BardCast BookClub

Our new episode is about some Shakespeare books.


Kill All the Lawyers?: Shakespeare's Legal Appeal Narrow interest matter, but well written and some interesting sections

 Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human Full of opinions, some of them insightful, some of them outrageously unfounded. The book never actually explains what the "invention of the human" is, or how it happened.

 Shakespeare in Kabul A very good book about a story in Afghanistan that isn't about terror or war. Lots of good details about what went into this very unusual production of Love's Labours Lost.

 How Shakespeare Changed Everything Mostly wrong, occasionally interesting. Should have been titled What's the Minimum Word Count for a Book? or All this Shakespeare Research Must Be Worth Something!

Our next scheduled episode will be about Hamlet, but we may have a surprise episode before then!

The Taming of the Shrew

iTunes link doesn't seem to be working at the moment, but the episode is still available through this link. (Is there anyone out there who runs a server that could host these episodes? Our current solution may not be working.)

I think that Taming of the Shrew is changed by our modern perception of gender more than any other Shakespeare play.  When Petruchio says that his wife is his property, that seems shocking to us, but was a defensible position at the time.

We came down pretty hard against Taming on its anti-feminst position. We admit that you can play it in another way, but the text doesn't provide for a sarcastic interpretation.

Like I said in the episode, if you or someone you know needs a position filled, I'm available to take on a new job. Just send an email to bardjob at gmail.com

Make sure to vote on Hamlet or Coriolanus!

Shakespeare's Histories

Shakespeare's Histories are an odd category; they don't encompass all of the Shakespearean plays that are from historical events. I prefer to think of them as "Shakespeare's modern history", since they are events whose effects still mattered in Shakespeare's time.

Please Support the SHIELD Act

If you want to hear more of Tom's Shakespeare recordings, here's one to start off with!