Help with Shakespeare trivia

[TV_time]

*Measure for Measure * has a brother/sister team. The brother urges his sister, a sister (nun), to have an affair to save his butt from the executioner.

*Comedy of Errors * has a brother/brother, brother/brother, sister/sister situation.

Of course, *Richard III *and the Scottish play have royal brothers in each.

In a rather perverse way my favorite love scene is from * Richard III*. Richard is loathed by the lady is question rightfully because he has murdered her husband. He tells her he going to seduce her and tell her how. He then goes about doing it.

[Chronos]

Groaner that has come up for me as a former working actor regarding Shakespeare is the idea that “Wherefore” means “Where” and not “Why”. It will drive experienced Shakespearian actors up a wall.

That one drives anyone with any respect for the English language up a wall. It isn’t limited to actors.

[maggenpye]

@TV_time

*Measure for Measure * has a brother/sister team. The brother urges his sister, a sister (nun), to have an affair to save his butt from the executioner.

Isabel is a nun from a very strict order - by choice…

The play ends with the sister getting a proposal from the Duke - usually played as a happy ending.

But the text ends with the proposal, not Isabel’s response.

A friend of mine was in a production where they played it as a forced marriage with Isabel knowing it was still the only way to save her brother (Lucio?). Would that fit the bill for Number 7?

[TV_time]

Another brother/sister pairing came to mind —Talk about trivial, this one accomplishes it. Titus Andronicus has a daughter Livinia (?) and a son Lucius (?) who technically take part in the play. I have never seen this play performed. I read it 40 years ago on a dare if I remember correctly and decided that Shakespeare was indeed capable of writing a bad play.

I have often thought that if Shakespeare were to be willing to give credit to someone for writing one of his plays it would be this play.

I can just see him being asked about it. “Oh yeah, he wrote this. I had nothing to do with it. Bacon, Spencer, Sir Walter Raleigh…, yeah, yeah it was one of them. I remember now. It was one of them.”

[postcards]

@FallenAngel

There is a debate about the superstition you might find interesting. Some say saying Macbeth aloud is only bad luck if done in a theater. Some say it’s never to be uttered except on stage during rehearsals and performances. The cure in both cases is to turn 3 times, spit and swear. If you say it in the theater itself you may also be required to run around the building three times, depending on the whim of your director.

@Oakminster

@FallenAngel

The cure in both cases is to turn 3 times, spit and swear. If you say it in the theater itself you may also be required to run around the building three times, depending on the whim of your director.

Director or senior member of Alpha Psi Omega present, in a college production. I took great joy in catching our director and another faculty member in such a faux pas, and insisted that the rituals be performed, which they did in good grace. No running around the building, but our local variation required them to leave the green room, knock on the door to request re-entry, promise never to repeat the transgression, spin 3 times, spit, swear, and again request permission to enter.

The swear chosen by both was “Pisspot”.

Backstage before a performance of Other People’s Money in 1995 I somehow let slip the actual name of the Scottish play. My director, who was also playing Garfinkle, sent me outside the dressing room to spin, curse, and request re-entry.

That night, the actor playing the factory owner, an older man known for his reliabilty, missed a cue for his entrance for the first time in years.

I should have run around the building.

[mbh]

@NAF1138

I think you could make the case that Regan and/or Goneril does the seducing of Edmund in Lear, but while those scenes can be made sexy a lot of what goes on between those characters really happens offstage. Frankly making Lear sexy at all requires a director who is willing to push things a bit.

I can recall seeing a production where the Regan and Edmund scene was piping hot.

Laurence Olivier’s 1983 TV version of King Lear. Diana Rigg played Regan.

@TV_time

Titus Andronicus has a daughter Livinia (?) and a son Lucius (?) who technically take part in the play. I have never seen this play performed. I read it 40 years ago on a dare if I remember correctly and decided that Shakespeare was indeed capable of writing a bad play.

I like Titus Andronicus. It’s Shakespeare’s chainsaw movie. Blood and gore, in iambic pentameter.