Shakespeare Week - Favorite/least favorite characters

[Lenlo]

Strides onto the stage in his renaissance gear, sword strapped to his belt and fancy hat on his head. Len flips his wrist and a sheet of parchment unfolds.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen. Algai and Novices Winks at all the novices gathered for the event, Aes Sedai and Warders, come hither to mine stage. My name is Len and I am your humble host for this particular discussion.

 

Here we will weigh and judge the characters of everyone favorite play-wright, Shakespeare. Tell me did any one character in any of his plays seem brilliant to you? Or perhaps they seemed to be the stupidest person to have ever lived. Maybe they just did the best the could but their best wasnt good enough. Well I want to know!

 

Tell me O great ones who should live and who should die! Oh wait, wrong play write. Tell me who you loved, who you lost and who you found again in these stories. My personal one is Romeo & Juliet. I think they were both idiots for right off the bat killing themselves instead of waiting, oh say, 5-10 minutes. Everyone woulda been fine if they had just mourned instead of committing suicide!

 

Now if you will excuse me I think I see some lovely young ladies who may need to be told what this is all about again.

[Aiel Heart]

I think that the Lady Macbeth was an awesome character. I'm not saying I liked her hand in the murder of King Duncan or any of that, but I do think that she was a well written character.

 

I need to brush up on my Shakespeare... Haven't read any in over a year...

[_wolfbrother_]

Favourite: Lear. Reminds me of Rand sometimes, due to him going mad near the end of King Lear

Least favourite: Gratiano from The Merchant Of Venice. I wanted to hit him cause he never shut up

[Crystal Tipps]

Hmm, I have not read Shakespeare for years. Will post later one when I can remember some.

[Lenlo]

Ah Lear. Lear was a good one. I always liked him. Bit wacky at times but still great.

Also there is always one person in every play that you want to hit.

[_wolfbrother_]

Or the Fool. You gotta love the Fool

[Turin Turambar]

I agree with Heart that Lady MacBeth was a terrific villain. You wanted to stab her for her viciousness but had to admit that she had brass.

 

Also Romeo and Juliet were both nincompoops.

[Aiel Heart]

GRAH Romeo and Juliet... Don't get me started.....

 

Hey does "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" count as Shakespeare? No? Blast >.> Loved that play

[Razen]

I always was fascinated with that after reading Hamlet, if it doesn't count as Shakespeare. That's the only reason I remember those two names, as they didn't really do much in the play, iirc.

[Aiel Heart]

They were amazing in that play in my opinion :P it was funny

[Lenlo]

I tend to enjoy a play not by what story they are presenting but by the actors. Almost any play no matter how badly written can be made good if you get the right actors.

[Aiel Heart]

I guess one mark of a good play is when you can read the script and still love it :P

[ElusiveAthena]

*flounces up, skirts rustling, and gives a low curtsey to Lenlo*

 

Fair sir, might I suggest

The characters whom I think the best?

Agreed I am so upon Lady Macbeth,

So skillfully plotting, a dealer of death.

But other fine characters do strut the stage,

With wit they illumine the dustiest page.

Clever maid Rosalind - and fool Launcelot,

Fair barrister Portia (a fool she is not).

Mercutio: always a fellow to charm

With jesting so merry, (though he came to harm).

Puck was a prankster of airy panache,

Sleeping in cowslips and cutting a dash.

Ariel, less of a joker, but fine,

Once he was freed from his prison, the pine.

And finally Thisbe, god Hymen, Falstaff,

Will ever prevail in raising a laugh.

[Gabriel Kross]

I couldn't finish watching Macbeth I really dislike Lady Macbeth (kinda reminds me of Elaida in WoT but actually evil)

[Crystal Tipps]

I'm going to be contraversial and say I liked Romeo and Juliet.

 

*sings* they found love in a hopeless place...

[Lenlo]

To me Romeo and Juliet is purely a tragedy. They dont actually love each other is just a fling that let them both rebel against their over oppressive parents that went to far. I did still enjoy the play though.

 

Macbeth was alright to me. Not my favorite but still a good play.

[Aiel Heart]

I'm going to be contraversial and say I liked Romeo and Juliet.

 

*sings* they found love in a hopeless place...

More like found lust

[Crystal Tipps]

Lol ok, but I don't really understand why everyone has such a negative opinion of them. Yes, it is purely tragedy and yes, they were rebelling against their parents, maybe it wouldn't have lasted if they had lived or maybe it would have, but at the end of the day that was the point of the play. It is tradgic because if the two familes hadn't been so against one another they would have rebelled in the first place and the whole thing wouldn't have happened... then you wouldn't have had a play. So yes they were stupid, but I don't think it is neccassarily a reason to dislike them, but that is just my opinion.

 

Ok, so I'm not so good at explaining myself... not sure if that makes sense!

[Alanna]

I actually really love Hamlet, even though he's kind of emo and nutty lol.

 

I really like Beatrice in Much Ado, she's so witty and smart. She's got some great lines.

 

I also love Mercutio from R+J, I hate it when he dies.

 

Heart, I love Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, too! One of the high schools in our district put that play on senior year and it was perfect and so hilarious. I think they had a girl playing one of them, though she wasn't playing it as a girl, per se. I saw it like 5 times, it was so good.

 

As far as R+J, I think it's oversimplifying it to say that it was just lust. When you're a teenager and you "fall in love" like that, it's actually less about lust and more about overdramatic tendencies to make everything in your life so huge and important. Everything is the end of the world when you're a teenager. It's overblown, but that doesn't mean there isn't any love involved at all. It's just kind of immature.

[Lenlo]

Yeah. As a teenage myself, though in the later half of that area with only 1 - 1.5 years left in that category, everything does get blown out of proportion. Maybe not the end of the world but surely the end of something that you think should be important.

[Rekinu Alasayaar]

I liked Macbeth... kinda... and Hamlet was kinda decent. The king was complete rockers!!

[Crystal Tipps]

As far as R+J, I think it's oversimplifying it to say that it was just lust. When you're a teenager and you "fall in love" like that, it's actually less about lust and more about overdramatic tendencies to make everything in your life so huge and important. Everything is the end of the world when you're a teenager. It's overblown, but that doesn't mean there isn't any love involved at all. It's just kind of immature.

Yeah. As a teenage myself, though in the later half of that area with only 1 - 1.5 years left in that category, everything does get blown out of proportion. Maybe not the end of the world but surely the end of something that you think should be important.

 

I agree with this, they obviously felt very strongly about each other, and like I said maybe it would have lasted, maybe not but in that moment they felt it so strongly that they felt they couldn't live without each other.

[Gabriel Kross]

Hamlet as a character was pretty awesome imo clever in how he outs Claudius and pretending to be mad as part of his scheme though it does backfire on him with pelonius/ophelia/laertes had he not killed pelonius he would not have died at the end imo

[Volkeskirata]

Im a fan of Brutus, and of Cassius. Both were clever and very good characters in my opinion. Iol one time in class I had to do the roles for both XD. Actually spent a whole week speaking in third person to mess with my teacher cause of it :P Got Extra Credit

[Lenlo]

I love messing with teachers. Especially when that messing with involves the subject they teach. I heard that our drama club afew years back decided it would be a good idea to do a modern version of romeo and Juliet one day after school without telling our teacher. Needless to say that some of them got in trouble for beating up another student. :P

 

It got cleared up but still was really funny way to bring in that years play and pranks. Also I like Brutus but hes not one of my favorites. I did like Antony from Antony and Cleopatra though.