Nothing male or female but thinking makes it so?
To paraphrase Shakespeare's Hamlet: Is there nothing male or female but thinking makes it so? (Or when Hamlet spoke the original line to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "nothing good or bad," was he feigning, playing a role, pulling their chain?)
Although not the norm, there have been notable productions of Hamlet in the last two centuries in which the prince haas been played by an actress, Sarah Bernhardt's performance in a 1900 film adaptation being one of the more famous.
Some productions rotate actors through key parts; this was the case in the recent Guthrie production of King Lear in Minneapolis, where two excellent actors took turns playing the role of Lear.
A Great Lakes Theater production of Hamlet in Cleveland has one male actor and one female actor take turns with the role of the prince (not in the same show, but on different nights). . . .
After "The Mousetrap" play-within-the-play, Hamlet tells Polonius that a cloud looks like a camel, then a weasel, then a whale, and because Polonius is a boot-licker, he agrees each time.
Was Shakespeare a relativist? Should we take infinite liberties with his plays? Do more traditional Shakespeareans get too set in their ways, and so infinite liberties help break intellectual log-jams?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Links to a description of my book project:
On LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/eJGBtqV
On this blog: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html
[Originally posted around the week of 9/15/17
on LinkedIn]
To paraphrase Shakespeare's Hamlet: Is there nothing male or female but thinking makes it so? (Or when Hamlet spoke the original line to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "nothing good or bad," was he feigning, playing a role, pulling their chain?)
Although not the norm, there have been notable productions of Hamlet in the last two centuries in which the prince haas been played by an actress, Sarah Bernhardt's performance in a 1900 film adaptation being one of the more famous.
Some productions rotate actors through key parts; this was the case in the recent Guthrie production of King Lear in Minneapolis, where two excellent actors took turns playing the role of Lear.
A Great Lakes Theater production of Hamlet in Cleveland has one male actor and one female actor take turns with the role of the prince (not in the same show, but on different nights). . . .
After "The Mousetrap" play-within-the-play, Hamlet tells Polonius that a cloud looks like a camel, then a weasel, then a whale, and because Polonius is a boot-licker, he agrees each time.
Was Shakespeare a relativist? Should we take infinite liberties with his plays? Do more traditional Shakespeareans get too set in their ways, and so infinite liberties help break intellectual log-jams?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Links to a description of my book project:
On LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/eJGBtqV
On this blog: https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2017/05/hamlets-bible-my-book-project-im.html
[Originally posted around the week of 9/15/17
on LinkedIn]
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