Cymbeline

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Why This Play?:

If I’m being honest, I read it because this was the next DVD that came up in my Netflix queue.  So let’s continue on the late romance trend!

Cymbeline is known as the single play that includes all of Shakespeare's greatest hits -- a woman disguised as a man, a villain who incites jealousy without cause, reunion of family members, war.  And that's just to name a few.  There's a theme that takes over the entire final scene, with more examples than I've ever seen in any other Bard play -- forgiveness.  Repentance/forgiveness happens in many other works (Hero forgives Claudio, Othello is devastated by his actions, etc).  But in Cymbeline, we see it in spades.  Nearly all the characters get into the game of apologizing and showing mercy.  Which of course, gets me thinking about forgiveness in our own lives.  Is there some secret formula to letting go of past issues and moving on without malice?

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The Tempest

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Why This Play?:

I wanted to start the year off with a romance play.  There’s something about the dark days and sparkle of the Christmas season that bring me to mind of the literal magic in Shakespeare’s late works.  Both the time of year and the romances can be dark and foreboding while still somehow optimistic and breathtakingly beautiful.  These are the plays that manage to be everything at once, especially The Tempest.  We have here a story of revenge and forgiveness, of magic and mayhem, romance, murder plots, freedom, and some pretty fun comedy.  It’s a tall order, and old Bill delivers.

This play makes me drift back to the part of my childhood that feels like a vivid dream: the year my family lived in Barbados.  Yes, you heard me right.  In reflecting back on my own family’s island time, I had all kinds of swirly thoughts running through my head.  I wondered how if no man is an island, then why do we insist on sometimes acting as if we are? 

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Macbeth

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Why This Play?:

I just finished this week’s FutureLearn lesson on Macbeth.  It was easily the most interesting yet.  We examined Elizabethean attitudes about witchcraft, the idea of frenzy versus actual madness, and medical practices of the time.  We asked ourselves about the nature of evil and Shakespeare’s radical idea that in Macbeth, evil comes from within a man himself rather than through divine/demonic intervention. 

We all see glimpses of evil every day.  Simply turn on your phone, scroll through some daily headlines, and read about horrible things that people do to each other.  I thought upon reading this play that I’d probably end up writing about the supernatural (it’s fun and interesting!) in this post.  Last weekend’s news out of Lebanon and France shifted my thoughts to this question: how do we deal with everyday evil?

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Why This Play?: 

Half my life ago, I was a teenager on her first trip to Europe.  My English teachers took a group of students on a two-week literary tour of Ireland and the UK.  In many ways (e.g. my pop culture preferences), I’ve been trying for 17 years to chase the magic of that trip.  On the southern border of Scotland, I purchased a huge, pale pink, perfect cashmere sweater.  Ever since, it’s served as my personal security blanket, and is one of my prized (if battered) possessions.  It’s warm, filled with great memories, and always there when I need it.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is my literary equivalent of that sweater.  It’s the first Shakespeare I ever read, back in my dreamy, very bookish twelve-year-old days (eh, what's changed?).  The play that always makes me still kinda-sorta believe in fairies.  It’s the last play in which I performed…although hopefully that is not forever the case.  This is the play I read in the winter when I’m dreaming of warm days and long hikes in the woods.  It’s not necessarily my favorite in all of Shakespeare, but reading or seeing it is always like greeting an old friend.

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