Your favorite Shakespeare play

V

Victor

Senior Member
Location
midwest USA
What is your favorite play of Shakespeare?
And which play resembles your life, in general?
I'll start. 1. Julius Caesar, favorite. Never saw it performed though.
2. Loves Labour Lost. Guess why.
 

Victor said:
What is your favorite play of Shakespeare?
And which play resembles your life, in general?
I'll start. 1. Julius Caesar, favorite. Never saw it performed though.
2. Loves Labour Lost. Guess why.
Click to expand...
I saw Julius Caesar performed on stage when I was only 16 yo. It was our set Shakespeare for our senior year and I have always loved it.

I don't see my life in any of the plays but I have much sympathy for Cordelia in King Lear.
 

I don' have any to compare. I've only seen one way back in 68 or 69 when I was in college. It was kind of hard to follow because they talked real funny in it. I'm not sure which one it was. I think it might have been Othello. That's the one with the black dude in it, right?
 
Yuck! At one time I had to study two of them - As You Like It in high school and another one (that slips my mind at the moment) in college. I didn't find either to be worth the effort and I certainly wouldn't read/watch one now.
 
Romeo and Juliet
I was in an Off Off Broadway production of it. It ran from May 19th- June 14th 1978. I played Balthasar, Romeo's servant. I got to fence with Italian foils in the opening scene where the Montagues and Capulets are brawling in the street. I was also in the ballroom dance scene where the two young lovers meet.

It was my favorite of the 5 plays I was in. Loved it!
 
Gotta be honest. I have the complete works, but have never finished a single play. I struggle with the language and the cadence.

As a freshman in high school, we spent an entire semester on Romeo and Juliet. I passed the class, but man, that was brutal.
 
"Romeo and Juliet" centres on the tragic love and eventual deaths of two young lovers due to their families' feud. Shakespeare's language is different from the English we use today, it's still much closer to modern English than Old English.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a tragedy about a Danish prince grappling with grief, revenge and moral ambiguity after his father's death. His uncle, Claudius, murders his father, marries his mother, and ascends to the throne. Hamlet is tasked by his father's ghost to avenge the murder, but he delays action, feigning madness, and becoming increasingly consumed by his internal struggles. The play culminates in a series of deaths, including Hamlet's, highlighting themes of betrayal, revenge, and the corrupting influence of power.

Hamlet as a play is often quoted when someone, like a journalist, quotes a power hungry politician.
 
horseless carriage said:
"Romeo and Juliet" centres on the tragic love and eventual deaths of two young lovers due to their families' feud. Shakespeare's language is different from the English we use today, it's still much closer to modern English than Old English.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a tragedy about a Danish prince grappling with grief, revenge and moral ambiguity after his father's death. His uncle, Claudius, murders his father, marries his mother, and ascends to the throne. Hamlet is tasked by his father's ghost to avenge the murder, but he delays action, feigning madness, and becoming increasingly consumed by his internal struggles. The play culminates in a series of deaths, including Hamlet's, highlighting themes of betrayal, revenge, and the corrupting influence of power.

Hamlet as a play is often quoted when someone, like a journalist, quotes a power hungry politician.
Click to expand...
I read some place that Shakespeare himself, was the first actor to play the ghost of Hamlet's father. From what I read, he sometimes would play small roles in his own plays at the Globe Theater. Hamlet probably has more famous lines in it than any of the Bard's plays.
 
Paladin1950 said:
Romeo and Juliet
I was in an Off Off Broadway production of it. It ran from May 19th- June 14th 1978. I played Balthasar, Romeo's servant. I got to fence with Italian foils in the opening scene where the Montagues and Capulets are brawling in the street. I was also in the ballroom dance scene where the two young lovers meet.

It was my favorite of the 5 plays I was in. Loved it!
Click to expand...
Romeo and Juliet is my favourite ballet with Spartacus a close second. Great music in both of them as well as the spectacular choreography.
 
Dave03 said:
Gotta be honest. I have the complete works, but have never finished a single play. I struggle with the language and the cadence.

As a freshman in high school, we spent an entire semester on Romeo and Juliet. I passed the class, but man, that was brutal.
Click to expand...
I'm not surprised. That's a tough starting point. I studied 11 Shakespeare plays over 5 years of high school, beginning with much lighter plays like Midsummer Night's dream. We found the play within a play (Pyramus and Thisbe) to be hilarious.
 
One reason I like Julius Caesar is that it is easier for me to read and understand than others. I struggle with the language.
You can get copies of some plays with plain English on one side of pages.

"The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves"
 
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You might as well ask me whether I like quantum particles that spin counterclockwise, better than the clockwise. I don't have enough of that kind of culture to be worth asking.
 

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