Favourite Shakespearian Play...

[pauliwauli2]

What is your favourite play by William Shakespeare? So far, I've only ever studied Othello and I've now started on Macbeth. I've just started realising how good his works actually are!

Which ones do others enjoy? Any ideas which I should read next?

[Rosetta]

I must admit I prefer the comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream or Taming of the Shrew are both good.

[fredpuli47]

Avoid the 'history' plays ! They are uniformly dull,though there are a few good lines in some of them.

[dundurn]

For reading pleasure alone, then I agree the comedies are great and the histories not so, but I would recommend watching any or all of them. There is a dynamic in watching a performance that can never be repeated by reading the words. Listening to an actor speed up or slow down their delivery; watching one actor speak over another's lines (because in real life we don't wait for the other person to speak, particularly in an argument); watching how gestures amplify the language of the text - that's something special. I saw Simon Russell Beale some years ago as Richard III. In one scene his council sat at a long table while he paced up and down behind them. If you remember the Al Capone scene near the start of The Untouchables where he beats someone to death with a baseball bat, the atmosphere and the tension was exactly the same. You could see each character tense as the footsteps pausd or stopped behind their chair.
The BBC did a pretty good series of most if not all the plays a few years ago and they are probably available from your local library. Give them a whirl, but if you can a live performance is best.
My favourite rendiition of the history plays is the RSC's The Wars of the Roses (many years back, 1960's I think) with Ian Holm as Richard III and David Warner as Henry VI. It was a condensed version of Henry VI, (1, 2 &3 ) and Richard III.
Hamlet and King Lear sound like good follow ups to Othello and Macbeth

[DungeonJayne]

Cymbeline

[summerhill]

macbeth,i read it in school and it has stayed with me,also the merchant of venice i can still quote from it now

[tigerlily11]

I like Maceth simply because I saw a rendition on tv some years ago starring Sean pertwee and set in a modern fashion. I understood it more watching that than any other rendition.
Not that it's scripting was in modern English but just its setting.
I do like Midsummer nights dream because it's so fancyful.
But the other plays just bore me because I'm not smart enough to understand whats being said most of the time.

[tickledtrout]

I enjoyed Twelfth Night, have read it and seen it performed. I have also seen King Lear which was very good but was more difficult to follow

[saxy_jag]

Hamlet and Measure for Measure are both great plays. Well acted, they're real emotional roller coasters and always leave me feeling wonderfully drained.

The first play I ever studied was Henry IV pt 1, and I still have a soft spot for it. The interaction between Hal and Falstaff is amazing.

[paddywak]

I agree with Dundurn about the "Historical" plays when I was doing my GCEs we read Henry iv part one and I must admit I found it pretty hard work untill we had a trip to Chesterfield to see it performed. You just dont dont get the dynamics from just reading a play Since then I've watched quite a few renditions mainly on TV but some live and Henry iv p1 is still my favorite

[echokilo]

As you Like It and Twelfth Night. Have seen both of them several times - and none better than performances I have seen at the (now gone but being replaced) Royal Shakespere Theatre in Stratford ..... something unique about watching it there. Can still quote from both and still laugh when I think of some of the comedy moments in them. Equally as good have been some of the open air amatuer performaces I have seen - look out for one in a Park near you this summer....

[mumof3angels]

I've read quite a few of his plays but the ones that I saw performed always stood out for me. I studied a lot for O and A levels (going back 20 ahem years now) and Anthony Hopkins playing King Lear has to be my all time favourite. I also saw him and Judi Dench in Antony and Cleopatra which I found really hard going till I saw their performance and then I was completely engrossed. Macbeth is also another one I liked- again I saw a production of this at the National Theatre (where I've seen most of the plays performed) and it just brought it all to life. I don't think you get the essence of his plays unless you see a performance of them. At the end of the day he wrote them for the stage not to be read.

[zig.zag]

beam him up scotty

[Ice.Maiden]

Richard 111, because it's mercifully abbreviated!

[Rosetta]

Sorry to be a killjoy, but Patrick Stewart is a very fine Shakespearian actor and has appeared at RSC in Stratford

[zig.zag]

im nippin down anne hathaway's for a bit

[Rosetta]

Nokno and zig zg, pratts LOL

[obNOXious]

...and he's Brian Blessed's best friend, who used to live up the orad from us and is a very weird, very great individual:)

I like Rchard III, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, something with a bit of meat in it:)