Shakespeare's Shadows

The most recognizable image of perhaps any Shakespeare heroine is Ophelia drowning — Gertrude’s description of Ophelia “mermaid-like” in the brook has inspired numerous painters. But her untimely death is not her full story. In this episode, we discuss the young woman tangled up in Hamlet’s drama with guests Deanne Williams, an English professor at York University in Toronto; Jennie Greenberry, who played Ophelia last year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and Mariah Gale, who took on the role in the Bard’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, co-starring opposite David Tennant in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2008 Hamlet production. Their recollections of performing and teaching Hamlet reveal far more than the languid victim seen in those iconic paintings and illuminate a woman of courage, compassion, and perhaps more ingenuity than first meets the eye.

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, or in the audio player above.

This episode contains adult content.

With more lines than any other female character in Shakespeare’s canon, Rosalind stands apart. At once a cynic and a romantic, she chooses her own husband and launches discourse with him negotiating their domestic life — near-unheard of for a noblewoman in her time of arranged marriages. Featuring interviews with Jessika D. Williams — currently starring in CalShakes’ As You Like It — and Cal State Dominguez Hills professor Kimberly Huth, this episode delves into how Rosalind’s gender exploration remains utterly relevant to modern audiences, whether her disguise as Ganymede is actually convincing, and that fourth wall-breaking epilogue. And we gab about a squee-filled moment when As You Like It basically embodies a certain catchy Grease song.

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, or in the audio player above.

Twelfth Night’s status as a comedy calls for a happy ending — but not all of the play’s characters get a wedding and a ride off into the Illyrian sunset. Amid all the the farce and revelry of Twelfth Night, Malvolio’s story is a darker one. Featuring interviews with Amin El Gamal (Prison Break, The Newsroom) and UCLA English department chair Lowell Gallagher, this episode takes a closer look at why Malvolio fantasies about marrying Olivia, varying views on what Malvolio’s revenge might be, and how a problem we can see Shakespeare thinking through with Malvolio is ultimately solved in Hamlet. And, of course, what’s up with those cross-gartered yellow stockings.

Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, or in the audio player above.

In episode 5, Richard II is in the spotlight — right where he likes to be. This is the diva king who loves to hear himself talk but doesn’t have many leadership skills beyond his talents as an orator. Shakespeare’s 1590s play about the king usurped 200 years prior raises compelling questions about the nature of leaders’ relationships with their subjects — questions that were near-dangerous in Elizabethan England but still relevant today. Discussing all this and more in this episode are UC Davis professor Frances Dolan, Oregon Shakespeare Festival actor Christopher Liam Moore, and Len Cariou (known for his current role on CBS series Blue Bloods and for originating the role of Sweeney Todd), who recalls how Richard II inspired him early in his theater career.

Hermione is a rarity among Shakespeare’s characters: She’s mother of young children. This queen at the center of The Winter’s Tale gets put through the wringer before she can be reunited with her daughter. In this episode, LMU professor Theresia de Vroom and Amy Kim Waschke — who played Hermione at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival last year — discuss how to approach the moment that calls Hermione’s faithfulness into question, what’s remarkable about her trial scene, and varying interpretations of that spectacle of a statue.

After forcefully taking the English throne in the play Richard II, Bolingbroke a.k.a. Henry IV struggles to keep hold of the crown himself. UCSB professor Jim Kearney and actor Harry Lennix (Titus, The Matrix Reloaded, NBC’s The Blacklist) delve into Henry IV’s fraught relationship with his son (the future King Henry V), the stark difference in his leadership style from Richard II's, and the prophecy that keeps Henry IV believing he’s destined to fight a holy war in Jerusalem. Lennix also discusses his film adaptation, H4, that places the text of Henry IV Part 1 and 2 in the experience of modern black America.

The second installment of Shakespeare’s Shadows looks at the real reason for Viola’s disguise as a young man, the nuances of Twelfth Night’s tricky love triangle, Viola’s curious silence at the end of Act 5, and more with USC professor Carla Della Gatta, Lisa Wolpe — who has directed and starred in multiple Twelfth Night productions — and Sara Bruner,  who took on the roles of both Viola and Sebastian in a 2016 Oregon Shakespeare Festival staging of the beloved comedy.

Lear’s descent into madness, varying interpretations of a pivotal moment with his daughter Cordelia, and where there may be optimism within the arc of one of the Bard’s greatest tragic characters are all discussed in the first episode of Shakespeare’s Shadows with UC Irvine professor Julia Lupton, John Slade (a familiar face to frequenters of Southern California Shakespeare productions), and Fran Kranz (Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing).

This episode contains explicit language.