Well-known Shakespeare characters such as King Lear and Hamlet suffer (or appear to suffer) from madness — and early American psychiatrists took note. Observations drawn from literature began to bleed into courtroom testimony regarding insanity pleas. “From the mid-1840s through about the mid-1860s in the United States, during the first generation of American psychiatry, no… Continue Reading »
Posts Tagged: Hamlet
Shakespeare’s plays are full of references to food and cookery, but they’re not always very appetizing. In Hamlet, the ghost of elder Hamlet describes the effect of the poison that Claudius pours into his ears, how it winds its way through the veins of his body and suddenly “doth posset / And curd, like eager… Continue Reading »
“Write what you know” is the age-old wisdom young writers are always given, and though he never wrote a backstage comedy (or, for that matter, a backstage history, tragedy, or romance), William Shakespeare filled his plays with the tricks of his theatrical trade. I’m not talking about the theater techniques any playwright uses to tell… Continue Reading »
Maybe ’twas ever thus, but the current crop of cultural programming in the theatre and on film and television is awash with prequels and sequels to existing stories and characters, providing audiences with comforting continuations of familiar narratives and critics with opportunities to decry the dearth of original ideas. So it seems only right to… Continue Reading »
In many ways Simba resembles Prince Hal more than Hamlet, in that he’s also a headstrong prince who disobeys his father but ultimately learns to accept responsibility and claim his throne.
John Barrymore is sometimes passed over in the lists of great Shakespeare actors, but he was an important transitional figure in our understanding of the evolution of Shakespearean performance styles, writes Austin Tichenor.
In this Folger bas-relief, sculptor John Gregory shows Hamlet facing the sources of his torment: his father’s murder and his mother’s betrayal.
Every month, we call up our Shakespeare theater partners to see what they have onstage. Find out what’s on across the US in February.
Austin Tichenor suggests that “Twelfth Night” is the “Hamlet” of the comedies, dealing with loss, separation, and death and using some surprisingly similar elements — but in a far happier way.
Jonathan Croall writes about Frances de la Tour’s 1979 performance as Hamlet, the first woman to do so on the English stage since Sarah Bernhardt.
