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When I think Shakespeare, I think about a guy wearing tights, fluffy pants, a ruff, a hat with a feather, and a hand reached into the air and spouting poetry which no one is expected to understand.

Shakespeare was the Martin Scorsese of 1590.  This play is on par with The Silence of the Lambs and The Departed.  I was in complete shock the whole time while reading this.

I highly recommend this play to everyone.  Its so good, I don’t want to spoil it for you.

In the back of the book, they suggest that the play is suppose to be an exaggeration.  Basically, WS wrote it trying to go over the top like something you would see from Quentin Tarantino.  Tarantino movies are over the top, but they are still awesome.  If this play is over the top, who cares, it is still awesome.

Tim throws Gatsby style parties he can’t afford.  When he finds out he is broke, he asks his friends if they can spot him.  They are all strapped.  He realizes that no one is truly his friend and becomes a misanthrope.  Tim moves into a cave, finds some gold.  He gives it all away.  Hangs himself.

It kinds of reminds me of Into the Wild, when the main character gives away his savings and goes to live up north, only to freeze to death, simply because he can’t stand people.

There is another character named Apemantus, who is really funny.  He is really cynical of everything, and goes around insulting everyone.  It really becomes funny when Tim goes crazy and the two of them try to out sulk each other.

Tim story is unfortunate, because nowadays they would just give him some meds to fix his depression.

For that reason, I would label this ‘problem play’ as a tragedy.

Eddie 3

This play starts off on a good note.  A married King Edward III tries to woo a married lady.  She’s interested, but doesn’t want to break her vow of marriage.   Ed tricks her father into a promise he will try to persuade her.  The father tries to convince the daughter to marry Ed, but shes not convinced.  She then tells Ed that if he kills his wife, she’ll kill her husband.

At this point I predicted that Ed was going to try to kill his wife, but in Shakespearean fashion, he was going to accidentally kill his lover.

The problem is, this play was only ~40% written by Shakespeare  (Suggested by computer analysis).  The story ends there. They decide not to hook-up after all.

The rest is a Braveheart account of a battle.  Although not as graphic, between England and France.  I don’t quite understand how the English were able to get enough troops across the channel to match the reported tens of thousands of the french.

Anyways, the English win.

Ed doesn’t go to help his son when he is just about die.  The son returns with the captured french.

The story explores Ed’s rightfulness to the throne (considering his grandma had only girls) .  The glory of death.  A son having to prove his worth.  Honouring your word.  I would also add respecting your enemy.

It is funny how they meet face to face to talk about the state of the battle.  In modern warfare, you would just kill the other guy right there.  There isn’t much of a story here, I guess that is why they call this a history play.

King Lear

Move over Reservoir Dogs. There is a new bloodiest story in town.  This story is about a King, who has 3 daughters.  He divides his Kingdom to his daughters based on who proclaims their love to him the most.  He gives two daughters everything, and the humble daughter nothing.

Then he goes crazy.  He keeps an entourage of 100 knights.  Both of his receiving daughters don’t want him to live with them.

On the other end of town, this Edmund bastard, tricks his dad into thinking his brother is going to kill him, in order to become the sole inheritor of his dad’s will.  The brother goes crazy, the dad goes blind.  Edmund then tricks both of Lear’s daughters into falling in love with him.

A couple of people die.

Then as taken from the Wikipedia entry:

“Offstage, Goneril stabs herself, and confesses to poisoning Regan. Edmund, dying, reveals his order to kill Lear and Cordelia. But it is too late: Cordelia is dead, though Lear slew the killer. Lear recognizes Kent. Albany urges Lear to resume his throne, but Lear is too far gone in grief and hardship. He collapses and dies.”

So basically, everyone dies at the end.  Which makes for a pretty good story in my books.