"Because Shakespeare’s plays are so open-ended and adaptable, every production of a play has countless artistic decisions to make. ... Luhrmann’s Mercutio heightens the ambiguity of the character. By casting the movie’s only African-American for the role, Luhrmann’s production emphasizes Mercutio’s outsider status. Furthermore, Luhrmann stresses the homoeroticism lightly suggested within the text’s Queen Mab speech and Mercutio’s jealous concern for Romeo’s love-life, as the already feminine Mercutio dresses in drag for the costume ball."

Joel Short: "In Love with Shakespeare"

Introductory

[Course syllabus viewing assignment of one film or stage performance per week]

theatre/ film vocabulary --all-purpose handout for performance analysis

viewing journals on BBC and graduate student performances of The Winter's Tale.

Steven Marx's "Shakespeare in Love" page --produced in a moment of infatuation

Viewing assignments on course syllabus

Sample viewing report/paper

Elizabeth Brunner: "Disposing and Deposing: The Killing of Richard III" in three film productions [short paper/report]

Exerpts from viewing section of Final exam essay [Prompt]

Joel Short: "In Love with Shakespeare"

Heather McIntosh: "Waking Up from A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Brandon Beach: "The Northern Lights"

Michelle Berchthold: "From Playwright to Production: the Process of Recreating Shakespeare"

Class presentation on viewing live performance of Antony and Cleopatra.[prompt]

Film 1--start of class

Film 2--end of class

Each student reports on a scene from one film version of the play. The report contains film clips which are analyzed with techniques modelled by the instructor's early lectures and by the assigned film critiques.

Grad student comments on viewing:

Jennifer Schofield

Deanna Constable

Paula Huston

"Progeny,"-- Instructor's interpretive multimedia essay on "Prospero's Books," Peter Greenaway's film version of The Tempest. in Renaissance Forum