02/12/2009
Twitter of the Shrew
A decade ago, the Shakespearish were excited beyond belief about VR:
(1) VRML Dream, a "panoramic" Midsummer Night's Dream;
(2) a VR Globe;
(3) another VR Globe;
(4) another (more recent) VR Globe;
... and so on and so forth.
Today, it's TWITTER.
There have indeed been Twitter panels at academic conferences.
On Valentine's Day, "tune in" for Twitter of the Shrew, a twelve-day-long Twitter-based performance of The Taming of the Shrew (a scene a day) done with 19 Twitter accounts. They'll be "condensing the play’s iambic pentameter dialogue down to updates of 140 characters or less."
And in May, they're doing Hamlet.
19:19 Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this | Tags: twitter, taming of the shrew, new media?
Comments
I would love to read your reviews of Akira Kurosawa's two adaptations of Shakespeare: "Ran" (King Learn) and "Throne of Blood" (MacBeth).
Posted by: tdaxp | 02/12/2009
tdaxp,
I haven't seen these films in a few years, so I'd have to re-screen them to write a detailed review. (And I will be re-screening them since I'm currently in the process of designing a course about Shakespearean re-imaginings through various cultures and decades.) These two films work so well, I think, because they're not typical Shakespeare adaptations (1) concerned with -- by either desiring or rejecting -- "faithfulness" and (2) assuming that the entire "past" was Victorian.
There seems to be a tendency (::clears throat::Branagh::clears throat::) to imagine that a 'proper' British society a la 1830 is appropriate to Shakespeare's plays, and I think Kurosawa's work, in presenting us with a warrior culture, reminds us that this is not the case. One can only wish Kurosawa had taken on a history play or two ... a Richard or Henry would lend itself well to this warrior motif ...
Posted by: PrimroseRoad | 02/13/2009
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