I guess an awful lot of drama fails the Bechdel test. I remember being a little shocked (but less surprised) at Central to realise that, like most (all?) other accredited drama schools, the intake was well over 60% male, and the women accepted were nearly all slim-and-beautiful. The rationale, apparently, was that this reflected the level of demand for actors.
Good plan! I'm in the midst of reading the complete workd as well, but not in chronological order - I've read all the histories and am now deep into the comedies.
My favourite bit in Henry VI part 1 in Act 5 Scene 3, where Suffolk is wooing Margaret on Henry's behalf: when Suffolk gives the usual Shakespearian asides, Margaret is baffled and asks him who he's talking to - then she does it, and when he wonders why she's speaking in this funny way she's all "you started it, mate". Fantastic.
I have a vague memory that Part I was the last of that trilogy to be written, although it's all conjecture as I suspect in some cases he was working with existing texts, others just dramatising Holinshed (or Plutarch or ...). Not to mention we're dealing with a mixture of cues and copy books and transcriptions from original productions or revivals rather than direct from the author.
The authorship debate ends up being tedious and often tedious - as in Marlowe is a better writer than Shakespeare and Marlowe actually wrote Shakespeare's plays.... Imitation and parody and group writing makes it all very muddy.
(Personally I find Marlowe easier to deal with but that's partly because he isn't as good)
As far as I know the jury is out on whether Part 1 is a prequel or not. I may have a view after I've read the others, but I felt that if was going to start on four linked plays written within a short time of each other I might as well go by internal chronology.
I've wasted far too much time on the authorship debate; it seemed to me that a lot of the anti-Shakespeare sentiment was based on class prejudice - he comes from too poor and unglamorous a background to be a Great Writer. (In the more extreme versions of Oxfordian fantasy, the unglamorous earl is the product of a calculated breeding programme to produce genius.)
Spoliers for Henry the VdrasecretcampusAugust 29 2008, 11:03:13 UTC
I think I (last) read them in the monarch order - summat like Richard II to Richard III. I maybe did King John for good measure. (I may have skipped Henry VIII - think I was focusing on Elizabethan stuff.) Given the two trilogies and Henry V being late for a history play I have visions of the manager of the theatre coming up to Shakespeare and saying, "Bill, baby, a little word. I reckon you should fill in that gap there. Think of the possibilities. We could devoted whole weekends to it. Do all the plays in order. It'll marvellous, darling."
Shakespeare mutters to himself and says, in his thick, Brummie accent, "But I'd have to Agincourt like. And that's ten thousand archers. We've only got twelve in the cast at the moment and Kit's not looking well, his varicose veins have been playing up."
"Bill - sweetie, love - dahling - you can do it."
"We'll just have to tell the audience to imagine it," says the Bard. "Great muse of fire!"
I lost some respect for Mark Rylance when I found he was an Oxfordian, and one whose argument was explicitly "A trademan's son from the provinces couldn't have written like that".
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My favourite bit in Henry VI part 1 in Act 5 Scene 3, where Suffolk is wooing Margaret on Henry's behalf: when Suffolk gives the usual Shakespearian asides, Margaret is baffled and asks him who he's talking to - then she does it, and when he wonders why she's speaking in this funny way she's all "you started it, mate". Fantastic.
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The authorship debate ends up being tedious and often tedious - as in Marlowe is a better writer than Shakespeare and Marlowe actually wrote Shakespeare's plays.... Imitation and parody and group writing makes it all very muddy.
(Personally I find Marlowe easier to deal with but that's partly because he isn't as good)
Reply
I've wasted far too much time on the authorship debate; it seemed to me that a lot of the anti-Shakespeare sentiment was based on class prejudice - he comes from too poor and unglamorous a background to be a Great Writer. (In the more extreme versions of Oxfordian fantasy, the unglamorous earl is the product of a calculated breeding programme to produce genius.)
Reply
Shakespeare mutters to himself and says, in his thick, Brummie accent, "But I'd have to Agincourt like. And that's ten thousand archers. We've only got twelve in the cast at the moment and Kit's not looking well, his varicose veins have been playing up."
"Bill - sweetie, love - dahling - you can do it."
"We'll just have to tell the audience to imagine it," says the Bard. "Great muse of fire!"
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