The production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] by Carl Canwell, Scott William Ray and L. Kelly Reed at La Sierra University was entertaining. I attended a Sunday’s performance on October 26. The three actors who were also the director did an amazing job of presenting the play by interacting and keeping the audience laughing throughout the entire play. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] was all about Shakespeare play. In the beginning of the play, as Kelly Reed introduced him, he gave a speech about how unappreciated William Shakespeare is, and how people nowadays take his work for granted. Therefore, the play conveyed different lessons that we, as a society can learn from Shakespeare’s …show more content…
The actors used a cooking show to narrate the parody of Titus Andronicus, a rap song to talk about Othello, and an American football game with commentaries to present the histories, from Henry IV to Richard III. The meaning of the text was communicated well through words, actions, and symbols because it was all related to their speech. Their hand movements, gesture, actions and facial expression showed that verbal words were not always necessary because many times a non-verbal message express more than verbal messages. As I watched the play, there were some scenes that hit me such as, losing the one we love, or finding out that we were betrayed. The audience was able to relate to those scenes even though the actors were making the play entertaining. The text was nonrealistic comparing to the original play, but it was not a big issue since their intention was to make Shakespeare’s play more modern. It was a presentational play, because actors had more than one role throughout the production. The three actors switched ages and gender in every scene and the play was performed with a limited amount of costumes and props. Most of the time, they used the same props to express different things. The structure of the text was some combination
Muir, Kenneth. Shakespeare: the Comedies: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1965. Print.
... About You_.” Shakespeare Bulletin: A Journal of Performance Criticism and Scholarship 22.2 (2004): 45-66. Expanded Academic ASAP. Westfield State College Library, MA. 15 April 2005. 15 April 2005.
To conclude, reading the plays of Shakespeare is not only about an entertainment, there is more about learning manhood and the importance of the role that morality plays in everyday life. That is the reason of Shakespeare’s plays are so popular because through his work, he illustrates that: life is a play, which is performed on the earth stage, and his world stage will continue influences the past, modern and further.
King Lear is often regarded as one of Shakespeare’s finest pieces of literature. One reason this is true is because Shakespeare singlehandedly shows the reader what the human condition looks like as the play unfolds. Shakespeare lets the reader watch this develop in Lear’s own decisions and search for the purpose of life while unable to escape his solitude and ultimately his own death. Examining the philosophies Shakespeare embeds into the language and actions of King Lear allows the reader a better understanding of the play and why the play is important to life today.
By using just the right combination of words, or by coming up with just the right image, Shakespeare wrote many passages and entire plays that were so powerful, moving, tragic, comedic, and romantic that many are still being memorized and performed today, almost four centuries later. But the greatness of Shakespeare’s ability lies not so much in the basic themes of his works but in the creativity he used to write these stories of love, power, greed, discrimination, hatred, and tragedy.
Stephen Greenblatt et al. The Norton Shakespeare Company. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997.
Clark, W. G. and Wright, W. Aldis , ed. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol. 1. New York: Nelson-Doubleday
Levin, Harry. General Introduction. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.
Evans, G. Blakemore. Ed. The Riverside Shakespeare. by William Shakespeare. 1552- 1616. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974.
Shakespeare’s plays are a product of the Elizabethan theatrical context in which they were first performed. A lot of pressure was put on Shakespeare as he wrote his plays because he was not allowed to upset the royal family. His style would have been different than others in those times and a lot more thought has gone into his writing than people listening would think. Usually, the audience take for granted the cleverness and thought of Shakespeare’s writing, however, now we have studied and gone into great detail about Shakespeare’s writing, we can appreciate it more than they did:
Dartmouth, n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2014. Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare in the theatre: an anthology of criticism.
Across the Universe of Time: Shakespeare’s influence on 21st century society. It is harder to imagine a more universal writer than William Shakespeare. Rarely, if ever, is one of his many plays not being performed anywhere in the world and similarly rare is the tertiary English student who has not examined his work at length. His plays, sonnets and poems are common fodder for high school English departments across the globe.
Barton, Anne. Introduction to Twelfth Night. The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. 403-407.
Levin, Harry. General Introduction. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974.
Literature is an art form, it is entertainment, history, and a medium of self-expression. There is something magical about the creative power that is within literature. With words alone, literature illustrates the rise of nations, the fall of tyranny, the power of true love, and the tragedy of unescapable fate. When discussing timeless literature, it is almost impossible to not bring up the works of William Shakespeare. However, while some are enthusiastic about discussing Shakespeare, many can’t help but sigh. Some find his work outdated, his language cumbersome, and question: for what purpose is society so fixated on his work? Despite complaints from a few contemporary readers, Shakespeare’s work exhibits quality and thoughtfulness that is