Something Shakespeare This Way Comes – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Has the shrew been tamed or was the taming just the friendswe made along the way?

I am back with the third and final episode looking at TheTaming of the Shrew! And, phew, it’s been quite a ride.

In this episode, I’ll be discussing contemporary reactionsto The Taming of the Shrew, performances of the play across time, and my final take on the play now that I’ve finished reading way too much about it.

When we build out the context surrounding a work of art,that allows us to think about it more deeply and consider the merits or problems with the text we didn’t consider the first time around. It’s a worthwhile exercise, even if you end up still disliking something after doing additional reading.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

Enjoy me taking every last opportunity to diss Petruchio!Next time I’ll talk about something else. Promise.

Further Reading and Watching

⁠⁠The Taming of the Shrew⁠⁠ by William Shakespeare, specially the Arden Shakespeare

The Woman’s Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed by John Fletcher

⁠Shakespeare and feminist performance: ideology on stage⁠ by Sarah Werner

"I Will Be Master of What Is Mine Own": Fortune Hunters and Shrews in Early Modern London by Eleanor Hubbard

The Tamer as Shrewd in John Fletcher's "The Woman's Prize: Or, The Tamer Tam'd" by Holly A. Crocker

"The Taming of the Shrew" with Morgan Freeman⁠, episode of Shakespeare Uncovered from PBS

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠⁠Halie Branson⁠⁠

Music recording by ⁠⁠josdvg

Hello boys, I’m back!

The long-awaited 10 Things I Hate About You episode is here. Please enjoy listening to me and my brother probably defend this movie too hard. Honestly, for being a late ‘90s romcom, it’s doing a pretty good job of being a Shakespeare adaptation. And has the added advantage of being put against a Shakespeare play that is…more problematic than many of his other comedies.

While we are open to other people’s interpretations of thisfilm, we here at Something Shakespeare This Way Comes will not be allowing any Kat slander at this time. Thank you.

Warning: This episode has a higher swearing content than most episodes of this podcast (I was too tired to censor them). So please be aware that there will be some four-letter words flung about!

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

Happy long weekend surprise episode drop! We are having fun this time with various tales of Shakespeare lore that I've stumbled across in my reading over the last year of doing the show but haven't included because most of these stories have been judged to be dubious in some way.

But just because something isn't true doesn't mean it isn't also a fun story or bit of gossip. And honestly who isn't interested in a story who shows off Shakespeare as maybe a bit of a saucy fellow?

When it comes to Shakespeare as with many other famous figures from hundreds of years ago, sometimes it can be hard to distinguish fact from fiction and you have to consider a whole series of factors before you can place a story in the "probably true" or "probably not true" column. In the case of a couple of these stories, I'm willing to be swayed!

Enjoy some Shakespeare myths, as a little treat.

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

We’re back with more Ben Jonson! This episode we consider Jonson’s works, his plays for public and private theater, his poetry, and his relationship with the court.

When it comes to how he conducted his career, was also look at the how he differed from Shakespeare. Not as a point of judgement, but just to give us a more complete picture about what men did with their writing and how this (ironically) makes it more unfair to try to compare them.

Ultimately, knowing more about Jonson helps us know more about the sixteenth and seventeenth century stage, and that can only be a good thing. Plus, it’s always fun to run across a new Jonson quip.

Further Reading

Ben Jonson: A Life by Ian Donaldson

The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson by Richard Harp

The Complete Critical Guide to Ben Jonson by James Loxley

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

Hi, everyone! Things got a little away from me this week, what with a national election demanding all my attention and energy, so I'm bringing back an old episode.

In this episode, I talk about the Shakespeare we had to read in high school, what those plays were, and some thoughts about why that is.

Whether you loved or hated the Shakespeare unit in high school, you probably had to suffer through at least one play. (And, it was probably Romeo and Juliet!)

How do you feel about Shakespeare now? Have you tried reading or watching a play since high school? Or were you scarred by that unit, turned away, and never looked back?

Welcome back, gentle listeners, to season 2 and the long-awaited discussion of Ben Jonson! Shakespeare’s colleague, friend, maybe sometimes frenemy, it’s up to us to decide. But definitely someone who knew him and admired (perhaps somewhat begrudgingly) his work.

After diving into the world of biography and various survey and companion type books, I now have a more complete picture of Ben Jonson the guy, and am delighted to inform everything that there is the same amount of nerdy minutia to dive into as there for Shakespeare.

In this episode, we’ll talk about Ben Jonson’s life, what we know about him and why we know it, what we don’t know about him, and how we can look at him in relation to Shakespeare. Having more context on the time and people is always a helpful exercise when you want to understand history better and might I suggest that we stop writing Shakespeare biographies and maybe start reading about his fellow playwrights too?

Next time, I’ll be looking at Jonson’s works, his relationship to the theater, why he kept getting in trouble with the censors, and how he’s the same (or not) as Shakespeare.

It’s good to be back, friends!

Further Reading

Ben Jonson: A Life by Ian Donaldson

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

What’s it like to go to the theater to see Shakespeare but then see a play about his works instead of seeing one of his works? Pretty rad, actually! In this episode, I’m covering The Book of Will, a play by Lauren Gunderson about the efforts behind the printing of the First Folio.

The First Folio is one of the most revered books in the English language and often has this air of grandeur about it that makes it feel unreal. Is it the untouchable work of a complete genius and we can only grovel at its feet?

Not exactly. The First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays was the result of years of effort from his friends to get them compiled, edited, typeset and printed. Once you started reading into the publication of the book, you start to learn all these fun quirks about it and the errors it contains that make it very human.

Gunderson’s play largely captures the human element of the story, what Henry Condell and John Heminges went through to get the First Folio printed and why they wanted to do it in the first place. It’s an accessible story that holds Shakespeare’s words in high esteem without asking you to be intimately familiar with all his works.

This is the last short episode before we start the next season in two weeks! Can’t wait to get into it.

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

Are you interested in an early 90s indie film that has some Shakespearean elements and has also become a queer cult classic? Let’s all just assume the answer is yes here.

In this episode, I revisit the 1991 film My Own Private Idaho, which some people claim is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays, and that’s true…ish.

If you decide to watch because of the Shakespearean elements, then stay for an interesting story performed movingly by a young River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.

We’ll get a little into the plot of the movie, how it involves Shakespeare and how much the Shakespeare bits even count. Then we’ll consider the emotional core of both the Henry plays and this movie.

Season two is drawing closer! One more short to go before kicking off with full-length episodes again.

Further watching

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

Ghostlight is an indie film that at first blush seems to be dealing with some pretty well-worn tropes: we have a family dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic event and has the lead character develops his emotional intelligence through the power of theater.

Sound like a bunch of other movies? It does, but this film is a testament to the fact that if you do a familiar trope well, the result can still end up being impactful.

This movie exercises drama and humor while also approaching Romeo and Juliet in a fresh new way. While Romeo and Juliet itself can feel overdone, especially if your exploring the first stirrings of young love, Ghostlight offers a new perspective not often explored.

Thanks to my guest, Amanda Bain-Wysocki, for bringing this movie to my attention, seeing it with me, and then discussing it with me! I’m guessing that you probably haven’t heard of this small little indie film, but I’d recommend checking it out if you’re of the Shakespearean persuasion. (And even if you’re not, there’s still something you can get from the film.)

This is the first of three shorts before the start of season 2 in October!

Further watching and listening

Ghostlight (2024)

Drive My Car (2021) – Not related to Shakespeare but also worth watchingEpisode 8: Romeo + Juliet (1996) with guest Amanda Bain-Wysocki

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

Welcome to the end of season 1 and our year in review!

In this episode, I reflect a little on the year I just had, how I got the podcast started and chose a title, the topics I’ve covered, any new opinions or insight I have and a look into my most (and least) popular episodes.

We close out with some pretty awesome questions asked by all of you! Just stumbled across this episode and didn’t get a chance to submit your question beforehand? Reach out anyway! I’ll get it answered in a future episode.

Thanks to everyone who has joined me in the first year. We’ve had some fun. Here’s to year two!

Further listening

Might I suggest any of my previous episodes?

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠