Reading and memes

[redbird]

There's this "how many of these hundred books have you read, and which of them did you love?" going around my friendslist. Looking at people's posts, I have to ask: have that many of you actually read Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, Cymbeline, and Titus Andronicus?

(I have seen Cymbeline on stage.)

Comments

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

All of them except for Titus. Somehow that one never made it into any of my Shakespeare courses...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's great fun, and has my all-time favorite quote in Shakespeare:

"You have undone our mother!"

"Villain, I have done thy mother."

(The context being that, well, the Empress has just delivered a son who is black, the second speaker being Aaron the Moor, the only black character around. . . )

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

Heh. The only Titus story I know revolves around the production in which the actress playing Lavinia dropped the stick with which she was supposedly scrawling the names of her attackers, post-mutilation in mid-scrawl. The audience held its breath...and the actor playing her father looked down, made a loud Tsk! noise, shook his head and said, 'Butterstumps...'

I suspect if I had done Shakespeare/revenge tragedy with my ex-Snoopervisor, Titus would have made the reading list as an example of just how insane revenge tragedy can get when it's allowed to. Right up there with 'The Revenger's Tragedy'.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the Chris Eccleston/Eddie Izzard "Revengers Tragedy" directed by Alex Cox?

'Cause that was just frickin' crazy awesome.

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

I've read the Revenger's Tragedy, but never seen a performance. I'd like to, though. Any play containing a character called 'Supervacuo' has to be worth seeing.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Try to track this one down. Chris Eccleston (Doctor Who #9) plays Vindici; Eddie Izzard is Lussurioso. The director, and guy behind the whole concept, is Alex Cox, the guy behind Repo Man and Sid and Nancy.

It's set in a post-holocaust Liverpool.

Have I convinced you yet that you MUST track a DVD of this down and watch it?

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

...nnnnot really. 'Fraid I'm not much of a fan of Christopher Eccleston, and I don't know a thing about the two films you mentioned.

Post-holocaust Liverpool sounds like an intriguing concept, though. I will consider it!

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD!

/me flees to DVD store

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

I was an usher for an entire run of The Revenger's Tragedy.

I've always been rather partial to Spurio's "Duke, thou didst do me wrong..." speech.

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

And you survived? Well done!