theater
-
The History of Literature #449 — Method Acting and “Bad Hamlet” (with Isaac Butler)
We all talk about actors who use the Method, but do we really understand what that means? And how exactly has the Method changed the way we take in drama? In this episode, Jacke talks to theater expert Isaac Butler about his book The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act. And in a special Continue reading
-
The History of Literature #375 – The Power of Literature | PLUS Reading Boswell’s Life of Johnson (with Margot Livesey)
Jacke had big plans to make this episode all about the poetry of William Butler Yeats…and then listener feedback to the last episode overtook him. So instead of lazing about on the Lake Isle of Innisfree, he returns to the subject of Sophocles and the power of literature, as introduced in the conversation with Bryan Continue reading
-
The History of Literature #374 – Ancient Plays and Contemporary Theater – A New Version of Sophocles’ Oedipus Trilogy (with Bryan Doerries)
As the Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions, Bryan Doerries has joined his colleagues in using dramatic readings and community conversations to confront topics such as combat-related psychological injury, end-of-life care, radicalized violence, incarceration, gun violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, the refugee crisis, and addiction. In this episode, he joins Jacke to talk about his new Continue reading
-
History of Literature #84 – The Trials of Oscar Wilde
In February of 1895, the playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) continued an astonishing run of theatrical success with the opening of his artistic masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest. Three months later, he was imprisoned on charges of “gross indecency.” In this special St. Patrick’s Day episode, host Jacke Wilson takes a look at the career of Oscar Continue reading
-
History of Literature #70 – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Just after World War II, the poet and critic W.H. Auden said that Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (ca. 1959) is “of great relevance to our time, though it is gloomier, because it is about a society that is doomed. We are not doomed, but in such immense danger that the relevance is great. [Rome] was a society Continue reading
-
History of Literature #53 – Romeo and Juliet
In 1964, the Oxford professor John Barrington Wain wrote: “…Romeo and Juliet is as perfectly achieved as anything in Shakespeare’s work. It is a flawless little jewel of a play. It has the clear, bright colours, the blend of freshness and formality, of an illuminated manuscript.” First produced in 1594, The Tragedy of Romeo and Continue reading
-
Swordfighting Without Civility
Think swordfighting is two people faced off, lightly tapping each others’ blades, highly choreographed – En garde SHING, SHING, ching ching ching ching ching ching ching, oh, I say, you got me, but ’tis a flesh wound… Right? A hundred taps, side to side, side to side, then maybe one thrust if a character is Continue reading
Jacke Wilson 