Red Foreman was Bottom.

Kurtwood Smith. I'm trying to picture that, and not succeeding. I've seen him play any number of character types, but I don't think I've ever seen him do goofy before. Then again, I never would have pictured James Cagney in that role until I saw him in that movie version.

Boston does Shakespeare on the Common every year. Last year, they did The Taming of the Shrew, and although they had to cut it a lot to make it a comfortable length, they also played up the physical comedy and wordplay and it was delightful (while still being unbelieveably irritating in its final treatment of Katharine).

Turns out this year's is going on now! (Ending this weekend, in fact.) It's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I've seen done several times, and is definitely one that makes no sense unless you see it live/on film, because the comedy depends largely on confusion and stupidity. Which just isn't nearly as funny on the page.

Red Foreman was Bottom.

I would SOOO LOVE to see Kurtwood hamming it up as Bottom playing Pyramus. I think he'd be out-of-breath HI-larious.

Which just isn't nearly as funny on the page.

Yes this. Shakespeare's text contains no stage directions or out of character descriptions (things like that are coded in the dialog).

Reading the final scenes of Midsummer would be frustrating and unfunny, which is exactly the opposite of what they are.

I adore Shakespeare but can't stand Dream. Or most of the comedies, actually. My tolerance for mistaken-identity-woods-running-about is pretty low.

And this conversation reminds me that I need to reread Lear before I can watch S&A S3.

I found I had no problem reading Shakespeare once I read it aloud. After you read it aloud a couple of times, you get used to how it actually sounds, and you can play it in your head that way.

The ShakespeaRetold series of films that the BBC did (and were broadcast on BBCA) are pretty good. They're modern retellings of some of Shakespeare's plays--Much Ado in a regional morning talkshow (with Damian Lewis and Billie Piper), Macbeth in a restaurant, Midsummer Night's Dream in a theme wedding park, and (my favorite because it was so goofy) Taming of the Shrew in Parliament, with Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle from the HP films) and Rufus Sewell as Kate and Petruchio.

I adore Shakespeare but can't stand Dream. Or most of the comedies, actually. My tolerance for mistaken-identity-woods-running-about is pretty low.

I adore Dream, but will freely admit that the lovers are my least favorite bits of the play. But the rest of it is so much fun, I can't not love it. Particularly the Mechanicals and their horrible, horrible production of Pyramus and Thisbe.

After you read it aloud a couple of times, you get used to how it actually sounds, and you can play it in your head that way.

I can read it quietly, but I prefer aloud. Every now and then, S and I will just get on a tear about Shakespeare, and pull out her Big Book O' Bevington Shakespeare and just start reading great scenes aloud with each other.

This all reminds me, I've been meaning to pick up Richard III with Ian McKellen, on DVD soon. I do love that version, mostly because he's so deliciously evil.

I've enjoyed theatrical and movie versions of several Shakespeare plays over the years. Including the '30s moviie version of As You Like It starring Elisabeth Bergner and a young Laurence Olivier. The good versions are the most likely to treat the text as a play to be performed and not Shakespeare to be worshiped.

It also helps if you don't take things too seriously. One of my favorite versions was a Hamlet-as-'50s-TV-sitcom done at the Maryland Renaissance Faire one year. Gertrude stole the show by constantly announcing that she was going to "go into the kitchen and bake some cookies." Until she announced that she was going to "go into the kitchen and -- drink heavily."