Leonard Nimoy: “Zayn oder nit zayn? Ot vos s’iz di frage.”

Actor Leonard Nimoy (1931 — 2015) recites Hamlet’s soliloquy in Yiddish, his family’s first language, during a 2013 interview with Christa Whitney. From the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project.

Balcony Scene

“It’s perhaps the most famous scene in all of English literature: Juliet stands on her balcony with Romeo in the garden below, star-crossed lovers meeting by moonlight. Colloquially known as ‘the balcony scene,’ it contains Romeo and Juliet’s most quoted lines, which are so closely associated with the balcony that they’re frequently repeated (often incorrectly and in a hammy style) by non-actors who seize upon any real-life balcony, porch, landing, or veranda to reenact the moment. There’s only one problem: There is no balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.

The word ‘balcony’ never appears in Shakespeare’s play. In fact, Shakespeare didn’t know what a balcony was. Not only was there no balcony in Romeo and Juliet, there was no balcony in all of Shakespeare’s England.”

— “Romeo and Juliet Has No Balcony,” Lois Leveen, The Atlantic

Briefly, some sixty years after the Bard’s death, playwright Thomas Otway cribbed some lines from the R&J garden window scene (Act II Scene 2) in his drama of ancient Rome and introduced a balcony to the set. When David Garrick revived Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy in 1748 he put Otway’s balcony in the scene, and it’s became emblematic of the play, and of Shakespeare.

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Image (“Romeo & Juliet Balcony Scene, based on a 1936 MGM photo”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Endangered Species: Lesbian Bars

“’West Hollywood does not have a lesbian bar anymore. Philadelphia doesn’t have one. Houston doesn’t have one, and I could go on and on,’ Clements [playwright and journalist Alexis Clements] explains. She noted the decline of lesbian and feminist venues of all sorts. ‘That ranges from feminist bookstores, to bars, to arts organizations. All of these spaces are kind of going through a variety of different struggles that in some way are similar.’

In response to this decline, Clements re-adjusted her original theater tour, and will now be combining play readings with documenting some of the remaining lesbian spaces.

But Clements notes these struggles may actually reflect positive changes — people don’t need a lesbian bar as a refuge, because the culture at large is more accepting.”

— “The disappearance of lesbian bars may signal change,” Deena Prichep, Marketplace.org

The theater tour didn’t include Washington’s Phase 1 on Barracks Row, said to be the oldest continually operating lesbian bar in the USA, but Ms. Clements tells us she hopes to show the completed film there.

More:

“Unknown Play Project – Documentary Film,” Alexis Clements, Hatchfund.org

Unknown Play Project website

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Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-jPe

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Foul Shots, Maestro, Please!

Playwright and film director John Grissmer has written a play about the invention of Basketball by James Naismith in 1891. It’s a musical.

Yago Colás teaches comparative literature,  philosophy, and the Cultures of Basketball at the University of Michigan. He’s reviewed the play:

“Basketball, The Musical,” Yago Colás, The Classical

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Short Link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-feA

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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