Shakespeare

Were William Shakespeare, the most famous English writer, to reappear on the streets today, chances are no one would have a clue who he was. That's because, 400 years after his death, our impressions of what the Bard really looked like remain wedded to a few images created years after his death, in an outmoded style that makes it hard to even imagine the author of the great comedies and tragedies as a flesh-and-blood human being. So this week's unveiling, in London, of a hitherto unknown portrait of Shakespeare - painted during his lifetime, then squirreled away for centuries in the private collection of an aristocratic family who had no idea what they had - comes as a revelation.

If Bertram and Helena, the protagonists of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, had written personal ads, they might have gone something like this: His: Young French nobleman seeks lady of similar social status for permanent relationship - or, attractive young woman of lower status for a good time. (Please send picture.) All's Well That Ends Well runs through April 22 at St. Mary's Outreach Center, 3900 Roland Ave. Tickets are $15-$25. Call 410-366-8596.

In As You Like It, Shakespeare takes an amused look at how men and women behave when they're in love. The romantic comedy is being presented by the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company through July 8 at Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, alternating with Henry V. Shakespeare knew a plot was necessary, but he was more interested in the love stories he wanted to tell. For a framework, he used a common theatrical situation -- a duke is overthrown and banished by his jealous and power-hungry younger brother.

In the comedy The Front Page, members of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company will wear 1920s-style clothing, use telephones and typewriters and talk in fast-moving dialogue, but they say their work with Shakespeare's classical plays will come in handy. "In all of our shows, you've got to find the humor," said founding member Dan O'Brien, "especially in the tragedies." The play, which will be performed today through Feb. 25 at Howard County Arts Center in Ellicott City, shares other themes with Shakespeare, as well, said director and company founder Ian Gallanar.

Be a 4Kids DetectiveWhen you know the answers to these questions, go to http://www.4Kids.org/detectives/At MaMaMedia you can play Zap, Romp, Buzz and ... ... ... ... .When was Shakespeare born?Which of the stars at GreatKids invented Walker Pockets? (Go to http://www.mamamedia.com/ to find out.)To click or not to clickFrom Hamlet to Othello, and Julius Caesar to Romeo and Juliet, the genius of Shakespeare lives on at the theater, in books and at the movies. Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet is a comprehensive Web site, complete with online works, criticism and resources from the playwright's era. It's much ado about everything at http://daphne.

If you have never read a book about William Shakespeare, please read this one: "Shakespeare: A Life," by Park Honan (Oxford University Press, 450 pages, $39.95). It's an exceptional work about a man and his times and plays that are still as remarkable today as they were 400 years ago.As you may know -- assuming that you were paying attention in school -- Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564, the child of Roman Catholic parents, who became a Protestant. He went to schools in Warwickshire in a small-town environment.

Sykesville Middle School is inviting the community to circle the globe today without leaving town.Visitors to the Culture Cruisin' Festival in Cooper Park can shake hands with a mummy, charm a snake and dance around a Maypole. Pupils are offering tastes of international foods, strains of native music, snippets of Shakespeare -- all to give lessons in diversity.It started with the seventh-grade social studies teacher looking for innovative ways to research history, culture and geography."I didn't want to hear, `I gotta do a boring report on Sweden' from the kids," said teacher JoAnn Heller.

Closure? Hah!For his next number, Starr will . . .Don't just stand there complaining. Run for mayor. You.Best political judgment, Steven Spielberg; best English accent by an American, Gwyneth Paltrow; best remake of a remake, "Mask of Zorro;" most courageous risk, Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful;" best screenplay, William Shakespeare (alias "Tom Stoppard").Pub Date: 2/12/99

LADIES AND gentlemen, we have reached a crisis situation in our nation's movie theaters, and I am not talking about the fact that you can get gunned down in some of them or that nobody shuts up anymore or that there are so many cell phones and beepers going off you'd think it was the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.I am talking about the food.There was a time when you went to the movies and bought snacks such as popcorn, Jujubees, Milk Duds, Pom Poms and so on.These were nice foods.Quiet foods.

The average theatergoer probably knows two things about King John: 1) He was the obnoxious adolescent in James Goldman's "The Lion in Winter," and 2) He was Robin Hood's adversary. OK. Maybe a third thing: Shakespeare wrote a play about him.But that play is hardly ever produced. In fact, the current production at the Shakespeare Theatre is its Washington debut.However, far from proving a moth-ridden relic, director Michael Kahn's production has no trouble grabbing and holding an audience's attention.

Were William Shakespeare, the most famous English writer, to reappear on the streets today, chances are no one would have a clue who he was. That's because, 400 years after his death, our impressions of what the Bard really looked like remain wedded to a few images created years after his death, in an outmoded style that makes it hard to even imagine the author of the great comedies and tragedies as a flesh-and-blood human being. So this week's unveiling, in London, of a hitherto unknown portrait of Shakespeare - painted during his lifetime, then squirreled away for centuries in the private collection of an aristocratic family who had no idea what they had - comes as a revelation.

In a year that saw a woman get remarkably close to a presidential nomination and a realistic chance at reaching the White House, it may be harder than usual to swallow the notion, expressed in the closing moments of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, that the female sex shouldn't "seek for rule, supremacy and sway, when they are bound to serve, love and obey." But there has long been a way to deal with viewpoints in this play that now give offense to our gender-respecting souls - rev up the farcical side.

An ancient Roman playwright named Plautus had a great idea for a comedy: A pair of twins are separated as infants. One twin, now grown, travels to a place where, unknown to him, he has a brother. Complications arise when the two are mistaken for one another. Many centuries later, the idea still seemed funny to Shakespeare, so he borrowed it for a play of his own. To "make assurance double sure," as Macbeth once said, he created another pair of twins, also separated at a young age and now working as servants to the first pair.

School is almost out and that means one thing: It's time for summer reading lists. But this year, students who dread the idea of plodding through Shakespearean verse to learn the tales of star-crossed lovers and ruthless rulers can take heart. Wiley Publishers, famous (or infamous) for its Cliffs Notes study guides, has come out with Shakespeare in manga. So far, Haml et, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth are available in the graphic novel style spawned in Japan and given full flower in the U.K. and U.S. Rated for ages 13 and older and priced at a mere $9.99, these abridged versions of the best-known plays in the English language are now vividly depicted in classic action-packed manga style: a kind of Saturday morning cartoon version of Shakespeare.

Ian Gallanar has spent his career trying to make the theater a more exciting experience for a wide array of audiences. More than a decade ago he conceived, wrote and directed Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego Live!, one of about a dozen plays he's written for kids. With help from the truthful nature of children, he says those plays have taught him what an audience really wants in a performance. As artistic director of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, he will put this knowledge to good use on Friday by leading the cast of The Comedy of Errors into its first performance of the summer.

The Winter's Tale may be the only work by the Bard that focuses on the travails and hard-won joys of an enduring marriage. In more than a dozen other plays, from Romeo and Juliet to Measure for Measure, Shakespeare brilliantly examines the dynamics of erotic longing. But only in this work does he explore the frozen silences that can afflict a long relationship, the arguments as unwinnable as they are bitter. When the hostilities die down and love returns, it can seem more miraculous than the first flush of passion.

Robert Eugene Williams Jr., a retired Baltimore Civil Defense worker, died of cancer Thursday at his Stoneleigh home. He was 81. Mr. Williams was born and raised in Waverly and was a 1944 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. After serving in the Navy near the end of World War II, he went to work for the city water department before enrolling at Washington College. In 1947, he went to work as an engineering officer for the city's Civil Defense Disaster Control Board. He retired in 1990.

Shakespeare treated with respect, love Shakespeare is serious business, or so it seems to Everyman Theatre. The troupe has waited 17 years for its maiden fling with the Bard, and the jitters only show a little in the company's lively, often moving Much Ado About Nothing. Most of the rough patches come right out of the gate, with director Vincent M. Lancisi's cast acting at full volume and making the language seem like heavy lifting. Luckily, the large company soon eases into the warm Mediterranean setting and the pointed badinage, especially when Deborah Hazlett's appealing, unusually wise Beatrice starts aiming barbs at Jim Jack's Benedick.

The lowdown -- Dive into the unknown as Theatre Project presents Hystery of Heat and Spoleum, two plays about death and the fear of dying, tonight-Nov. 17. Hystery of Heat is structured as a lecture and covers the topics of heat, death, love and dance. Spoleum, a one-act play, is about memory and the architecture of Venice. If you go -- This double bill will be performed at 8 p.m. tonight-Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Theatre Project is at 45 W. Preston St. Tickets are $20 general admission, $15 for seniors and $10 for students.

Yesterday, William Shakespeare slipped into Jessup's Patuxent Institution. The Bard made his way through the security gate, then traveled down several long halls of the red-brick, maximum-security prison, before stepping inside the cinderblock walls of a gym that would serve as a temporary Globe Theatre. One of his most notorious characters trudged in behind him: Macbeth. Patuxent inmates and their guests spent yesterday afternoon watching the schemes of the ambitious, murderous Scottish lord -- many for the first time -- as performed by the Ellicott City-based Chesapeake Shakespeare Company.