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They are particularly excited because the actor playing King Lear was also in Spiderman II.
It occurs to me that because a lot of Shakespeare's work involves kings, his own status is boosted by the status of his subject matter and it may be warping people's opinion of his work.
Quote from: cheryl j on 21/05/2014 13:14:06They are particularly excited because the actor playing King Lear was also in Spiderman II. Jim Lovell was recently honoured by the Guild of Air Pilots http://www.airpilots.org/file/1222/citations.pdf. A journalist member of the Guild tried to interest an editor to cover the story. "Never heard of Lovell...." "Astronaut. Captain of Apollo 13. Tom Hanks played him in the film." "Ah, now if you can get an interview with Tom Hanks...."How sad. Quote from: David Cooper on 21/05/2014 19:48:38It occurs to me that because a lot of Shakespeare's work involves kings, his own status is boosted by the status of his subject matter and it may be warping people's opinion of his work.An interesting observation. Not entirely true, though. Surely his best-loved and most-copied work is Romeo and Juliet (often criticised as being "just a load of quotations"!) with no kings, and it's pretty hard to write a historical play without mentioning a king or emperor because they were by definition the military leaders and political achievers of history - non-executive royalty was invented after Shakespeare's death. But there's another interesting aspect: modern British films and TV plays are about misery and failure (East Enders, Coronation Street...) whilst Hollywood (Dynasty, The A team..) is all about success, happiness and redemption. So you may be viewing Shakespeare through fashionable low-budget-tinted glasses!
Quote from: cheryl j on 21/05/2014 13:14:06They are particularly excited because the actor playing King Lear was also in Spiderman II. Jim Lovell was recently honoured by the Guild of Air Pilots http://www.airpilots.org/file/1222/citations.pdf. A journalist member of the Guild tried to interest an editor to cover the story. "Never heard of Lovell...." "Astronaut. Captain of Apollo 13. Tom Hanks played him in the film." "Ah, now if you can get an interview with Tom Hanks...."How sad.
And there's absolutely no better illustration of what theater and acting is supposed to be than seeing an actor playing a role where you barely recognize him from what he did before.
Well, the assumption is that Kings have more interesting lives - for the same reasons that people today read tabloids or watch reality tv about celebrities.
Not to give away the punch line, but true happyness wasn't found among royalty.