello is my favorite in general (but I've only read 9 Shakespeare plays though).
Iago's so evil...

Henry V is amazing out of the histories I've read. His speech at the Battle of Agincourt was very moving. I kept thinking of Lord of the Rings as I read that play.

Merchant of Venice is my fave out of the "comedies." The Antonio-Bassanio love is great and Portia's a tricky tricky bitch.
 
I love the histories, and I agree that Henry V stands out. Even knowing that Shakespeare was biased toward the Lancastrian side and did such an awful hatchet job on Richard III, I still love the histories.

Of the other plays, I think King Lear is brilliant. I've never understood why Hamlet is considered so far superior. For me A Midsummer Night's Dream (beautifully parodied in Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies) is the most enjoyable of the comedies, although I also enjoy Twelfh Night and As You Like It.

Must say I alway thought Romeo and Juliet was a bit overdone, but it's been the inspiration of some beautiful music and ballet.
 
His book Wyrd Sisters is an amusing update on Macbeth too, so you might want to check that one out while you're at it.:)
 
I really enjoyed Hamlet, especially going straight into Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead right after I finished. They were both beautiful plays, but sadly I don't think I could ever read Hamlet again without thinking to myself, "I wonder what those rascles Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are doing?"

Right now I'm in the middle of Much Ado About Nothing. Don't really know how to take it because it's the first of Shakespeare's comedies that I've read. It's very interesting, though, but it's new for me.
 
I like Macbeth, The Tempest, and Julius Caesar. But my favorites are the histories, excluding Henry VIII. I tend to regard them as one long work; and I'm not sure why I like them best, except perhaps that they don't have a conventional dramatic shape. Perhaps they feel more real to me because of that.
 
I have a copy of the Arkangel Shakespeare 'Henry IV' (both parts), part of an audio set from 1998. Richard Griffiths as Falstaff is hard to beat, and Julian and Jamie Glover are, as to be expected, excellent. From the moment Julian comes on, it's poetry in drama form.

I agree that to truly appreciate Shakespeare, you must hear his work. The word 'audience' is the clue: 'audi', coming from 'audio'. The audience of Shakespeare's time went to 'hear a play', rather than 'see a play'.
 
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