Category: Macbeth

Posted on in Abraham Lincoln, Assassination of Lincoln, Battle of Lumphanan, Battle of Pitgaveny, Battle of Pitgaveny near Elgin, Duncan I, Dunsinane Hill, Folger Artist Fellow, Folger Library, Folger Theater, Inverness, James I, James VI of Scotland, John Wilks Booth, King, Politics, and Revenue, Lady Macbeth, lifestyle, literature, Macbeth, Macduff, Macduff's Son, Malcolm, Malcolm Canmore, Malcolm Canmore (later Malcolm III), son of Duncan I, Matilda Edith, Real Macbeth, royal castle at Forres, Scottish Kings, Shakespeare, Shakespeare Canon, Shakespeare Plays, That Scottish Play

The Real Macbeth:

Shakespeare’s Greatest Con Job?

So many theater lovers and English majors banter the name Macbeth. Murderer. Usurper. Tyrant. The ambitious thane manipulated by his evil wife into regicide and madness. We think we know the story. Do we?

Let’s unpack this myth and discover the deception.

Jame I of England / James VI of Scotland

Shakespeare was not writing history when he penned Macbeth around 1606. He was writing for his job security. The playwright understood his audience with surgical precision, and his most important audience member had just ascended the English throne three years prior. James VI of Scotland had become James I of England in 1603. Shakespeare needed the new royal patronage. The new Scottish king needed legitimacy on English soil.

The Match Made in Theatrical Heaven

DUNCAN I
MACBETH

The Historical Macbeth

Mac Bethad mac Findlaích ruled Scotland from 1040 to 1057. That was seventeen years of stable rule in medieval Scotland. This was unheard of in the Scotland of the 1000’s where kings were routinely murdered, deposed, or challenged. Tyrants did not last seventeen years.

The historical Duncan I bears no resemblance to Shakespeare’s wise, elderly, benevolent king. The real Duncan I was young, weak, and foolishly aggressive. He invaded Macbeth’s territory of Moray in 1040. Macbeth slew him in the of Battle of Pitgaveny near Elgin. Warrior to warrior – an honorable death between combatants rather than the stabbing of an elderly sleeping guest in his bedchamber.

Macbeth possessed legitimate claim to the Scottish throne through his wife, Gruoch, granddaughter of King Kenneth III. Under the tanistry system of Scottish succession, Macbeth’s claim stood as valid as Duncan’s. Arguably stronger.

During his reign, Macbeth made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1050 to meet with the Pope – a pilgrimage possible only by a secure monarch. Chroniclers of the period recorded that he “scattered money like seed to the poor.” A guilt-ridden, paranoid murderer does not leave his kingdom for months to distribute charity abroad. Only a secure, prosperous, pious king would do so at the time.

The real Macbeth wore regal clothes. Shakespeare stripped them off and dressed him in villain’s rags.

Why the Lies?

Follow the money. Follow the power. This is how we uncover truth in any century.

James I needed several things when he took the English throne. He needed legitimacy, as a Scottish king ruling England was hardly popular with English subjects. He needed cultural acceptance. He craved flattery of his royal lineage. And he demanded entertainment that reinforced his divine right to rule.

Shakespeare delivered all of it with the precision of a master.

By making Duncan righteous and murdered, James’s ancestor became the martyred good king whose death must be avenged. By making Macbeth the evil usurper, anyone who would challenge rightful succession became damned by association. By making Banquo noble and prophesied to father a line of kings, Shakespeare flattered James’s other claimed ancestor as the hero whose bloodline fulfilled destiny. By adding witches and supernatural elements, the playwright appealed directly to James’s obsession with witchcraft. The king had written Daemonologie and fancied himself an expert on the subject. And by showing divine punishment for regicide, Shakespeare reinforced James’s claim to rule by divine right.

This was not art. This was propaganda dressed in iambic pentameter. Magnificent propaganda, certainly. Effective beyond measure. Propaganda, nonetheless.

The Matilda Connection

The bloodlines become truly fascinating when we examine how Scottish royal heritage eventually claimed the English throne.

After Macbeth’s death in 1057, Malcolm III assumed the Scottish crown. This is the “Malcolm” who defeats Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play, the son who avenges his father Duncan’s death. Malcolm married Margaret of Wessex, an Anglo-Saxon princess who fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest of England.

Their daughter, Edith of Scotland, was born around 1080. When Edith married King Henry I of England in 1100, she changed her name to Matilda. The name sounded more Norman, more acceptable, less conspicuously Scottish to English ears.

This Matilda, born Edith, became the crucial bridge between kingdoms. Through her, Duncan’s blood flowed into the English monarchy via Malcolm III. Through her mother Margaret, descended from Alfred the Great, Anglo-Saxon royal blood joined the mixture. Matilda became the convergence point of Scottish and English royal heritage.

Matilda’s daughter, Empress Matilda, fought for England’s throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. Her descendants became the Plantagenet kings who ruled England for centuries. The bloodline continued its steady march through history.

When Elizabeth I died childless in 1603, James VI of Scotland possessed the strongest claim to the English throne precisely because of these bloodlines. They traced back through the centuries, through Matilda the name-changer, through Margaret of Wessex the refugee princess, through Malcolm III the avenger, through Duncan the historical king Shakespeare would later slander.

James was not merely some Scottish king seizing an English throne. He represented the convergence of Scottish, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman royal blood meeting in one person. His legitimacy ran deep, and he knew it. He needed others to know it as well.

Shakespeare ensured they did.

A Small Digression

The Shakespeare 2020 Project founded by author, Ian Doescher, had a complete syllabus and timeframe for reading. I read and listened fast and thoroughly, then dug deep into historical relevance. I often listened to the plays while walking my dogs along the magnificent trails of parks and paths in my area. When I arrived at my ‘magiclands’ to find them closed due to the dread virus, I ushered the dogs back into their seats in my car and drove non-stop to a closer park. Furious, I decided that NOW was the time to hear Macbeth! Hear it, I did! We walked for the entire reading. When I returned to my book – I read it in its entirety with the readings still ringing in my ears. Yet, the play was enough. It did not send me on a single rabbit trail. I was too mesmerized by the psychological depth to worry about historical veracity. Until now, that it. Why? Nothing terribly intellectual – a short YouTube video addressing the very topic. I was hooked and the rabbit trail led me to rooms and rooms of pre-1000’s Scottish, English, and Norman history to the assertion of the throne by Macbeth.

What happened to King Macbeth? He was killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by Malcolm Canmore (later Malcolm III), son of Duncan I.

Why has Macbeth been an ill-fated play – sets fell, and actors died then theatrically referred to as simply “that Scottish Play?” Marginalizing and demonizing a past king? Lincoln quoted lines from Macbeth, “Out, out brief candle…” following the fall of Richmond on April 9, 1865. On April 15, 1865, SIX days later, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth who had played the title role in Boston two years earlier. Exactly who assassinated Lincoln? Booth or Macbeth?  Where is Macbeth’s reach?

Perhaps we should view all historical narratives with a skeptical eye. Whether from 1606 or from 2025, those who write the story control what becomes truth. Those who flatter power shape how the past is remembered.

The Lesson

I love Shakespeare for his poetry, his psychological insight, his timeless exploration of ambition, guilt, and the human condition. He was a genius wordsmith. In reality – he was a businessman, a survivor, a man who understood power and how to serve it while appearing to entertain.

Macbeth is splendid theater. The poetry soars across centuries. Lady Macbeth’s guilt, the dagger speech, “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” are extraordinary achievements in dramatic writing. The play deserves its place in the canon.

History? Not close.

The real Macbeth deserves better than four centuries of slander. He ruled well. He ruled long. He had legitimate claim to his throne. He was pious enough to pilgrimage to Rome and generous enough to scatter money to the poor. History should remember him as he was, not as Shakespeare portrayed him.

Politicians make promises. Playwrights craft myths. The winner writes history. The powerful control narratives.

Whether the emperor wears clothes or stands naked before us depends entirely on who holds the pen.

I like to see for myself.

JAMES 1
THE WEIRD SISTERS

Artist Fellow Elise Ansel's interpretation of Macbeth's witches
Posted on in All's Well That Ends Well, art, Beethoven, Boydell Gallery, Boydell Revisted, Cymbeline, DC Art, DC Theater, Falstaff, Folger Artist Fellow, Folger Library, Henry V, Imagining Shakespeare: Mythmaking and Storytelling in the Regency Era, King Lear, lifestyle, Macbeth, Mythmaking and Storytelling, Old Masters, Regency Era, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare Folger Library, Shakespeare Regency Art, Taming of the Shrew

When Shakespeare Meets Canvas:

From Old Masters to Modern Mavericks

Excerpt from Image No. 6. Romeo and Juliet. Act 5. Scene 3. Painted by Mr. Northcote, R.A.

Before the play, Julius X, started I spent the early evening viewing the latest Folger Shakespeare Library exhibition, Imagining Shakespeare: Mythmaking and Storytelling in the Regency Era. I realized that different artists perceive the same Shakespeare scenes in wildly different facets. At the entrance to the exhibit, I was greeted by Henry Fuseli’s witches from 1793, complete with dramatic robes and theatrical setting, juxtaposed with Artist Fellow Elise Ansel’s 2024 abstract interpretation of that same scene, where the witches dissolve into swirling brushstrokes of orange, white, and red against deep black.

Same story. Different worlds.

The Boydell Collection: Shakespeare as Blockbuster

Walking past modernism, I was greeted with Regency Era historical heavyweights. The fourteen canvases now hanging at the Folger come from the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery—the 18th century’s attempt at a Shakespeare cinematic universe. John Boydell and his nephew Josiah opened this fashionable London gallery in 1789, amassing 173 paintings (almost half of them life-size) by 35 different artists. Think of it as the Metropolitan Museum meets a Shakespeare theme park.

Only about one third of these paintings survive today. The Folger has the largest remaining collection. When seen together for the first time since 1805, one realizes that these were not simply illustrations. They were storytelling on a grand scale.

The artists read like a who’s who of British painting: Robert Smirke (32 paintings), William Hamilton, Richard Westall, Francis Wheatley, George Romney, James Northcote, and Julius Ibbetson. Each brought their own style to Shakespeare’s words, sharing a common vision: make the drama leap off the page and into visual space.

When Witches Get a Modern Makeover

Artist Fellows “…tease out the threads connecting the early modern world to our lives today.” Above, Henry Fuseli’s Macbeth Consulting the Vision of the Armed Head (1793) has been reinterpreted by Artist Fellow, Elise Ansel with color, light, and shape.

Fast-forward to today where Folger Artist Fellow Elise Ansel takes on the same Macbeth witches that Fuseli painted in 1793. Instead of recognizable figures in a dark landscape, she renders visual energy—what she calls “graceful, wavelike brushstrokes, echoed in watts of gold.”

In her piece The Nature of Witches, abstract shapes suggest bodies without defining them. In Untying the Winds, the witches become more elemental—muted swirls that might “untie” the winds from Macbeth. The gray brushstrokes feel darker, more aggressive, as if the painting itself embodies the storm building in the play.

Where Fuseli’s witches are frightening and haggish (as Shakespeare wrote them), Ansel transforms them into something more ambiguous. They are powerful, fluid, almost beautiful in their danger.

What Makes Old Master Paintings “Old Master?”

I noticed, as noted, when standing in front of the Boydell paintings that they were created by men for men. That is not a value judgment. This was the art world of the early 19th C. The subjects, the perspectives, the portrayal of women reflected a specific and limited viewpoint.

In her contemporary pieces, Ansel deliberately disrupts the male thesis. By using color and abstraction in what she calls “open-ended visual languages,” she creates “new ways of looking and engaging for modern viewers.” She is not replacing the original stories. She is showing us different angles, different emotional temperatures.

Like hearing a jazz musician interpret a classical piece, the original composition remains; suddenly revealing notes and rhythms never before noticed. One such piece: Beethoven’s Für Elise as updated and performed by jazz pianist, Chick Corea in 1993.

Looking at the Paintings

The Folger stays true to the original Boydell Shakespeare Gallery tradition by providing visitors free booklets listing each painting denoted with a number. Further in the booklet, the paintings are described by play title, act and scene, a description of the scene’s events, the artist’s name, and excerpts from the play’s text.

In the gallery, I was on my own to view, search and interpret. Without immediate instructional labels, the exhibition affords space for interpretation while the booklet affords greater depth, if desired. Standing before the massive canvas of the awakening woman in white, I felt the folly of the deception and ignorance of the friar. When you look, you can recognize your feelings and reactions to the play. Having deep-seated conflict about that play, I first saw deception then agony. What you see will depend on your attitude.

Digging further into the context of the paintings, I opened the booklet to learn about the artist, the play, and the scene. Who painted this? When? What was happening in their world? How did knowing that painting No.10 was from King Lear affect my view? I did not need the booklet to tell me. I also did not need the booklet for painting No. 8. However, painting No.1 could have been any one of Shakespeare’s female characters dressed in men’s clothing. Painting No. 14 is not a play scene; it is a semi-deification of the Bard himself.

From British Imperialism to You

There is truth embedded in these beautiful paintings. By the time the Boydell Gallery closed in 1805, Shakespeare had become “The Bard.” He was no longer a brilliant playwright, but “a larger-than-life symbol of British imperialism and economic power.” These paintings were not simply representational art. They were essentially cultural propaganda.

Two hundred twenty years later, we appreciate the artistry while acknowledging the intent. Shakespeare’s words have always been interpreted through the lens of whoever is doing the looking—whether that is a Royal Academy painter in 1790 or a contemporary Artist Fellow in 2025.

The Contemporary Conversation Continues

The Folger’s Artist Fellowship program ensures that this conversation does not stop with historical canvases. Current Fellows like Elise Ansel join Missy Dunaway, Dominick Porras, Mandy Cano Villalobos, and Alexander D’Agostino create art works “…grounded in research on the stories, art, and objects in our collection,” per the introductory statement.

These artists are not merely making art about Shakespeare. They are using the collection as a springboard to explore how art and literature shape each other; how visual language can expand or challenge written words, how what we see influences what we think we know.

Come See for Yourself

These are not paintings you can experience on a screen. You should stand before them and feel their scale, see the brushwork up close, and notice details that disappear in photographs: how light plays across Ansel’s textured surfaces, the depth of detail and scope of the Boydell canvases, designed to overwhelm and impress.

The 14 Boydell paintings are now permanent residents at the Folger. The contemporary art rotates with each fellowship. Both are free to visit. Both will make you think about Shakespeare in ways you have not before.

Next time you are near Capitol Hill, visit the collection. Spend some time with witches old and new. See what happens when you allow visual artists to have their say about those famous words.

Shakespeare wrote for theater—a visual, physical space where words created the story. These artists are continuing that tradition, reminding us that these plays are as much visual as they are heard.

The Contemporary Art at the Folger exhibition featuring Elise Ansel runs October 3–November 9, 2025. The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery paintings are on permanent display. The Folger Shakespeare Library is located on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and admission is free.

Posted on in A24 IAC Films, Apple Original Films, art, Banquo, Books, British National Trust, Culture, Cush Jumbo, David Tennant, Donalbain, Donmar, Donmar Warehouse, Dreams, Film director, Fleance, Hecate, King Duncan, Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, Lennox nobleman, lifestyle, Macbeth, Macbethwestend, Macduff, Macduff's Son, Malcolm, Max Webster, National Theater Live, Seyton, Shakespear tragedy, Siward, Sword, The Scottish Play, Three Witches, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and tomorrow, Trafalger Releasing, Weird Sisters, West End

When Shakespeare Goes Cinema:

A Night with Macbeth at the Crossroads of Traditional and Modern

There’s something deliciously ironic about preparing to watch “The Scottish Play” through a screen. Armed with Marjorie Garber’s scholarly insights and Paul Cantor’s lectures queued on YouTube, I found myself straddling centuries – one foot in traditional academic preparation, the other in digital-age convenience. But nothing could have prepared me for the way that the filmed live Max Webster-directed production at London’s  Donmar Warehouse; starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo; would dissolve that careful distance between viewer and viewed.

The Seduction of Simplicity

In an era where productions often compete to outdo each other with elaborate sets and costumes, this Macbeth takes a boldly minimalist approach. The stark staging serves not as a constraint but as a canvas, allowing the raw power of Shakespeare’s language and the actors’ craft to paint vivid pictures in our minds. It’s a reminder that sometimes, less is more – especially with performers of exceptional caliber commanding the space.

The Intimacy of Technology

Things get interesting with the production’s use of binaural sound technology and the theater’s 5.1 surround sound transformed what could have been a mere filming of a stage play into something more visceral. Every whispered plotting, every sharp intake of breath, every moment of hesitation becomes startlingly intimate. This is psychological cinema at its finest. Using modern technology to achieve what Shakespeare himself must have dreamed of – the ability to place the audience not just in front of the action, but inside of it. Macbeth’s eye contact with the viewer is both thrilling and chilling.

Gender, Power, and the Space Between Desire and Action

At the heart of the play is an exploration of gender dynamics that feels startlingly relevant to contemporary discussions. Lady Macbeth emerges not simply as an ambitious woman, but as a complex figure trapped in a society that offers her “no chance of independent action and heroic achievement.” Her transformation of nouns into verbs – turning the Weird Sisters’ prophecies into calls for action – speaks to a deeper truth about power and agency.

The production masterfully highlights how Lady Macbeth’s infamous “unsex me here” speech resonates with modern conversations about gender constraints. Her willingness to “dash out the brains” of her nursing infant becomes not just an act of horror, but a violent rejection of prescribed feminine roles. In Jumbo’s portrayal, we see a woman who has internalized the brutal logic of a masculine world, turning it back on itself with devastating effect.

The Question of Responsibility

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of this production is how it implicates its audience. Through the immersive sound design and intimate camera work, we become less spectators and more accomplices. Each choice, each action, each consequence feels personal in a way that traditional staging rarely achieves. The production asks us, in our era of influence and manipulation, whether we are ever truly responsible for our actions – a question that echoes far beyond the theater walls.

A New Kind of Shakespeare Experience

What makes this production remarkable is not just its technical achievements or stellar performances, but how it manages to honor both theatrical tradition and contemporary sensibilities. It’ is Shakespeare for our time: psychologically acute, technologically sophisticated, yet deeply rooted in the timeless power of language and performance.

For those planning to view the film: Yes, do your homework. Garber will guide you through the text and Cantor illuminates the themes. But, be prepared to have all that careful preparation wonderfully undermined by a production that refuses to let you remain a distant spectator. In bridging the gap between stage and screen, between past and present, this Macbeth creates something entirely new – and utterly compelling.

For optimal viewing, resist the urge to maintain analytical distance. This is one production where surrender yields the richest rewards. To whet your appetite take a little tour.

Posted on in All's Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopatra, art, As Your Like It, Books, Comedy of Errors, Coriolanus, Cymbaline, Dame Helen Miren, Damne Judi Dench, Edward III, Falstaff, Hamlet, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VIII, Hundred Year War, Ian Doescher, Joan of Arc, Julius Caesar, King John, King Lear, Librivox, lifestyle, Love's Labours Lost, Macbeth, Majorie Garber, Mearsure for Measure, Merchant of venice, Much Ado about Nothing, Othello, Patrick Stewart, Paul Cantor, Pericles, Plantagenet, Reading, Richard II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, Shakespeare Canon, Shakespeare Plays, Shakespeare Poems, Sir Ian McKellen, Sonnets, Stephen Greenblatt, Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Tempest, The Two Noble Kinsmen, The Winter's Tale, Theater, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Venus and Adonis, War of the Roses

A Year With William Shakespeare

Reading the Entire Canon in 2020

In January 2020, a friend posted a Facebook link to a Shakespeare project, “Shakespeare 2020,” reading all of the plays, Sonnets, and poems by William Shakespeare in 12 months. I did not think twice, I joined the group. What had I just signed up for??? I own a busy real estate brokerage firm, run a horse farm, I have a husband, 2 dogs, and 5 cats, and my 96-year-young mother had come to live with us just before Christmas 2019. And . . Shakespeare too?

Why NOT? I would give it a try. No cost, no commitment except to myself, and I wanted to see if I was smart enough to work through literature for which I had more than a mild curiosity. One compelling reason was to improve and strengthen my writing.

My good fortune is that I attended an unusual and experimental public high school. There, my luck expanded to be placed in an English class with an incredible teacher, William Teunis. He piqued my interest in literature (especially, Shakespeare) through his enthusiasm and exceptional teaching.  In his class, we read plays – acting out roles; we wrote short stories, essays, parodies, and plays. Shakespeare was attainable and most enjoyable. The more we did, the more I reached. My English experience abruptly ended with his drowning at the end of my sophomore year. Since then, I doubt that I have written a sentence without asking myself, “What will Mr. Teunis say about this?”

“One day when I have time, I will read the plays.” My thought when I purchased this book in 1994

Over the years, my Shakespeare interest was occasionally rekindled whenever I found a book related to the plays. Once, when I was shopping in Costco, I came across the Complete Works of Shakespeare. “This would be a good resource if I ever have the time to sit and read,” I thought, being the eternal optimist. I purchased the book. Other times, also in Costco, I bought, Shakespeare’s Kings, in hopes of one day learning something about the histories (because I glazed over in my British History course in college); another time, I discovered and bought the 3-CD set of the Sonnets which I played in my car for months. So…when the Project appeared, I was armed and dangerous.

So began the adventure of 162 days

My journey began on January 9, 2020 with Twelfth Night. Yikes! The print in my book was microscopic! I focused my eyes and found that the words readable. Somewhere in Act 2, I remembered my English teacher’s remarks that Shakespeare wrote plays which were performed to audiences. He wrote for theater and not for fireside reading. How was I going to do ALL that reading when the plays must be experienced? I discovered Librivox!

On Librivox, talented and generous people joined forces from around the world to read almost all of the plays. YES! I was thrilled by my discovery. Aside from my relentlessly working and riding horses, I am passionate about walking my dogs for miles (we walk a 15 minute mile most days for 2-5 miles). I took Librivox on our walks.

I listened to Hamlet at the magical arboretum where trees took on the personae of the ghost, Gertrude, Hamlet, Laertes, Polonius, Claudius, and a stick in the pond resembled Ophelia. When I was annoyed that Great Falls Park had been closed, we hailed elsewhere where Macbeth was the perfect answer for my dark mood. The early spring blossoms in our sweet town’s yards were a nice backdrop for Measure For Measure. We heard acts of plays in my car or truck en route to our destinations. I have a favorite gas station where I buy inexpensive diesel for my truck. I love that my broadcasts are not interrupted when I turned off the ignition to fuel. I recall something about a “pie” from Titus Andronicus while the diesel flowed into the tank of my bright blue Silverado.

The Shakespeare 2020 project was brilliantly developed to be completed in 12 months. Well, being very curious, and having determined that I would complete the entire canon before Mr. Teunis’ 50th anniversary of his drowning (so that I could write a tribute article about him) I accelerated my reading/listening and behold, I finished the canon. There were times in King Lear and the Rape of Lucrece that the thought of closing the book and deleting the Librivox link were very compelling. HOW can a decent person know about such stuff and write about it, and worse, WHO would want to be entertained by THAT???? I decided not to judge by my values and carried on.

Opportunities to discuss Shakespeare arise in unexpected places

The Project was not just a syllabus, it was a treasure trove of intelligent, knowledgeable, and creative people who already knew a great deal. They shared their insights and enthusiasm with the 4,900 members of the group the Facebook page . The depth of resources, intellect, and understanding was staggering.  My Shakespeare “library” grew along with my curiosity and understanding.

During my haydays in Mr. Teunis’ class, I heard him tell us that theater, during the Elizabethan era, competed for audiences from among other public interests including bear baiting and public hangings. “Uh-hu, OK, whatever,” I thought, at the time. Now it came to back to me why certain plays were so grotesque. The poor playwright had to capture audiences’ attention and be competitive. Therefore, Titus Andronicus, Lear, Rape of Lucrece, among others.

My friends with whom I shared my Shakespeare adventure looked at me sideways most of the time. One friend, much older than I, said to me, “He should have died earlier. There would be fewer plays with which to torture students.” It seems that he is not alone in that opinion and that most people’s literary experiences were not as positive as mine. My friends were surprised that I cared about Shakespeare, let alone that I would embark on this journey.

My book collection grew

Until this Project, I had danced around the periphery of the Bard. I had done my share of academic study with Mr. Teunis, then, watched fabulous ballets including A Midsummer Night’s Dream with New York City Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet; The Winter’s Tale and Romeo and Juliet with the Royal Ballet and attended Folger Theater performances throughout the years. After completing the canon, I purposed to watch as many plays as possible. I have managed to see about 20 plays, listened to Patrick Stewart reading the Sonnets, and I discovered brilliant lecturers from Harvard, Yale, and the University of Virginia.

The Shakespeare 2020 Project opened a new world of discovery and connections as I never expected. I met (virtually) fascinating people (some of whom I could not find a single point of agreement) who stimulated me to think in different ways. I became acquainted with the creator of the Project, Ian Doescher, a young, creative author who has written many wonderful books in the “Shakespeare style” (do look at his link, you will be amazed by his creativity) on themes including Star Wars, Clueless, Luke Skywalker, and myriad more. My new connections and friendships are treasures. Another bonus is that I connected with high school friends who also valued Mr. Teunis (I should mention that our strange, experimental, free-for-all high school turned out amazing humans who touch the far reaches of the world because of Teunis [and others like him]).

A Plutarch Quote: “
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled

As the Project draws to a conclusion, the experience, the discoveries, the friendships, the challenges, and the curiosity have helped me learn much about myself, given me discipline to persevere, and hopefully helped me write a little better (all the while hearing Mr. Teunis’ remarks, lectures, and gentle admonitions to do “better”).

By writing this article, I experienced the vastness that is Shakespeare. Questions continually arise. My opinions have no bounds. Stay tuned for future supplements to my “Shakespeare Adventure.” The learning is just beginning.