There is an upstart Crow, beautiful in our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in the country. Oh, that I might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Exit, pursued by a bear
This is my favourite stage direction in Shakespeare - perhaps the best ever because it doesn't give the producer any help at all. It's from The Winter's Tale, one of Bill's stranger, most dream-like and proverbial plays, written near the end of his career - packed with deeply subversive musings on justice, blood and love. It's drawn from a Robert Greene novella, which is a bit cheeky, given that Greene had this to say about our hero many years earlier:
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5 comments:
I think a more interesting direction would be Exit, pursed by a bare.....
Trust you. OK, the floor's open to all readers: a bare what?
No no no. The bard's best stage direction is from Titus Andronicus: "Enter Lavinia, hands chopped off, tongue cut out, and ravished." Get a laugh out of that if you can.
What about from Pericles: "Enter three fishermen"? Fail to get a laugh from that one if you can.
All rolling in the aisles stuff. I love TA.
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