h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok...
I'll stop complaining.
Do you believe Shakespeare wasn't the author of all his plays, as some people claim?
As if it was, for instance, Leonardo da Vinci or Bill Clinton or whoever? They say that it would have been impossible for him to produce the plays at such a high standard within the timeframe he did.
I, myself, say everything is possible, so I don't believe it, but do you guys?

Almost no one did it anyway, so we had to have the people who played Hermla and Helena play different characters for the fifth act, when H&H don't actually say anything, and replace them with cardboard cutouts, and we cut out at least one character (Egeus). See, we did this really weird thing where we acted out the first four acts in pantomime, and actually performed the fifth act the way it's supposed to be. So we could afford to cut a character out, seeing as we didn't have any lines that would have had to be changed.

Who's Christopher Marlowe?

I believe it.

Morning Troops. Well I say morning, afternoon now really isn't it? Amazing how time flies. 'specially when some git is setting off the fire alarms at 5.30am.

::Must dissertate. Unplug the internet cable. Do it. Do it now. Work. Scholarly study. Pick up the books. No, not just look at them. Pick them up. Now open them - Open them, I say!::

Sorry my stream of consciousness just escaped there for a second.

*waves* Hi, Clive! Have you met me yet? I don't recall if you have.

Morning?? It's 9:30pm over here!
These time zones are messing with my mind!!

It's 7:30 for me. *shrug* I don't bother paying attention to time zones. Usually.

Hello Esty and Coren, don't believe I've had the pleasure...

Time Zones, don't speak to me about times zones.... (diodes down my left side and all that.)

Supposedly Christopher Marlowe another well known playwright of the time, who was apparently killed in a pub brawl, wrote Shakespeares plays after his "death". Nobody can be sure whether he did actually die or not, and nobody can be sure if Shakespeare wrote the plays.
He had about 12 different spellings and ways of signing his name, and this was an illiterate scrawl.
His upbringing was not geared towards high education that is often displayed in the plays.

Yes you can tell I had to write an essay on this once.

It's 12:30pm here and a lurvely day

Yeesh.

Diodes? Huh?

Coren: Ah, our fine warlord. *deep bow with a sweeping flourish*

Sorry about those diodes, Clive.
It's just - looking out my window and seeing a sky full of stars and you coming in and saying "Mornin'" doesn't really sit well with my sense of proportion.
Don't worry about me - it's message board culture shock.
I'll get over it.

I do know when Shakespeare died he willed his "second best bed" to his wife.

Kinda makes yer speculate to whom he willed his "best bed"?

*snork* Anyone care to venture a guess on what I'm thinking? Oh, wait... No one in here knows me, so they wouldn't be able to guess...

Depending on the situation, kids as young as 8 or 9 have "performed" a little Shakespeare in school.


In my daughters' school, they have gifted programs (for enrichment - the kids still need to do all the regular work for their regular classes), and occasionally the gifted teacher will have the kids read a very abbreviated version of... I can't remember which play it was now, but it might have been Midsummer Night's Dream... just to introduce them to Shakespeare. I remember the teacher telling me that it had *all* the suggestive parts edited out, and it was only a couple small portions of the play because kids that age can't be expected to memorize all those lines.

At any rate, when they "performed" (and I use that word very, very loosely) the play, there was no acting involved at all (these kids were just too young). Although they were in costume, they just stood on the stage in a semi-circle and spoke their lines to each other. Not very inspiring, and yet they can claim that they *did* Shakespeare on stage at that age.

A group of kids maybe two years older did an abbreviated (highly edited) version of The Taming of the Shrew at the same performance, and they had props, acted, the whole bit. Certainly not professional caliber acting, but pretty good, especially considering their ages.

Fast forward to a group about 2 years older. This group performed Romeo and Juliet. Again, not the entire play, they needed to fit the rehearsals and set decorating into 1 hour a week! But this one amazed me, because I've never seen such a "natural" Juliet. Instead of playing it overly dramatic as we see it so often, she played it in a dreamy, almost sighing way, which seemed so much more appropriate.

My girlfiend is about 4000 miles and 5 hours away in *that* direction. Of time zones and lonley hearts, I know whereof I speak.

Wow! erm *writes will* I will my bets bed which is actually Nick's...to Nick...and my second best bed which is mine...to erm...Phoebe my dog

Ah... I get your drift. Hope she's back soon.

Hey, yeah - who did Shakespeare will his best bed to? Maybe he was buried in it?

I've played

Juliet
Macbeth (don't ask)
Katherina
Sebastian (again dont ask)
Various Midsummer characters

My best was Katherina as I really got to let rip and then oh it was brilliant!

Dunno. I think the will was strangely silent on that point.... s'why it stuck in my head as being rather amusing.

Then there was that whole "he died on his birthday" thing, which would make you think - what exactly was his age when he died? Because if he died on his birthday, would he have actually turned another year older or not?