Adventures with Billy S.

Seeing that I still have a good six weeks of involuntary state sponsored vacation left, I'm attempting to complete the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, partially out of boredom, but mainly for the bragging rights. This quest started last week, and what better place to begin in the complete works of Bill than in the beginning. But that's not actually where I started, because the first play was The Tempest, and since I'd already read it, I proceeded onto Two Gentlemen of Verona. Unfortunately it's not incredibly fresh in my memory, so I'll just sum it up by saying that I didn't dislike it. There was cross-dressing, which I'm beginning to realize old Bill must have done in his spare time. The incessant use of this plot device is borderline obsessive! So yeah, Julia pretends to be a page boy to stalk her douchebag lover/fiance, who has betrayed his best friend and is trying to steal his woman. Launce has an unhealthy attachment to his dog, if you know what I mean, and Valentine turns into Robin Hood. Yeah, it was fun. To give a more intellectual interpretation, I appreciated the portrayal of the servant/master relationship. The servants tend to possess more knowledge and cunning than those they serve, which is a subtle pre-Industrial Revolution commentary on capitalism if I may say so.

Next in the compilation is The Merry Wives of Windsor. I read the first two scenes, yawned, and skipped to the next play. I'll come back to it later... maybe. So that brings us to Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will. I flew through this one. It is a far superior work to Two Gentlemen in my opinion. The only downside is that I kept picturing Viola as Amanda Bynes from She's The Man. Which brings me to my next comment--you've got it--more cross-dressing!!! This time it was more interesting, though. This play is teeming with sexuality. Count Orsino is infatuated with Olivia. Olivia is in love with Cesario, who is actually Viola. Viola, who is Cesario, wants Orsino [No Exit anyone?]. So Olivia is a lesbian but doesn't know it, and while Viola is a hetero girl, she might as well be a boy because no one can tell the difference, making her a pseudo-gay man. And once Orsino discovers that Cesario is not Cesario but Viola, he falls in love with him/her anyway, without ever seeing him/her as a woman, so he might as well be a pseudo-gay man too. Not to mention that Antonio is in love with Sebastian and feels compelled to declare so numerous times. How has John Waters not auteured his own version of this tale? And I did laugh out loud at a couple of points, so the 400 year old jokes aren't stale yet. Ah, and I also learned that Shakespeare penned the quote, "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them," which I'm a little embarassed to admit I didn't know. Unfortunately I have nothing of intellectual worth to proclaim about Twelfth Night, but people often forget that the majority of Shakespeare's audience weren't educated or literate; they just wanted to be entertained.

Next on my list is Measure for Measure, and I'll be sure to share my butchered, overly simplified impressions of that when I finish it.

Related Link: The Uncyclopedia's hilarious account of Two Gentlemen of Verona, starring Elvis and Mr. Rogers http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Two_gentlemen_of_verona