September 3, 2009
MACBETH
Written by Shakespeare
Edited by David Bevington and David Scott Kastan
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
—The Witches, page 5, Act 1, Scene 1
Fun Facts
- In the theater world, there is a myth that the play is cursed and some people will not mention its name aloud, referring to it instead as “The Scottish play”.
- Macbeth is the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedies leading some to speculate that the modern day version was altered quite a bit from the original.
- Written in the early reign of James I, the Scottish setting is seen as Shakespeare paying homage to his patron.
September 25, 2009
FOUR GREAT PLAYS
Written by Henrik Ibsen
“Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. (Getting up.) Torvald—it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children—.”
—Page 80, A Doll’s House
Fun Facts
- Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts was first performed at the Independent Theatre Society, a theater without censorship. Other playwrights in the society included George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James.
- Ibsen’s plays of realism were controversial and often deemed to be too radical for nineteenth century playgoers.
- Ibsen believed that Emperor and Galilean (1873) was his most important work, though his other plays like A Doll’s House and The Wild Duck were far more acclaimed pieces.
