Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
I will be honest with you here, and let you know that I barely remember this play. There were only a handful of Shakespeare’s plays that I made it out of school not having read, and this was one of them. I’ve been meaning to read it for years but never seemed to get around to it. Honestly, I wish I hadn’t read it, because at least there was a pleasing sense of mystery to it, with me wondering what it was about and only […]
If We Were Villains by M L Rio
Oliver is in his fourth and final year of his program at Dellecher Conservatory for the Fine Arts. He and his classmates have been studying Shakespeare together since day one at Dellecher, and they are all at their breaking point from the intense program and pressure of their coursework. There’s Richard, larger than life antagonist whose intensity is thrilling to watch on stage but terrifying to live next to. There’s Meredith, the sexy vixen that everyone wants to be or be with. Filippa, a woman […]
Absolute Friends by John Le Carré
Are Snakes Necessary? by Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman
The Jedi Doth Return (William Shakespeare's Star Wars) by Ian Doescher
I really wanted to write separate reviews of these but life is incredibly busy right now so this will have to suffice… Absolute Friends *** This is another review I’m glad I slept on. I really wish I liked it more than I did. The beginning was great: two friends making their way across the chasm of time and space in the post-WWII Cold War Europe. Idealism mixed with low class status, the desire to create a better world but lacking in power to do […]
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
There were things I liked about this book (the fashion! the sombre realities of colonialism!) but they were largely outweighed by clunky writing that’s simultaneously too verbose and too brief. Not to malign youth, but I upon reaching the author bio and seeing that Gong is currently a student at UPenn I definitely had a moment of “ah, yes, makes sense.” These Violent Delights is not, as I initially thought, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet in 1920s Shanghai. It’s obviously not not that (all the characters make an […]
Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell
This could very well end up as one of my favorites for 2021. O’Farrell’s novel imagines the death of William Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet and the grief the envelops the family as a result. I could not put this book down, it is so beautifully written and heart wrenching. While Shakespeare is a character in the novel (never named but obviously him), the main character is Agnes, his wife and mother to Hamnet, Hamnet’s twin Judith and Susannah. It is mainly through her eyes that […]
Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro
The 2016 election: we will eventually be far away from that time, but while we wait to heal we will continue to publish works – everything from tweets to films- about how it shaped our current situation. In 2017, the Delacorte Theater staged a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Central Park . Shakespeare had been done live in Central Park for years. Julius Caesar had been performed steadily around the world since it debuted in 1599. Caesar has taken on many depictions throughout the […]
