There's a pleasing symmetry to the fact that the Bard opened his career with "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and closed it , so far as we know, with "The Two Noble Kinsmen". In this last episode of "Shakespeare Unbard", Joel discusses Shakespeare's last known work and leaves you with some parting thoughts.
Read MoreJust as King Lear isn't about King Lear and Julius Caesar isn't about Julius Caesar, Henry VIII isn't about Henry VIII. Its central figures are Wolsey and Katharine, each of whom emerge as the protagonists in what amounts to an uneven historical epic.
Read MoreBeloved among Shakespeare fans, The Tempest holds a regal place in the canon, mostly because of the popular belief that Prospero is a stand-in for the Bard himself. In Episode 36, Joel discusses the last play Shakespeare wrote by himself.
Read MoreMixing history, comedy, and tragedy, Cymbeline is a grab-bag, the equivalent of a Shakespearian mix-tape. There's no way around it: Cymbeline is Shakespeare's craziest play, a wild theatrical experiment that mashes so many different genres, plots, and styles that it's astonishing the thing makes any sense.
Read More"A sad tale's best for winter" asserts Mamillius, the doomed prince of Bohemia, and rarely has a Shakespearian character summarized his own story so well. His words are proved true as we watch The Winter's Tale, a bittersweet bit of theatre that is one of the most unique Shakespeare ever devised.
Read MoreThere's no record of the Coriolanus being performed before 1682 and even after that the play remained unpopular. It's only recently that the play finally appears to be achieving some of the recognition it deserves. In this episode, Joel discusses this complex play that should be more popular than it is.
Read MoreMost likely written with a collaborator, Pericles: Prince of Tyre is a dramatic hodegepodge, a mash-up of myth and fairy tales that has the distinction of being one of the few complete dramatic failures in the canon. In this episode, Joel examines the dramatic question of whether Pericles can - or should - ever be staged.
Read MoreEndlessly bewildering, Antony and Cleopatra is, much like Cleopatra herself, a thing of "infinite variety". It leaps around in genre, as if Shakespeare couldn't quite make up his mind. In this episode of Shakespeare Unbard, Joel takes a look at this complex play.
Read MoreGrowing up in the theatre, you learn pretty quickly that it's bad luck to say the name of The Scottish Play while in a theatre, a superstition even agnostics take seriously. None of this has affected the success of this play, which remains one of Shakespeare's most famed, most popular, and most often performed. It's not hard to guess why. There's witches, ghosts, murder, a prophecy, famous speeches, and lots and lots of blood. In Episode 30, Joel discusses this complex and fascinating play.
Read MoreAny discussion of Timon of Athens has to come with a pair of caveats: first, it was most likely written with someone else and, second, the earliest known production happened more than fifty years after Shakespeare's death. Both facts seem equally important when considering this a play that wants to be either a tragedy or a satire and ends up being neither. In Episode 29, Joel examines this timely, yet problematic play.
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