The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

 

Title:  The Comedy of Errors

Author:  William Shakespeare and Samantha Newman

Narrated by:  Mark Meadows

Publisher: Arcturus Digital

Length: Approximately 41 minutes

Source: Checked out through Hoopla through the Kewaunee Public Library

 

Title:  The Comedy of Errors

Author:  William Shakespeare

Narrated by:  Various Readers

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Length: Approximately 1 hour and 27 minutes

Source: Checked out through Hoopla through the Kewaunee Public Library

What is your favorite Shakespeare Play?

Two of my favorite Shakespeare plays are Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing.  I took Shakespeare in both high school and college, but it has been a while since I have read a Shakespeare play.  My Back to the Classic Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library decided to read The Comedy of Errors for our May pick.

The Comedy of Errors is a short play full for slapstick comedy.  Two sets of twins are separated by a raging storm with one parent tying themselves, their son, and their servant’s son to two different masts and the two masts being separated.  Now Antipholus of Syracuse has been searching for his brother and mother with his servant, Dromio of Syracuse.  When they arrive in Ephesus, much hilarity ensues due to mistaken identities.  Antipholus of Ephesus is a settled and respected merchant and has a servant named Dromio of Ephesus.  How will these identities be sorted out?

One of my book club members recommended an audiobook version that is adapted by Samantha Newman and is Part 1 of the Shakespeare’s Tales Retold for Children series.  This was an entertaining version that was great for really understanding the plot.  I also listened to the actual play from Blackstone audiobook that had a variety of readers and sound effects.  I like listening to Shakespeare and the beauty of the language.  I also checked out a copy of “No Fear” Shakespeare version of The Comedy of Errors from the library as well.  It was very interesting in that it showed a page of the original Shakespeare text and then the other page would be it translated into modern day English.

Overall, A Comedy of Errors is a good Shakespeare play to start with as it is short and simple, but it is not my favorite play.

The Shakespeare Secret by D.J. Nix (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Was Shakespeare a woman?  Author D.J. Nix’s son pitched the idea to him and he then read Elizabeth Winkler’s article in the June 2019 edition of The Atlantic, “Was Shakespeare a Woman?”  This inspired D.J. Nix into writing a compelling story.

Three women in Elizabethan England share a secret – they are the true authors of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays.  Mary Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke is a frustrated poet who has suffered a loss.  Emelia Bassano is a court musician and mistress to the Lord Chamberlain.  Jane Daggett is a seamstress for the Queen’s men’s players and invents stories of her own.  As one of the Queen’s spies (Robert Cecil) zeroes in on them, they hire an actor named Will Shakespeare to be their “face.”  Will they be discovered?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I’ve been down and out without my computer for the past couple of weeks, so I am sadly behind on reviews.  Now that my computer is repaired, I will work on getting caught up.

·       The Shakespeare Secret has short engaging chapters and was a fast-paced historical fiction read.

·       Robert Cecil thinks the three ladies are plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth.  How do they get out of this accusation?

·       I really loved the Elizabethan time period and setting.

·       This novel made me want to read Shakespeare.  I took a Shakespeare class in high school and in college, but it has been a while.  We have a play slotted for next year for my Back to the Classics Book club.  I am looking forward to it.

·       I loved the strong women characters during this perilous time in history.

·       It was fun to read the process of them writing the plays, such as Taming of the Shrew.  I can get behind the reimagining of a terrible play and making it into a better story.  It sounds like fun.

Overall, The Shakespeare Secret by D.J. Nix was a great historical suspense novel with a feminist twist.

Book Source: Thank-you to @david.nix.author @alcovepress @austenprose for a review copy of this novel as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Title: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Author: William Shakespeare

Read by: Full Cast Recording

Publisher: Naxos Audio

Length: Approximately 2 hours and 18 minutes

Source: From the Kewaunee Public Library through the Overdrive System

Shakespeare was meant to be read aloud.  Even when I took Shakespeare classes in high school and college, I would read the plays out loud to myself.  As plays, they are meant to be spoken word.  That is why I always enjoy audiobook productions of Shakespeare’s plays.

This production was wonderful.  They had a full cast play all the parts and they acted them with their all.  I especially love hearing this play spoken with British accents.  I also loved the classical music that was played between scenes of the play in this audiobook.  It was very fitting with the play and enjoyable.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s comedies.  Theseus, Duke of Athens is marrying Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons in a wooded area that is also inhabited by Fairy folk.  As events unfold, various couples are caught up in various misunderstandings and hilarity ensues.

I love that this play focuses on both love and on comedy.  Nick Bottom and Puck are two of my favorite comedy characters in any of Shakespeare’s plays and they both appear in this play.  I also love how misunderstandings form a lot of the comedy in a Shakespeare play.  In this play there is a love potion that causes a lot of misunderstandings.  I also love plays within a play.  This one has a play that is so terribly performed that everyone thinks it is a comedy which is quite hilarious.  The bad acting comes through in the audiobook version of this play within a play.

I saw a wonderful outdoor production way back in 2000 put on by the American Player’s Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  It was an outdoor theatre and the play was magical.  I was in Wisconsin with my best friend Jenn visiting her Aunt and Uncle in Madison, a couple of years before I moved to Wisconsin.  It was so nice of her Aunt and Uncle to take us to this production – and it is something that I will never forget.  Seeing Shakespeare on stage is always wonderful, but this production was especially wonderful as the setting was the woods and having the actual play outdoors fit so well.  The audiobook version of this play is fantastic – but seeing the actual production, even better.

I revisited A Midsummer Night’s as part of the Facebook Literary Classics group for May readings.

Favorite Quotes

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

“And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”

Overall, A Midsummer’s Night Dream is a wonderful class comic play and audiobook.

Richard III by William Shakespeare

Title: Richard III
Author: William Shakespeare
Read by:  The Folger Theatre – The Folger Shakespeare Library Full Cast Recording
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 3 hours (3 CDs)
Source:  Review Copy from Simon & Schuster – Thanks!

I have never read or watched Richard III by William Shakespeare, but I love to read historical fiction set in this time period.  I was very happy to have the opportunity to review this audiobook.

Richard III is the full cast full length dramatic reading of the Shakespeare play.  This makes it very entertaining with each part read by a different actor complete with sound effects and music between each scene. What I discovered while listening to this audiobook is that Shakespeare painted a very dark picture of Richard III.  He is a Machiavellian character that works his way through the play to complete evil.  Shakespeare also condenses the timeline greatly.  Years pass by very quickly from Edward IV’s reign, death, Richard’s marriage, rise, and end all in a three hour play.

I read about this time period frequently so I understood most of the action although this was my first experience with the play.  I think the perfect experience with this audiobook would be to listen to it while actually reading through a Shakespeare play.  This type of audiobook would have been so helpful while in high school or college Shakespeare classes.

Overall, I enjoyed listening to Richard III.  It was a great audiobook production.  I found myself interested by the play, but it was not one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.  I think the problem for me is that I am such a great fan of the time period.  I think that Shakespeare painted Richard III was a one dimensional character that was only evil, and failed to capture the true nuances of whether Richard III was good or evil.  It was more an exaggeration of the real historical figure.

I loved hearing my two favorite quotes in this play:

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Title: Julius Caesar
Author: William Shakespeare
Read by:  The Folger Theatre – The Folger Shakespeare Library Full Cast Recording
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 2 hours (2 CDs)
Source:  Review Copy from Simon & Schuster – Thanks!

Julius Caesar is a Shakespeare play that managed to surprise me by not being about Julius Caesar’s life, but rather his assassination at the hands of his friends and fellow politicians.  I somehow missed this play in high school and college Shakespeare classes, but enjoyed listening to it on my drive to and from work.  

Caesar’s friends and colleagues feel that he has become too powerful and decide to assassinate him.  Caesar receives warnings from both a soothsayer and his own wife to “Beware the Ides of March” but goes to the Senate and his death.  This assassination scene is easily the best in the play, especially Caesar’s final words when he sees his friend Brutus among the assassins, “Et tu, Bruté?”

After his assassination, the conspirators say they did it for Rome and Brutus gives a great speech.  But Mark Antony turns the tide with his famous speech,

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.”

There is a final battle at the end and many suicides.  This audiobook version was wonderful to listen to with a full cast performing the play, great sound effects, and music.  I enjoyed listening to it.  I did have a hard time at times following who was speaking as I was unfamiliar with the play.  I think it would work great to listen to this while reading the play.  Overall this is a great production of a great play.