Another year of Shakespeare has drawn to a close. This week on Broadway the curtain came down on the hit show Something Rotten! whose song “I Hate Shakespeare” offered the closest thing to a respite from the past year’s tempest of fulsome tributes. Those weary of the much ado can take heart: the next anniversary Read More
Caliban inspires Klingon makeover
“You have never experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.” At least that’s what Klingon chancellor Gorkon tells Spock in The Undiscovered Country, the last installment of the original Star Trek film series. Like self-serious English majors, Klingons quote the Earth-poet Shakespeare more than any other author—yes, sometimes even in their Read More
Three Hamlets film series
The Harvard Film Archive and Houghton Library are partnering to screen three critically acclaimed adaptations of Shakespeare’s most enduring play, beginning with Laurence Olivier’s 1948 classic on Monday, March 21 at 7pm. Join curators Dale Stinchcomb and Peter Accardo for a free pre-show tour of the exhibition, Shakespeare: His Collected Works at 6pm in Houghton Read More
Full freedom, not an inferior brand
The centerpiece of Houghton’s current exhibition, Shakespeare: His Collected Works, is a life-size poster from the 1943 Broadway production of Othello starring Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson was the son of an escaped slave who became his generation’s most outspoken defender of civil liberties. A graduate of Rutgers and Columbia Law School, he was a distinguished athlete, Read More