Well Veeky Forums, I have been tasked with producing a director's notebook of sorts and creating a theatrical concept for on of Shakespeare's plays. In your opinion what do you believe is his best work?
>Hard mode: Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, ect. are off the table
I'm looking for something that the average person knows little about. So Veeky Forums what do you think is Shakespeare's most undervalued play?
Tempest or Troilus and Cressida
rosenkrantz and guildenstern are dead
The Merchant of Venice is my favorite. Julius Caesar is also great.
Henry IV part two
>Trolius and Cressida
I'm considering choosing this one and am largely unfamiliar with it. What is it about this one you enjoy?
I'm looking for actual Shakespeare here, I plan to get into that at some point though
Henry IV (both parts) and Measure for Measure are easily at the equal of his great tragedies.
easily king john
it's Macbeth Richard iii and king near rolled into one
othello
maybe The Tempest, it's the only one with a plot he wrote himself. it's theatrically interesting as well because it maintains the Aristotelian unities of action, time and place (unusual for Shakespeare) and it blurs the lines between play and reality in interesting ways (e.g. Prospero's Epilogue)
his most complex and odd work that is also a greek set
I’ve always enjoyed Coriolanus but it isn’t a popular choice
Why's this one given such a bad wrap?
Richard III or Titus Andronicus
Anthony and Cleopatra was surprisingly based when I saw it, although having Patrick Stewart may have helped.
Richard II has GOAT-tier poetic language but is hampered by the fact that nothing much happens.
one guy made some snide comments about it and it got parroted
The bastard is the only interesting character
Why? The only thing I liked about it was that Shylock got screwed over by everyone throughout.
Shrew is underrated if even just for Kate and Petruccio's kissing moment right before the final scene. MoV is underrated because people focus too much on Shylock. As You Like It is underrated because you can't possibly overrate Rosalind and the solace she can offer any reading man in a relationship. Much Ado isn't entirely underrated, but Beatrice's line about "a man with a beard is not for me, and a man with no beard, I am not for him" is outstanding because it can easily be connected to Portia criticising Monsieur Le Bon for not knowing himself, and also cross-compared with Cressida and her unknown views upon hearing Diomedes is this jack of all trades--all this is relevant because Shakespeare himself is so obviously all of this: he is so obviously everyone. Like Pynchon most obviously showcased in V. What does this all-person do??? That part I don't know
The trial is GOAT. "The quality of mercy is not strain'd" is a top-tier monologue. Jewess redemption arc. And the whole thing is just comfy. I don't think it's Shakespeare's best by any means, it's just my favorite.
King Lear or Henry IV both parts
t. doesn't know how to read
you are ultimately not suppossed to sympathize with anyone in that play
every character is deplorable
You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
And here remain with your uncertainty!
Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts!
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders; till at length
Your ignorance, which finds not till it feels,
Making not reservation of yourselves,
Still your own foes, deliver you as most
Abated captives to some nation
That won you without blows! Despising,
For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a world elsewhere.
What publisher/version should one read when it comes to the Bard?
Ralph Fiennes delivers this exceptionally well in the most recent film version
Titus Andronicus for pure violence,
Coriolanus for political psychology
Never heard of this play yet it's really common in this thread, going to check it out real quick
Watch Titus after. Anthony Hopkins is great in it. Setting is interesting too, like a neo Roman republic setting. Think they went for the same angle with the adaptation of Coriolanus.