But first things first: let’s have a look at which of last year’s resolutions I can cross off my list!

• I was able to audit a super interesting summer course on Shakespeare and Early Modern Print Culture, where I got to learn with a slushie in my hand and no stress of deadlines.
• I got to visit the wonderful Stratford Festival, where I saw a touching production of Cymbeline, as well as Much Ado About Nothing, starring one of my Festival favourites, Ben Carlson.
• 

  Me and Alan Cumming after Macbeth!

  Traveling a bit further, I had a veritable Shakespearegasm seeing Alan Cumming’s exceptional one-man production of Macbeth. I couldn’t understand how it could be done, but Cumming makes it work, bringing the gender issues of the text to life in a dynamic (demonic?) way. The production has since transferred to Broadway; if you’re in the city sometime before June 30, it’s a must-see!

• While I did not get the chance to custom-make Shakespearean Wall decals, I did finally get the posters up in my Shakespeare shrine…I mean, home office!

Paul Gross as Hamlet (2000)

•     Likewise, I did not write a groundbreaking essay on the Shakespeare references in the Hunger Games trilogy (the avox Lavinia being the “speechless complainer” whose voice begs to be heard), nor did I get to see Benedict Cumberbatch perform something Shakesperean, but my fingers are still crossed for him to blow minds as a deep-voiced Richard III. A worthwhile consolation was meeting my Canadian Shakespeare idol, Paul Gross, who signed my copy of Hamlet and hinted at an eventual return to the Stratford Festival stage.

Despite all the ambition, my proudest accomplishment of this year was surviving: I took the tremendous weight of grief and trauma that I experienced over my father’s illness and death, and used my research as a tool to help me overcome it. Having to leave school for a short while and deal with what was far too much “real life”, I threw myself into my work upon my return. My research took on the flavour of blessed escape, rather than the thing to procrastinate away from, and from this experience, I’m proud to have published my very first  article (in the Shakespeare Institute’s spankin’ new Shakespeare Institute Review), which deals with loss in Twelfth Night.

Joss Whedon’s Much Ado (2012)

The cherry to top off my year, inspiring me towards another year of Shakespearean awesomeness, was the Shakespeare Association of America meeting in Toronto. There, I got to work on some much needed professionalization and networking, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that in the years to come, I can meet the scholars (with whom I’m intimate friends, insofar as they’re names on the well-worn books in my personal library!) without letting my mouth hang open, and blurting out the painfully terribly rookie words: “Wow! You’re a big deal!” The conference also hosted a special advance screening of Joss Whedon’s highly anticipated Much Ado. Most of all, I helped bring the conference hashtag, #ShakeAss13, to life by dancing my tail off at the annual Malone Society Dance. There, I got to boogy down with the great David Bevington (the first Shakespeare scholar to edit the entirety of Shakespeare’s corpus…to say nothing of his immensely valuable editorial work on many other early modern playwrights), and even experienced my first Shakespeare conga line!

My most ambitious goal from last year was to attend BritGrad, one of the most exciting events for grad students of Shakespeare, as the biggest English Shakespeare scholars often come out to offer sage words. I didn’t make it, but have found a couple of ways to make up for it:

• One, is that British Shakespeare Scholar extraordinaire Stanley Wells will come to me, leaving his island to visit the Stratford Festival in August.
• Before that, though, I am finally returning to England, to attend a conference on Reading and Health in Early Modern England, where I’ll be showcasing some new dissertation work!
• I’ll also be mixing some business and pleasure by visiting some dear friends living in London, Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon. At the latter, I hope to celebrate Gregory Doran’s first year as Royal Shakespeare Company Artistic Director, and resolve to plant myself at the “Dirty Duck” Pub until I meet him and his partner, my favourite English Shakespearean actor, Sir Antony Sher.

So what do I resolve to do this coming year? More Shakespeare!

Computer-generated image of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, opening in 2014

• Before even leaving to England, I’m already planning my next trip! I’d really like to get to BritGrad before I graduate, and I am also just too excited to visit the brand-new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, which is a replica of the type of indoor playhouse at which King Lear and Cymbeline would have been performed. This year, they’re showing some of the best non-Shakespearean drama, including John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi and Francis Beaumont’s Knight of the Burning Pestle.
• I’d also like to continue my annual pilgrimage to the Stratford Festival. Aside from hearing Stanley Wells speak, I’m also hoping to see Measure for Measure, featuring Stephen Ouimette and Geraint Wyn Davies, who played alongside Paul Gross in Slings and Arrows.
• As a blogger, I’d like to revamp the site. A new, easier-to-pronounce nickname (that doesn’t include the oh-so-90′s number afterwards!), a new look. If you have any suggestions, or any free design services to offer, inquire within!
• I’m also hoping to get back blogging with more frequency. I recently posted about the BBC’s Hollow Crown series, and I plan to watch and blog about the rest! Ditto goes for finally posting my review of Whedon’s Much Ado!
• As a scholar, I’ve just got to keep working! I want to finish a dissertation chapter, start another one, and have something to publish on the go, but I realize that these are “marathon efforts.” They require longer spans of time and exertion, so I’ve got my thinking cap on and my Starbucks card fully loaded, so I’m ready to tackle the Shakespearean New Year with my best foot forward!

To Shakespeare, and everyone celebrating, Cheers!

So in the spirit of nurturing that baby with gusto, I decided to brush some of the dust off my Shakesmarts. I was thinking about Hamlet, not the person but the play, and rather uncle/father Claudius. I was thinking about what makes him so great and I forgot the word, and frantically emailed a friend in England to ask him what that word is…his signature rhetorical device and he reminded me : hendiadys! What an excellent word! Say it out loud! It sounds like a mountain range somewhere!

But what does he do? How does he use it? Claudius is a diplomat, which means that he understands the necessity for verbal economy, and tries to add that extra bit of detail, complexity, irony, sincerity…into that sentence.

Take, for example: “But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son–”, he manages to link the two with that and, but also using that little ampersand to divide two things that aren’t one and the same. He embodies Facebook’s need for “It’s complicated” relationship statuses, as we can also see when he sums up the opening plot of the play in these two lines of hendiadys:

“With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage…”

Wonderful. I love it. Here he adds an extra iamb for effect, but for the most part, Shakespeare fits these almost Mr. Collins-like additions into the iambic pentameter that his stage royalty speak. Claudius, of course, makes a big mistake in this sarcastically “gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet”, who then stays home from university long enough to kill his stepdad. Bad call, Claudius. Bad call.

Jeremy Irons as Henry IV

…Shakespeare movies, that is! I’ve been downloading way too many BBC adaptations and watching too few, so last night I decided to change that. I’ve been on a little Tom Hiddleston kick lately (can you blame me?), so I started with 1 Henry IV. I consider this the most unfortunately-named Shakespeare play, as its boring title doesn’t signify its compelling main character (Prince Hal), the fun he has with Shakespeare’s most comic character (Falstaff), and coming of age that Prince experiences in this play.

Michelle Dockery as Lady Percy

This production is certainly well cast. Few actors make better brooding, guilt-ridden rulers than Jeremy Irons, slightly less lecherous than in his role as Rodrigo Borgia, and Hiddleston plays a bright-eyed mischievous Prince Hal. Michelle Dockery, fresh from Downton Abbey, glows, alabaster as ever, and I really enjoyed the way Richard Eyre amped up the flirtiness between Kate and Hotspur, who is often portrayed as loving his horse more than his wife.

Prince Hal and Falstaff, besties for life?

Simon Russell Beale, who has been treading the boards of the English stage nonstop for the past couple of years, was a good Falstaff. Good, not great, and I’ve been trying to put my finger on why. I love the character, an irresponsible, lecherous, glutton who leeches off friends both high and low, yet his true devotion to Hal peeks through. What I don’t appreciate is that Richard Eyre thought it necessary to back each of Falstaff’s sympathetic speeches with an affecting violin track. I recognize that medium of film allows for certain enhancements to the text that the stage does not, but that does not mean that Shakespeare’s words themselves need more enhancing than an actor’s clear voice. Take, for example, the following speech:

Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? What is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. ‘Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism.

This is one of the most profound speeches in the Shakespearean canon. Honour inspires me to fight, by why should I, when I might just die? What is the value of dying in the name of honour? Will honour heal my bloody wounds? Will honour take care of my family when I’m gone? The dead man can find few, if any, practical applications for honour, so why pursue it? Falstaff asks these rhetorical questions, offering a catechism in the name of the Abbot of Unreason, all the while showing just exactly how reasonable he is. Falstaff is the one to make us question the nature of heroism: is the king heroic for forcing his army to fight and kill a hundred thousand “rebels”, who on any other day would be counted as fellow countrymen? Is Hal heroic for leaving the tavern in order to aid the King in a war that was only brought on after his father took the crown from Richard II? Falstaff may be a leech on society, but Shakespeare’s words show he is the one shrewd enough to know the finality of death, a truth that need no violins to prove it.

“Unsex me here”: Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth

The go-to answer is usually Lady Macbeth, and not without reason. She’s ambitious, and her words leave such an emasculating sting on Macbeth that he is driven to kill King Duncan. While he wants to reap the benefits of being king, it is Lady Macbeth who shows him that, to make a royal omelet, one must first crack a few crowns.

Lady Macbeth is most notable for her lack of stain-remover and for the heartlessness of the following rant:

When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.

Lady Macbeth’s baby is one of those great Shakespearean mysteries. We know that Macbeth has no sons, and thus the crown will pass to Banquo’s, but what of that baby? Was it Macbeth’s, or Lady M’s by another man?  Has she already dashed that baby’s head into the concrete? We never really know, but her threat to “dash” the baby’s brains out has made her an eternally compelling she-villain.

“Now climbeth Tamora Olympus’ top” – Jessica Lange as Tamora

But now I’d like to make the case for Tamora, Queen of the Goths, the underrated she-villain of Titus Andronicus. Mother to four sons over the course of the play, she is the true embodiment of “Hell hath no fury like a Mama Bear scorned.”

Tamora’s first words are some of her most compelling, as she begs Titus to spare the life of her firstborn:

Stay, Roman brethren! Gracious conqueror,
Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
A mother’s tears in passion for her son:
And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
O, think my son to be as dear to me!
Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome,
To beautify thy triumphs and return,
Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke,
But must my sons be slaughter’d in the streets,
For valiant doings in their country’s cause?
O, if to fight for king and commonweal
Were piety in thine, it is in these.
Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood:
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge:
Thrice noble Titus, spare my first-born son.

Tamora pleading with Titus in the Peacham drawing: the only surviving contemporary Shakespearean illustration

Tamora’s words are exceedingly moving, and even though it’s Alarbus’s entrails that are ultimately cut out, Tamora’s cries spring straight from the womb. Utterly devastated and intent on avenging Titus’s “cruel, irreligious piety,” Tamora vows to “find a day to massacre them all.” Clearly, those are fighting words.

Lady Ellen Terry as the most terrifying Lady Macbeth, ever.

Lady Macbeth betrays the softer side of herself earlier in the play than most of her fans would like to admit. We must ask ourselves: if she is so intent on Macbeth being ‘man’ enough to murder Duncan, and if she prays to the gods to “unsex me here, /
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty,” then why doesn’t she just do it herself? She offers a genuinely moving answer: “Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done’t.” She could kill a king, but she’s a daddy’s girl at heart, and in the meantime bullies her husband to do her bloody bidding.

Jessica Lange, brooding as Tamora

Tamora, on the other hand, enjoys Aaron as a partner in crime, and together, they create a horrorscape in which they corner Lavinia and her husband Bassianus, framing them for accosting and threatening the queen in the forest. Like Lady Macbeth who goads her husband into proving his manliness through murder, Tamora tells her sons: “Revenge it, as you love your mother’s life, / Or be ye not henceforth call’d my children.” Like Lady Macbeth, Tamora does not commit the bloody deed herself, but that doesn’t mean she shows a shred of mercy. Lavinia pleads with her, as a fellow woman in a man’s world, to kill her on the spot and spare her the pain and infamy of being a victim of rape. But Tamora laughs in her face, saying, “So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee? / No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.” This, to Tamora, is fair revenge for the Andronici’s murder of Alarbus.

Moreover, Tamora is terrible because she casts her newborn son from her sight. Black like his father Aaron, the baby bears the stain of her infidelity against the emperor. Even worse, she tries to delegate the infanticide onto the baby’s father. Aaron’s tenderness towards the baby proves through contrast just what a selfish, unfeeling creature she’s become.

And of course, Tamora then goes on to eat her two remaining sons. (Okay, I know that wasn’t planned, but a woman eating her babies would make for a killer movie poster!)

Kabuki Tamora

After the corpse line-up at the end of the play, we learn of the impact of Tamora’s deeds based on her relative punishment. Lucius commands that his father, who “mercy-killed” his sister, be buried in the family tomb; Saturnine, a personal nemesis and all-out bad guy, is sent to the royal tomb, to be buried next to other Roman leaders, regardless of his supporting role in the course of events. But then there’s Tamora: Tamora gets a disposal unfit of for gentlewoman, standing in notable contrast to Saturnine’s vow earlier in the play that “Princely shall be thy usage every way.” Lucius, conversely, orders the following:

As for that heinous tiger, Tamora,
No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weeds,
No mournful bell shall ring her burial;
But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey:
Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity;
And, being so, shall have like want of pity.

Ouch. Does she deserve this punishment? My extensive research on revenge tragedy (i.e., multiple re-watchings of the Kill Bill series with Mrs. Weinberg) shows that all avengers must be prepared to die at the hands of those wronged by their retribution. But in the end, what makes Tamora the best villainess is that her revenge comes not from motiveless malignity, or ambition, but from defending and protecting those she loves. That’s where her strength comes from and for that, I believe that Tamora deserves to be remembered as one spectacular she-villain.

Posthumous gives Innogen a token of his love

Going to the theatre, we expect to be entertained but in the best cases, we are also moved.  After largely overlooking them in my annual pre-show lecture to my ever-patient mother, I was most touched by the performances by EB Smith and Ian Lake, who played the roles of Guiderius and Arviragus. These characters know themselves as Polydore and Cadwal, the supposed sons of Morgan, actually Belarius, a courtier that had been banished for treason and took the boys with him into exile, twenty years earlier.[1] One appealing feature was, no doubt, their brawniness, but more so, I was touched by their bright-eyed innocence, their playfulness with each other, their genuine affection for the old man who they think is their father, and the way their hearts open wide to accommodate the beautiful boy Fidele, actually Innogen[2] incognito, who they take in as a little brother for no more reason than “Love’s reason’s without reason.”

The main love-match in the play is Innogen and her betrothed, Posthumous Leonatus. King Cymbeline banishes him when he finds out that they are all-but married. As Cymbeline’s only remaining biological child, Innogen must marry for the kingdom’s advantage rather than her heart’s. Exiled on the continent, Posthumous’s false friend Iachimo[3] tricks him into believing that Innogen is unfaithful, and Posthumous sends his servant, Pisanio, to kill her. Charmed by her, he reveals his master’s plans and tells her to disguise herself as a boy and hide. Clearly, Pisanio is far nobler than his master, who I usually resign alongside Othello and Claudio as weak and gullible, unworthy of my tears. Onstage, though, Posthumous redeems himself, not through his own actions, but through the love and forgiveness of Innogen, who literally throws herself at him in the concluding moments of the play. At that final moment, she is no longer the gangly Fidele, but the tragic princess for whom things are finally going right.

To oh-so-sauve Geraint Wyn Davies as King Cymbeline

The beauty of the Shakespearean Romance is that the Bard never lets too many bodies pile up onstage before he sets everything right. Belarius comes forward to tell Cymbeline that his sons are alive, consequently shoving castle-raised Innogen back to third in line for inheritance. This resolution is unsettling, but characteristic of the Romances: things have changed for the better, but there’s no rule dictating that the result is fully just (or just on today’s terms). This moment should leave readers with a sour taste in their mouths, but Cimolino chose to overlook this aspect. This omission leaves the play’s conclusion with less of that unsettling dimension that we should be exposed to when watching the Problem Plays and Romances, but I applaud the director’s focus on the other crucial aspects of the genre: redemption and reconciliation. The “Evil Stepmother” of a Queen is dead, and the King finds his only daughter alive and able to reconcile with her true love, clearly caring more for their reunion than the throne she no longer has claim to. The play ends with a glorious group hug, a moment which might sound cheesy in print, but one that brought tears to my eyes as I was the first to jump up and give the cast its much-deserved standing ovation.

Here are some reasons why this play is worth teaching:

-       Its scenes are short and the language is relatively simple.

-       It contains two strong female characters and a bunch of male ones, providing potential for group performance. This means that more students have a chance to perform, and nobody has to learn too many lines, much easier than the big tragedies.

-       It has two clowns! That makes for double the comedy!

-       It also has a “bit with a dog”, which we know from Shakespeare in Love, is always a winner for both young and old.

-       It has cross-dressing, which is always important to teach in terms of gender/sexuality dynamics and how women weren’t allowed onstage in Shakespeare’s time

-       It has countless elements from two well-known and often-taught tragedies: Othello (jealousy, scheming to break up one’s best friend’s relationship) and Romeo and Juliet (banishment, sneaking away to be with one’s lover), yet it’s a comedy.

-       Yes, yes, I know – the comedy is a very troubling one, on account of the whole “Valentine loves Silvia, but so does Proteus, who said he loved Julia, but he actually tries to rape Silvia in the forest” thing. Oh, and the whole “Valentine forgives Proteus, and offers (?!?) him Silvia to re-solidify their bonds of friendship” thing. Yeah, that’s misogynist; maybe they should change the title to “Two Ungentlemanly Men of Verona? It doesn’t have the same ring to it. Obviously, teachers do not want to condone rape, the rape myth, or any sort of philosophy other than “only yes means yes.” But we also wouldn’t want the rampant racism of Othello and the teen-runaway-marriage of Romeo and Juliet, and we still teach those. I think it’s totally worthwhile to give the students that shock factor, and then discuss why that’s not acceptable today. Show them how Shakespeare starts the play in such a way that we can totally relate to his writings of youthful infatuation and the wretchedness of long-distance relationships, but how, ultimately, things were different in his time. No matter how durable his writing is, and I know that’s the biggest reason we appreciate his works today, it’s still vital to recognize that he was a product of his time, and wrote for audiences of his time. And unfortunately, the audiences of his time didn’t offer wiggle room when practicing the “bros before hoes” rule.

Okay, so I know that these opinions may be controversial. But perhaps I want it to be that way, in the hopes of stirring up some conversation! What do you think: should this play be taught in schools?

-       Audit my university’s summer Shakespeare course and enjoy the continuing education without the stress of essay deadlines

-       See Alan Cumming perform Macbeth (my mom and I actually have tickets to see it in July in New York and I couldn’t be more excited!)

-       Custom-make wall decals to literally surround myself by Shakespearean inspiration (my bedroom favourite: sleep perchance to dream)

-       Visit the Stratford Shakespeare Festival with my mom (our annual tradition) and with friends (a new experience!) to see Ben Carlson play Benedick to his real-life wife’s Beatrice in Much Ado; Cymbeline to see the kick-ass eagle prop the Festival’s been sneaking pictures of over Twitter; Ben Carlson again, because he’s so awesome, playing the sassy Welsh Fluellen in Henry V; and the one-man show MacHomer, as a hilarious contrast to Cummings’ much darker Macbeth, hopefully including the voices of Patty and Selma as the Witches

-       See Benedict Cumberbatch perform in something Shakespearean (fine, that one’s more of a fantasy)

-       Stop buying new Shakespeare posters and instead find more places or better adhesives with which to mount the ones currently lying on the floor in my office

-       Submit my first article for publication

-       Write a brilliant essay/paper/blog post that delves into Suzanne Collins’ Shakespeare references in the Hunger Games trilogy

-       Get back to England before I’m 27, returning to the Globe and to the RSC to experience Gregory Doran’s first year as Artistic Director

-       Finally make my way to Britgrad to hear the Shakespearean luminary Stanley Wells speak in person

-       Read more about Shakespeare’s egalitarian instinct, especially more written by my living Shakespeare idol, Kiernan Ryan. This writing just gets me too excited about the way that Shakespeare said such incredibly subversive stuff about the equality of one human being with the next. It also helps me keep steady among the painful truths of mortality – accepting death, but as a result grabbing life with both hands and really just finding ways to enjoy it – not taking more work so seriously that I no longer enjoy it, and when that time comes, allowing myself the time to rest and relax. Of course, my favorite way to do that is to go to England (see above), so I must remind myself that the best way to simultaneously avoid burnout and keep moving forward on this path of Shakespeare scholarship is by learning Shakespeare on my feet, and then come back to my books with renewed vigour

-       Speak to a grade 7 class about my awesome experiences with Shakespeare so far, and convert at least one unassuming child into a die-hard bardolator!

That’s all for now! What are your Shakespeare’s Birthday Resolutions?

My 2012 recreational reading/listening list looks a bit like this:

-       Jane Austen’s Persuasion (audio book read by a wonderful librivox.org volunteer)

-       The Hunger Games (the entire series, twice; first in print and then over audio book)

-       Ernest Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms (also an audio book, extra points because Mad Men’s John Slattery reads it)

-       The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Twelfth Night Soundtrack

When I look at the list, I feel the satisfaction of having enjoyed good books and music – a pretty fair way to spend the time that I was recovering from some family trauma of my own.

Today, after a trip to see a previously-recorded version of the Stratford Festival’s 2011 production[1] of Twelfth Night, I realized that now, more than ever before, I had become addicted to trauma narratives. No longer was Twelfth Night the same old story of “girl-dressed-as-boy meets boy, boy loves other girl, but other girl is obsessed with girl-dressed-as-boy.”

Suzy Jane Hunt as Viola (disguised as Cesario) in Stratford's Twelfth Night. Photography by Cylla von Tiedemann.

I mean, think about it this way: Viola of Messaline was on one of those Costa cruise ships with her twin brother, her counterpart, when it hits a storm and the boat capsizes. They each survive, but she lives in grief thinking that Sebastian has been lost to the waves. Viola lands in Illyria, the country against which her country is at war. How convenient – landing in the country of your enemy, a woman, escorted only a moment longer by the captain, who has survived (how are we not surprised?). She begs him to hide her identity so she can live under the protection, and enjoy some of the privileges, of a great house. Smart girl.

But Viola doesn’t pick just anyone to live with – at first she wants to serve Lady Olivia. We can tell by the similarity of names that there will be some similarity of character. Here is what Viola learns about Lady Olivia:

A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count
That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her
In the protection of his son, her brother,
Who shortly also died: for whose dear love,
They say, she hath abjured the company
And sight of men.

Viola gravitates towards the person who can empathize with her grief – they both carry the burden of fresh wounds, having lost their brothers earlier in the year. Olivia’s father has also recently died and Viola, whose voice is high enough to pass for a eunuch, had experienced the same grief when only a couple of years before, her father had “died that day when Viola from her birth / Had number’d thirteen years.” Trauma on one’s birthday – I’ve been there and don’t recommend it. Before she decides to work as a boy for Orsino, Viola shows how that she had rather be a lady-in-waiting for a woman who “like a cloistress, … will veiled walk / And water once a day her chamber round / With eye-offending brine” – tears.

I could go on. Of course Maria thinks Olivia will order to “hang the fool” – he has abandoned her in her time of grief. Why is this? In this pansexual play, is he, too, grieving over the untimely loss of Olivia’s brother? The Stratford production offers some interesting sexual tension between Olivia and Feste – hath she abjured the sight of this man? She lets Malvolio stick around, and doesn’t even wholeheartedly cast off Sir Andrew. Interesting. Feste proves Olivia the fool by catechizing her into admitting that one mustn’t grieve for those living in luxury in heaven above. Only then can her heart begin to open for a return of our usual programming, throwing herself at the girl Viola, dressed as a boy, Cesario.

Percy Shelley wrote: “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” and I’d like to think that this production offers that same message of hope.

"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be"

The Tempest was possibly the final play that Shakespeare wrote independently and, fittingly, it’s a more intellectual drama that privileges reunion and reconciliation over the “murder most foul” of the campy revenge tragedies (that I admittedly favour) of the late sixteenth century. To Prospero, the best revenge is living well… and making his enemies watch. Although the audience does not get to experience the ‘happily ever after’ of their return to Naples, regaining his position as Duke must provide Prospero with sweeter schadenfreude than could be achieved in being a vengeful killer, which, 9 times out of ten Shakespeare plays, would otherwise leave the elderly mage as but one in a heap of dead bodies on the stage with a helpless sidekick praying that “flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

It’s possible that I’m the only person who laughs at this message, and part of me that hopes I’m not a solitary member of a lost species. When I think of that line, I laugh and think of Hamlet, ashen-faced and quaking in his boots at the words that have changed his life: how do you respond to orders to assassinate your uncle, your king?

Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain.

And when I think of those kind of demands, I remind myself that spending a couple of hours talking shop probably isn’t so bad. Wish me luck!