much ado about nothing. william shakespeare. (114)

much ado about nothing is right.  i should have listened to the title, there is much ado in this play but it's all for nothing.

i was looking forward to reading "much ado" because the flavorpill team, well maybe just the writer of that post, cited it as their favorite shakespeare play.  but then it turned out to be much ado about nothing.

so the plot is quite simple but also pointless and sadly the result of a bitter man, don john, who hates his brother, don pedro and is jealous of claudio.  actually i found this amazing reviewer on goodreads that does abridged version of shakespeare plays.  i will link it here.  hilarious, right?  but seriously that is all there is to the play.  a bunch of pointless deceit and lies and in the end, everyone is in love and there is a double wedding!  and seriously the whole mask wearing at the wedding? i know it makes everything come full circle but it was so silly.

i think the issue i had was that there was too much dialogue and so many character, it was difficult to keep everything straight.  plus everyone was way too witty, i consider myself quick-witted, but given that the play is over 400 year old, most of that wit went over my head.  i mean i didn't even bother with the banter between the watch, it just didn't seem worth the effort to read sparknotes to understand jokes that probably would not make me laugh.

i did enjoy the exchanges between beatrice and benedick.  i even had a crush in my early twenties that started off like theirs.  a co-worker and i used to always tease each other in a non-flirty way, and our other co-workers started to question if we liked each other.  i actually hadn't thought of him in that manner until everyone started to say things and then oddly enough a crush did develop. and  no we did not end up married.

and i know as a girl, i should have been a huge fan of beatrice but i didn't fall in love with her.  i loved how sharp-tongued she was and gave it to benedick.  but after a while i got tired of her oh-i-don't-want-to-be-married-but-secretly-do. maybe her bemoaning of never bemoaning about marriage, just hit too close to home for me.  i mean she said something that i would totally say esp after attending my friend mona's wedding:

"this goes everyone to the world [of marriage] but i, and i am sunburnt. i may sit in a corner as cry "heigh-ho for a husband."

spot on me, down to the idea thinking tanned me is ugly.  lol.  i know she is this great shakespeare female character but she didn't wow me.  i think if i saw her in action aka in play and not on paper, i would have adored her.  i think an actress needed to add the sass needed her to be read.  my mind just read and didn't act.

i don't want to have much more to ado with this play so will wrap up with some random final thoughts:

-wow! way to go friar! for seeing the truth in hero's soul!  and coming up with that plan! so clever.  

-how was margaret not fired for getting it on in hero's bedroom?!?!

-seriously were identities that well hidden at the party?

-why was everyone willing to trust don john?  and what was his problem?!?!

-did anyone find it awkward how willing claudio was so quick to marry hero's lookalike cousin?!?

-also does the phrase "catch my drift" have shakespearen origins? don pedro said "go in with me, and i will tell you my drift." (his drift is the plan to get beatrice and benedick together)

maybe i am have been too harsh, i think "much ado about nothing" needs to be experience as it was intended as a play versus a book.  so i will see it before i make a final judgement.  also there is a movie version coming out or maybe it out so will try to see it.  and one last random fact, keanu reeves played in don john in a 90's film version.  imagine that!

macbeth. william shakespeare.

(this play is in complication so that is where there is no book cover.)

since next weekend i will be seeing the play "sleep no more" in nyc, i decided i should probably read the shakespeare play that it is based on, so i can know what is going on.  i should add "sleep no more" has no dialogue and the audience wears masks (yes if you saw that "law and order" episode, it's like that, well minus the rape) do that was part of the reason as well.

before i go on i have to admit what a horrible drama student i was.  the drama teacher at delano high school was obsessed with shakespeare and that was all he ever directed.  due to thid, i was in a production of "macbeth", as a chorus member.  it was for a festival at chapman, which i did just to go on a field trip.  and though i was in it, all i remember was the witches' "double double" and lady macbeth's (played by my friend kaley) "out damn spot" and "unsex me now" lines.  and even though i sat through a handful of practice and performances, i had no idea what the play was about until i read it.  and even than i needed sparknotes.com to help me understand it completely.

i consider myself an intelligent person but shakespeare is so beyond me!  i would read a couple of acts then consult sparknotes.com to make sure i understood what was going on.  most of the time i did but i did miss that whole forest moving prediction and then it's actual happening.

but back to the play, it was really dark.  so much death!  and lady macbeth!  talk about malicious!!! though in the end she did commit suicide due to the guilt so she wasn't a complete sociopath, demonstrating she was capable of remorse. but she was quite frightening at the beginning with her murder plots and talk of dashing the brains of a suckling infant.  that part was manically cruel, who has thoughts like that?!?!  even her talk of killing duncan herself was insane.  and she did have the best lines "unsex me now" a demand to lose her femininity so she can destroy life.  though since shakespearen time, women have proven that they are just as capable of murder as men.

i also enjoyed the plot twist at the end when macduff revealed that he was not born but take from the womb early.  interesting! what a surprise! and then macduff presented macbeth's head at the end.  there was a lot of gory scenes in this and then add in the witches and banquo's ghost roaming around, though i haven't read anything else, it's pretty dark for shakespeare right?  and seriously what a bad move on macbeth's end for killing the chamberlains, it was really odd when he announced that.

oh and way to go shakespeare for his grand tradition of perverted scenes, so random to have the porter talking about whiskey dick.  but i guess something to keep the mood light.

and of course so many great lines that influenced others:

"by the prickling of my thumb,

something wicked this way come":  ray bradbury

"life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

and then is heard no more.  it is a tale

told by an idiot, full of sound and fury , 

signifying nothing.":  faulkner

"weird sisters.":  j.k. rowlings

"methought i heard a voice cry 'sleep no more! macbeth does murther sleep.'":  the play i am going to see.

so excited for the play and glad i will have a better understanding of it.  oh and i will make sure not to say "macbeth" in the theater as warned by friend ferlay.  i will use "the scottish play" to avoid dying or having an accident.

romeo and juliet. william shakespeare. (57)

again flavorpill's "30 before 30" list is the motivation behind another book. shakespeare's "much ado about nothing" is on list but the description explains:

We expect that by the time you’re 30 you’ll have read several Shakespeare plays — we recommend one per year at least, starting at age 12 — but this one is our favorite.

i sadly realized that i have never read a complete shakespeare play. "romeo and juliet" was assigned my freshman year, and i only read 3/4 of it. we were assigned "othello" my senior year which i never read though i do remember this hilarious satire we created about race and sexual orientation for a class assignment.

however what makes my relationship with shakespeare even sadder is the fact that our drama teacher was a shakespeare fanatic and i was cast as a member of the chorus for at least 2 plays . . . and still have never read a play.

so i decided to redeem myself and read them all (hopefully before 30). so i decided to start with "romeo and juliet" because it's where my relations with shakespeare should have started 15 years ago.

the funny thing while reading it, images from the 1968 movie (with a young michael york. swoon) and the lurhmann version (no swoon for leo, i have never found him sexy) were both in my head. though 68 beat out leo and claire, in the end.

finally reading shakespeare and not relying upon cliffnotes. i learned:

a. tybalt and mercutio were cousins to the prince (missed that my freshman year and sadly didn't realize it while watching endless rehearsal of my high school's production of it.)
b. consummating marriages was a top priority back then.
c. shakespeare sure did love his sexual innuendoes. (the nurse's jokes about juliet being on her back?!?!)
c. he sure knew how to write about love:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

or

How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.

i also appreciated (though not about love):

True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy

one reason that i never gave shakespeare a chance was, i could not follow his flow (i know, this makes him sound like kanye) but now that i am older, his words make more sense. or maybe i am just paying attention for the first time. nonetheless, i look forward to reading the rest of his works.

ps i would also just like to add though i may not have paid attention to our high school production of "romeo and juliet" like i should have. i did create a magic moment in the play. i suggested that our drama teacher play the foo fighters' "doll" as juliet drinks the poison. in my own humble opinion it was beautiful.

perfect huh?