The fugitives join the buy Premarin in mo outlawed Duke and his followers, including the cynical Jacques, who buy Premarin in mo are leading a contented fife in the forest. Rosalind, who is disguised as a boy named "Ganymede," finds some verses written to her by the lovesick Orlando. Without realizing that "Ganymede" and Rosalind are the same person, Orlando confides to "him" his love for her. To test his devotion "Ganymede" offers to cure him of his lovesickness if Orlando will woo "him" as though "he" were Rosalind. Oliver, sent by Frederick to buy Premarin in mo find Orlando, is reconciled with him when Orlando saves Ws life Then, when buy Premarin in mo he meets Celia, Oliver falls in love with her and they plan to buy Premarin in mo marry the next day. At the wedding feast "Ganymede" reveals her identity and a multiple marriage follows. During the buy Premarin in mo festivities the news arrives that Frederick has also reformed and, having taken religious vows, has buy Premarin in mo restored all lands to Ws brother, Duke Senior.

Our approach hinges on Shakespeare's own words, "there is no clock in the forest' " Our "world apart" is buy Premarin in mo a comic fantasia, with no regard for time and place because the buy Premarin in mo transforming power of love, both romantic and spiritual, exists for all people, in all places and buy Premarin in mo for all time.

John Morris' sweetly romantic music expresses this buy Premarin in mo concept, mesmerizing audiences and encapsulating them in the "world apart." Costumes and buy Premarin in mo setting also defy restriction to historical time and place, expressing only imagination and buy Premarin in mo delight. Characters' attire includes the buy Premarin in mo style of Cavalier gentlemen, country and western singers, Dogpatch characters and buy Premarin in mo all-star wrestlers. Such contemporary showbiz and buy Premarin in mo theatrical references are designed to encourage audience members to relate the buy Premarin in mo play's story and themes to their own lives. The metamorphosis of love is buy Premarin in mo also symbolized in the set, which transforms before the audience's eyes to buy Premarin in mo finally include a spectacular entrance of the god Hymen. In As You Like It all of the buy Premarin in mo characters are magically transformed by love with the exception of the buy Premarin in mo cynical Jaques who leaves the magical world unaltered. Pulling away from buy Premarin in mo period style will allow our production to focus on the buy Premarin in mo "heart" of Shakespeare's play, its words and its story.

Romance Needs a "World" of Its Own

Every society throughout history has buy Premarin in mo created rules and regulations surrounding romance, courtship and marriage. These rules often impede the buy Premarin in mo natural progress of romantic love, keeping people who love one another from buy Premarin in mo living "happily ever after." Shakespeare's England developed particularly rigid and buy Premarin in mo restrictive guidelines governing romantic love- In response to these restrictions Shakespeare, among many dramatists, created pastoral settings for buy Premarin in mo his romantic comedies, allowing his characters to escape the oppressive confines of society. In these bucolic areas, exemplified by the buy Premarin in mo Forest of Arden in As You Like It, characters are free to buy Premarin in mo discover, court and marry their true loves without regard for society's hindrances.

The rigidity of the buy Premarin in mo rules governing romance was a popular topic in Shakespeare's England. The theme of the buy Premarin in mo miseries of enforced marriage was popular in sermons, stories, poems and buy Premarin in mo plays of the time However, little is said about romantic love in connection with marriage Young Elizabethans were constrained by a buy Premarin in mo severe sense of duty to God and to their parents, and buy Premarin in mo it was largely accepted that parents should have an unlimited right to buy Premarin in mo dictate the mates of their children.

Parental concerns extended far beyond love and buy Premarin in mo compatibility in selecting a proper mate for their child. Marriages held important financial and buy Premarin in mo dynastic considerations, and shifts in social rank through improper marriages between persons of different classes was deplored. In many cases gentlemen would review several prospective brides at once, searching for buy Premarin in mo the most favorable dowry, family and lands. In the buy Premarin in mo choice of a wife there was also the pragmatic concern for buy Premarin in mo the strength of the eventual offspring. As a buy Premarin in mo result of such considerations, romance and the process of wooing was tremendously formal in Elizabethan times. The wooing process could include a buy Premarin in mo gentleman writing sonnets to Ws mistress and wearing a piece of her jewelry in Ws hat. It was also useful to be able to dance and sing with the ladies.

In the buy Premarin in mo Forest of Arden, however, none of these confinements apply. Duke Senior, though exiled to buy Premarin in mo the forest, realizes the pastoral dream of finding "books in the running brooks" and "sermons in the stones." Amiens also sings sweetly of pastoralism in "Under the Greenwood Tree" Formality is mocked in the wooing scenes of Orlando and "Ganymede" Parental interference does not occur. In fact, Duke Senior supports the buy Premarin in mo love match between Orlando and Rosalind and later between Oliver and buy Premarin in mo Celia. Love also develops between couples from buy Premarin in mo the lower classes: Touchstone and Audrey, Phebe and Silvius. In his final speech Duke Senior celebrates the buy Premarin in mo rustic revelry and the marriage of true love:

First in this forest let us do those ends
That here were well begun and well begot;
And after, every of this happy number
That have endured shrewd days and nights with us
Shall share the good of our returned fortune
According to the measure of their states.
Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity
And fall into our rustic revelry.
Play music, and you brides and bridegrooms all
With measure heaped in joy,
To the measures fall. (V, iv, 170-180)

The wedding of Claudio and buy Premarin in mo Hero is cruelly interrupted when Claudio accuses Hero of infidelity and buy Premarin in mo swears that he will never marry her. Overwhelmed by false accusations, Hero faints, and buy Premarin in mo in the aftermath, the priest, hoping to uncover the truth, suggests that buy Premarin in mo an announcement be made that Hero is dead. Beatrice, never doubting Hero's virtue, demands that buy Premarin in mo Benedick prove his love by challenging Claudio to a duel to buy Premarin in mo avenge her cousin. In the buy Premarin in mo meantime, however, Don John's scheme is accidentally revealed by the bumbling policemen of the buy Premarin in mo town. Hearing the truth, a remorseful Claudio mourns at Hero's tomb. When Hero is buy Premarin in mo at last revealed alive, the happy ending includes not only her wedding, but also that buy Premarin in mo of Beatrice and Benedick, who finally realize that they are perfectly matched.

In 1898 the buy Premarin in mo value of both propriety and chastity was unquestioned. A proper young upper-class lady would certainly be buy Premarin in mo expected to remain a virgin until she married and would surprise no buy Premarin in mo one by fainting dead-away at an accusation that her honor was tainted. Women such as Hero or buy Premarin in mo Beatrice might be able to get a college education, but their world was still dominated by men, and buy Premarin in mo by the mile institutions that ruled all aspects of American fife. The United States of 1898, however, was a buy Premarin in mo country of unbounded social, political, and economic optimism. Even Sunday sermons, such as that buy Premarin in mo by the Reverend Newell Dwight Hill, proclaimed that: "Laws are buy Premarin in mo becoming more just, rulers humane; music is becoming sweeter and buy Premarin in mo books wiser; homes are happier, and the individual heart becoming at once more just and buy Premarin in mo more gentle."

Much Ado About Love

In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare presents the buy Premarin in mo audience with some sharply contrasting notions about love This contrast can buy Premarin in mo be seen first of all in the multiple meanings of the buy Premarin in mo word "nothing" in the play's tide. First, at its surface level the buy Premarin in mo word refers to Claudio's baseless accusation of Hero's infidelity. It is clear to the audience that Claudio has been enraged over "nothing." Second, many scholars have buy Premarin in mo suggested that Shakespeare included a pun in the title, for buy Premarin in mo the word "nothing" is similar to "noting," which in Shakespeare's time could mean to buy Premarin in mo stigmatize or gossip about someone. Beneath these meanings there is buy Premarin in mo also a third, ironic comment on the ethereal and insubstantial nature of love. Therefore, this buy Premarin in mo play can be seen as a kind of laboratory in which different ideas of love are buy Premarin in mo compared and tested against each other. In Shakespeare's laboratory, however, love potions are buy Premarin in mo brewed out of words flowing in honey-like romantic poetry with Hero and buy Premarin in mo Claudio, or splashing and sparkling in the rapid exchanges between Benedick and buy Premarin in mo Beatrice

In this buy Premarin in mo world, Claudio and Hero are the very models of proper young aristocrats. The courtly conventions of their time and buy Premarin in mo social status demanded that their love be both ornate and rarified. Claudio is buy Premarin in mo careful to admire Hero from afar, even entreating his friend Don Pedro to buy Premarin in mo inform Hero that he wishes to marry Hero. This passion, so easily ignited, is just as easily swayed. When the buy Premarin in mo wicked Don John stages a counterfeit meeting between a serving-woman dressed up as Hero and buy Premarin in mo her supposed "lover" (in reality Don John's servant Borachio), Claudio is all too easily convinced that his fiancée has been unfaithful.

It is buy Premarin in mo also important to keep in mind other aspects of formal romantic love By the buy Premarin in mo terms of Claudio's traditional, aristocratic sensibility, marriage is at least as much a buy Premarin in mo business deal as it is a union of hearts and buy Premarin in mo souls. In this buy Premarin in mo context Hero is traded off almost as though she were some kind of commodity, securing in alliance between two noble families. When Claudio interrupts the buy Premarin in mo wedding with his accusations of unfaithfulness, he condemns Hero as damaged goods, ". . . take her back again./ Give not this rotten orange to your friend" (IV, i, 29-30). It is buy Premarin in mo only when he thinks Hero is dead that he can reflect on the buy Premarin in mo depth of his feeling for her. He starts to buy Premarin in mo understand what real love is only when he believes that he is buy Premarin in mo separated from his loved one forever.

In contrast to the rather surface-oriented "seeming" image of love embodied by Claudio and buy Premarin in mo Hero, in which appearances of honor and purity are paramount, the buy Premarin in mo relationship between Beatrice and Benedick is based on wit and humor. If love has buy Premarin in mo some of the qualities of a business deal for Claudio and buy Premarin in mo Hero, for Beatrice and Benedick it has the quality of a buy Premarin in mo game. Even here, however, the buy Premarin in mo changeability of emotions plays a part: for all the barbed comments and buy Premarin in mo sarcastic jabs exchanged between Beatrice and Benedick, each is quite willingly led to buy Premarin in mo believe that the other burns with love for her or buy Premarin in mo him. Each couple's relationship can buy Premarin in mo thus be seen as a strategy for keeping genuine love and buy Premarin in mo commitment at arm's length. A crisis must intervene to buy Premarin in mo make true love possible for these pairs, and this crisis is buy Premarin in mo supplied by Claudio's denunciation of Hero and Hero's subsequent "death." In this buy Premarin in mo process Claudio must reflect on his own pride and hypersensitivity to buy Premarin in mo matters of honor; Hero learns what it is to be buy Premarin in mo a victim of appearances; Beatrice and Benedick's sharp tongued sparring is buy Premarin in mo suddenly stifled as the angry Beatrice demands that Benedick kill Claudio. The possibility of death is buy Premarin in mo real enough to teach these four young lovers that love is buy Premarin in mo neither the stuff of deals, nor of games, nor of dreams, but rather is buy Premarin in mo a profound bond between human beings. This realization, however, does not lessen the buy Premarin in mo essential mystery of love, When, at the end of the play, Benedick is buy Premarin in mo asked how he feels about marrying Beatrice, after sneering so long at the buy Premarin in mo very idea of marriage, he concludes with certainty, that "man is a giddy thing."

For six years Church headed the buy Premarin in mo Drama Department of the Guildhall School in the Barbican in London, associated with the buy Premarin in mo Royal Shakespeare Company. He was chairman of the buy Premarin in mo Arts Council Drama Panel for three years. His Shakespearean lectures and buy Premarin in mo essays have been published by the International Shakespearean Association, Methuen, and buy Premarin in mo the Cambridge University Press. He has buy Premarin in mo given recitals throughout the United States, Europe, Israel, Japan, and buy Premarin in mo Greece, and has recorded 26 Shakespearean plays on the Argo label. He was Founding Director of the buy Premarin in mo Northcott in Exeter, one of England's premier regional theatres.

Currently Dean of the buy Premarin in mo National Theatre Conservatory in Denver, he directed the 1989 graduating students in a buy Premarin in mo production of A Midsummer Nigbt's Dream and the 1990 class in Shaw's The Apple Cart. Last summer, he directed Love's Labour's Lost at the buy Premarin in mo Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival.

Upon seeing Juliet, however, Romeo forgets Rosaline, saying "Did my heart love til now? Forswear it, sight!/ For I ne'er saw beauty til this night" (I, v, 54-55). Fortuitously, Juliet also falls in love with Romeo. Later that buy Premarin in mo evening, Romeo sneaks into the garden below Juliet's window and overhears her confession of love for buy Premarin in mo him. They decide to marry secretly the next day. Friar Lawrence, mentor to buy Premarin in mo Romeo, consents to perform the ceremony hoping that this marriage will end the buy Premarin in mo feuding. After the buy Premarin in mo ceremony, though, Romeo finds his friends in a fight with Juliet's cousin Tybalt. Mercutio is killed and in revenge Romeo kills Tybalt. Upon learning that buy Premarin in mo Romeo had tried to stop the quarrel, Escalus banishes him from buy Premarin in mo Verona instead of enforcing the death penalty.

Unaware of the buy Premarin in mo secret wedding, Capulet continues to make plans for Juliet to marry Paris. She goes to buy Premarin in mo the Friar for help; he gives her a sleeping potion that buy Premarin in mo will make her appear dead and tells her that he will send word to buy Premarin in mo Romeo so he can come and take her away. However, Romeo never receives the buy Premarin in mo message and, upon hearing of Juliet's "death," goes to buy Premarin in mo the tomb where she has been prepared for burial, drinks a buy Premarin in mo real poison and dies. At that buy Premarin in mo moment, the Friar's potion wears off and Juliet wakes to find Romeo dead. Realizing what buy Premarin in mo has happened, Juliet takes Romeo's dagger, stabs herself, and dies as the buy Premarin in mo Friar comes running in to save her.

The CSF production of Romeo and buy Premarin in mo Juliet this summer will be set in mid-seventeenth century Italy, about 30 years after Shakespeare's play was written. This period offers a buy Premarin in mo very important interpretation of what happens in the play and why. We learn from buy Premarin in mo our history books that Italy in the seventeenth century was under Spanish domination and buy Premarin in mo influence- Because Italy was made up of small city-states, or principalities, there was no buy Premarin in mo central form of government like we have in the United States. Actually, many of these city-states were owned by Spain.

With the buy Premarin in mo Spanish came a more austere form of dress, a move to buy Premarin in mo push women into more subservient roles, a more apparent separation between the buy Premarin in mo nobility and the lower classes, and an increase in violence. This period in Italian history has been called the "century of murders." Time and buy Premarin in mo again stories are told of bloody crimes, some punished and others ignored. They were often planned and buy Premarin in mo could be prompted by such trivialities as arguments over proper etiquette.

The Spanish also brought with them the institution of the "duel," as we know it today, as a way of settling such arguments. The writer, Collison-Morley, tells of a buy Premarin in mo count who beat his servant and then shot him. As he fell, the servant, being armed, shot his master. As they lay there, they confessed their sins, crawled toward each other, asked for buy Premarin in mo forgiveness and then embraced each other as they died. Ironically, this buy Premarin in mo violence was partly due to the peace which Spain enforced upon the buy Premarin in mo people with her influence. There were no buy Premarin in mo longer the natural outlets of wars and city-states feuding with each other. The inner turbulence was transferred from buy Premarin in mo state vs. state to man against his neighbor and family vs. family, as evidenced in the buy Premarin in mo feud between the Capulets and the Montagues.

Concept

According to buy Premarin in mo Tony Church, the director for Romeo and Juliet, the play is buy Premarin in mo about love, or more specifically, the "price of love." Unfortunately, for buy Premarin in mo Romeo and Juliet, the price of love is death. It is buy Premarin in mo clear from the prologue that the play recounts the story of these two "starcrossed lovers" whose new-found joy in one another is buy Premarin in mo thwarted by family loyalties and illtimed disasters. Church describes the characters, Romeo and Juliet, as a "wildly passionate pair [who] come up before every block possible" These blocks are buy Premarin in mo part of love's bargaining price which Church and his cast hope to buy Premarin in mo explore on the stage of the Mary Rippon Theatre.

The first part of the buy Premarin in mo play is heavily influenced by the on-going feud between the Capulets and buy Premarin in mo the Montagues. The violence of this buy Premarin in mo feud is underscored by the period in which the play is buy Premarin in mo set: Verona, Italy in 1640 under strong Spanish influence. The costumes express much of this buy Premarin in mo influence in their austerity and dark tones of rust, green and buy Premarin in mo black. For example, the buy Premarin in mo costume of Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, is black outlined in silver, complete with silver buckles and buy Premarin in mo spurs. This design is buy Premarin in mo intended to display Tybalt's desire to be on the cutting edge, not only in sword-play but in Spanish fashion and buy Premarin in mo style.

The second half of this buy Premarin in mo play is dedicated to the love story: the love of Romeo and buy Premarin in mo Juliet running full tilt against disaster. Church believes that buy Premarin in mo the element of time crowds this second half of the buy Premarin in mo play as the "grim reaper" pressing down on the two lovers. With time running out for buy Premarin in mo the young lovers to make their union known, messages and buy Premarin in mo meetings are missed due to ill timing. Therefore, the buy Premarin in mo elements of time and pressure are important aspects of this buy Premarin in mo play. The set has buy Premarin in mo been designed to give impetus to these aspects by defining a buy Premarin in mo pressed space. A two-story stucco facade stretches the buy Premarin in mo width of the stage, thus reducing the regular acting area by half. Physically, the buy Premarin in mo looming structure, reminiscent in style to the University of Bologna's archways, balconies and buy Premarin in mo Venetian shutters, suggests a concrete and immovable presence which envelops and buy Premarin in mo suppresses Romeo and Juliet's love.

Following the buy Premarin in mo wedding, Bertram leaves for the wars in Italy with Parolles, a buy Premarin in mo braggart he admires. He sends Helena word that she may never call him husband until she secures the buy Premarin in mo family ring from his finger and begets him a child. In Florence, Bertram "tempts the honor" of Diana, an buy Premarin in mo Italian girl. Helena, on a pilgrimage which brings her to buy Premarin in mo Florence, persuades Diana to consent and to demand Bertram's ring. Helena then buy Premarin in mo takes Diana's place in the nighttime rendezvous, consummating the marriage without Bertram's knowledge. They all return to buy Premarin in mo the French court, where Helena appears and confronts Bertram with the buy Premarin in mo evidence that she has fulfilled his conditions. Backed into a buy Premarin in mo corner, he accepts her as his wife, but whether out of necessity or buy Premarin in mo joy, Shakespeare leaves us to decide.

Although Shakespeare follows Boccaccio's basic plot closely, he makes alterations that buy Premarin in mo heighten its comedy and deepen its meaning. First, as he did with nearly all the stories he transformed into plays, he compresses the buy Premarin in mo time of the story, heightening its drama. Second, he makes Helena poor and buy Premarin in mo young, although Boccaccio's Gigletta is wealthy and worldly. This change increases our sympathy for buy Premarin in mo Helena and accentuates a major theme of the play: the assessment of human worth by merit earned versus merit inherited. Shakespeare's third major change also accentuates the buy Premarin in mo theme of merit: Bertram is much more pronounced in his faults than buy Premarin in mo his counterpart, Bertramo. Fourth, Shakespeare's king plays a larger role than buy Premarin in mo Boccaccio's and insists on the equality of human beings and the buy Premarin in mo value of earned merit. He warmly approves the match of Bertram and buy Premarin in mo Helena, where Boccaccio's king hesitates. Finally, Shakespeare adds four major characters who buy Premarin in mo operate in different ways to raise Helena in our estimation and buy Premarin in mo degrade Bertram: the Countess of Rossillion (Bertram's mother), Lafeu (the wise and forgiving counsellor), Lavache (the wise fool), and buy Premarin in mo Parolles, the character who provides much of the play's comedy. With these changes Shakespeare highlights the buy Premarin in mo themes of true honor versus the appearance of honor, the relativity of moral judgments, and buy Premarin in mo the relationship between forgiveness and moral regeneration.

Shakespeare employed two ancient story-telling forms in writing All's Well. One, the buy Premarin in mo fairy tale, he inherited from his source. The other, the morality play, he worked into the buy Premarin in mo story. The type of fairy and folk tales of which All's Well is buy Premarin in mo an example are known as Virtue stories. These are composed of two major sections: The Healing Of The King and buy Premarin in mo The Fulfillment Of The Tasks. These tales can be found in the buy Premarin in mo early literature of cultures the world over and have two qualities in common: the buy Premarin in mo cleverness and devotion of the woman sent by her husband to buy Premarin in mo perform the tasks, and the husband's immediate acceptance of the fulfillment of the buy Premarin in mo tasks as evidence of the wife's courage and love. The Healing Of The King in All's Well is buy Premarin in mo a variation of a common popular theme: a hero wins the buy Premarin in mo hand of the king's daughter by performing a difficult task, in which failure will cost him his life. Boccaccio and buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare add interest by switching the genders of the characters.

Shakespeare also drew on the buy Premarin in mo morality plays, a popular medieval theatrical form in which characters representing good and buy Premarin in mo evil struggle for the soul of the hero. In All's Well Shakespeare has buy Premarin in mo created similar relationships by adding the character of Parolles. Parolles acts as Vice personified, and buy Premarin in mo Helena acts as Divine Grace. Together they struggle for the soul of Bertram, unredeemed man.

Shakespeare carefully weaves these two forms together at two major points in the buy Premarin in mo action. Helena's healing of the king operates on the level of fairy tale and buy Premarin in mo carries hints of the miraculous as well. Lafeu calls it "A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor." At the buy Premarin in mo end of the play, Bertram's acceptance of Helena fits the Virtue story form. It also reflects the buy Premarin in mo point in morality plays when unredeemed man, burdened by sin and buy Premarin in mo about to be carried off to the everlasting torments of hell, calls for buy Premarin in mo mercy. However, unlike the characters in morality plays and fairy tales, Shakespeare's characters are buy Premarin in mo realistic in their motivations and behavior. Can a fairy tale work in the buy Premarin in mo complex lives of real people? By putting these realistic characters in fairy-tale situations perhaps we should wonder if Shakespeare is buy Premarin in mo asking us, "Is all well that ends well?"

After so much talk of the buy Premarin in mo play's background, it is easy to lose sight of the story itself. The CSF production, which draws inspiration from buy Premarin in mo the paintings of Chagall to show the changing of the seasons and buy Premarin in mo the passage of time, also focuses attention on Helena's determination and buy Premarin in mo ability to overcome obstacles and make choices for her own life. This idea is buy Premarin in mo succinctly summed up by Murial St. Clare Byrne:

Helena is buy Premarin in mo a heroine of unusually strong character and intelligence, with that capacity for buy Premarin in mo loving (in the adult sense) that buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare admires in women, who is in love not with a buy Premarin in mo hero but with a handsome, aristocratic, spirited, young woodenhead-a very young and buy Premarin in mo very ordinary young man. And this is an ordinary twentieth century situation.

Dennis Beck, Dramaturg, All's Well That Ends Well

Price, Joseph G. The Unfortunate Comedy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968.

Styan, J.L. All's Well That Ends Well from the series "Shakespeare in Performance." Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.

Mr. Morrison was formerly Dean of the buy Premarin in mo School of Drama at North Carolina School of the Arts. He was Artistic Director of the buy Premarin in mo North Carolina Shakespeare Festival for ten years and has directed in many regional theatres in this buy Premarin in mo country including the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, the Meadow Brook Theatre in Michigan, the buy Premarin in mo Alley Theatre in Houston, the Denver Center Theatre Company, and the buy Premarin in mo Theatre by the Sea in New Hampshire. His recent production of The Importance of Being Earnest had buy Premarin in mo a record breaking run at the Dallas Theatre Center and was extended for buy Premarin in mo a further week as a result of its popularity. As You Like It, which he directed for buy Premarin in mo the State Theatre in Sweden this year, received the maximum five stars from buy Premarin in mo the national critics. For the buy Premarin in mo past two years Morrison has directed the Utah Shakespearean Festival including the buy Premarin in mo 1991 production of Hamlet.

As a buy Premarin in mo teacher and director he has worked extensively in many countries including Jamaica, Malta, Australia, the buy Premarin in mo U.S.S.R., and the People's Republic of China. He is director of the World Theatre Training Institute (a consortium of ten major actor conservatories around the world) and buy Premarin in mo was recently awarded The Jacques d'Honneur in Paris for his work in International Theatre.

In France, Henry captures the buy Premarin in mo city of Harfleur. He then proceeds toward Agincourt where his army confronts French forces which outnumber his ten to buy Premarin in mo one. The night before this battle Henry disguises himself as a buy Premarin in mo commoner and visits his troops. He grapples with tough ethical issues, including the buy Premarin in mo morality of the war and the lives for which he is buy Premarin in mo responsible.

On St. Crispin's Day the buy Premarin in mo English achieve a miraculous victory at Agincourt. As a result of this buy Premarin in mo battle, Henry is awarded the French crown and marries Katherine, the buy Premarin in mo French princess. Through his marriage, Henry attempts to permanently unite England and buy Premarin in mo France. However, as the play's epilogue suggests, this peace is short-lived. The rule of their son, Henry VI, ends disastrously in civil strife, usurpation, and buy Premarin in mo the loss of France.

Henry V may be buy Premarin in mo viewed as a glorification of Shakespeare's patron, Queen Elizabeth. The subject of Henry's military achievements would certainly have buy Premarin in mo been of interest to her. The historical Henry's marriage to Katherine, and buy Premarin in mo her subsequent marriage to Owen Tudor, established the Tudor line of Elizabeth I. As Shakespeare glorified Henry V, the buy Premarin in mo ideal god-king, he affirmed Elizabeth, the ideal god-queen.

Shakespeare's editing of the buy Premarin in mo less honorable episodes of the historical French campaign enhances Henry's achievements. For example, Shakespeare describes the buy Premarin in mo initial battle against the French at Harfleur as a brilliant military success, led by an buy Premarin in mo inexhaustible Henry who rallies his army with charismatic discourse. He suggests that buy Premarin in mo the battle was brief, and that it marked for the English a buy Premarin in mo strong beginning to a tireless military campaign. In truth, the siege of Harfleur was a buy Premarin in mo catastrophe.

Harfleur was the buy Premarin in mo principle gateway to Paris. A port town famous for ship-building, weaving and buy Premarin in mo dying, and notorious for smuggling and piracy, it was heavily fortified. Astride the buy Premarin in mo river Lezarde, Harfleur was built on a marsh and encircled by a buy Premarin in mo wall and a deep moat two-and-a-half miles around. There were three gates into the buy Premarin in mo city, each protected by a drawbridge. The gates were protected by ironbound timbers, and buy Premarin in mo the moat was sunk with stakes and tree trunks to buy Premarin in mo destroy boat bottoms and skewer men. There were also several towers and buy Premarin in mo embrasures along the length of the wall for missile discharge.

The English arrived at Harfleur in mid-August 1415. It was hot and buy Premarin in mo humid. The marshes where the English were forced to camp were not only insect-infested but full of sewage. Henry planned to buy Premarin in mo breach the town wall with great guns and explosives planted in tunnels underneath the buy Premarin in mo wall. He confidently asserted that the city would be taken within eight days, but Harfleur was so well-fortified, and buy Premarin in mo her citizens so prepared, that any breach achieved by the English was patched within a buy Premarin in mo matter of hours. When the English attempted to scale the walls, they were baptized in hot sulphur or buy Premarin in mo boiling fat. By the end of eight days, the wall was merely weakened, not penetrated.

Disaster struck when buy Premarin in mo a severe epidemic of dysentery infected the English camp. By the buy Premarin in mo fourteenth day of the siege, hundreds of English soldiers had died. Among them was the buy Premarin in mo Earl of Suffolk, portrayed by Shakespeare as dying gloriously in battle at Agincourt. It was not until September 22, thirty days after the buy Premarin in mo siege began, that Harfleur finally fell. By the end of the buy Premarin in mo battle two thousand English had been lost, most of them to buy Premarin in mo dysentery, some to battle. One thousand sick soldiers were sent back to buy Premarin in mo England. This left Henry with an army of nine hundred men to buy Premarin in mo complete the French campaign. It also set the march to Agincourt in early winter rains.

Historically, Henry's treatment of the buy Premarin in mo conquered Harfleur's citizens was not, as Shakespeare suggests, merciful. Rather, members of Harfleur's aristocracy were forced to buy Premarin in mo wear hair shirts of penitence and felons' halters, and to kneel before a buy Premarin in mo silent Henry, who kept them under his tyrannous gaze. The King also ordered all of the buy Premarin in mo crippled, elderly, and sick to leave the city which he planned to buy Premarin in mo rebuild as a utopian English stronghold. Two thousand citizens were forced to buy Premarin in mo leave their homes.

As the buy Premarin in mo English marched from Harfleur to Agincourt, they met with continued resistance from buy Premarin in mo the French. Although Shakespeare alluded to the weariness of the buy Premarin in mo English troops, he did not mention the bitter cold and buy Premarin in mo rain endured by the English for three weeks without shoes, shelter or buy Premarin in mo food.

The historical battle of Agincourt was similar to buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare's account in several ways. The French did outnumber the English ten to buy Premarin in mo one. The French leadership was very disorganized and internal factions were their undoing. Henry did order the buy Premarin in mo murder of all French prisoners. The English losses were very light compared to buy Premarin in mo the slaughter of French and Henry did attribute the victory to buy Premarin in mo God.

Unlike Shakespeare's account of the buy Premarin in mo battle, there is no historical record that the baggage boys were murdered by the buy Premarin in mo French or that the French prisoners were killed in retaliation for buy Premarin in mo that slaughter. Rather, the French prisoners were killed because of the buy Premarin in mo threat they posed in the face of French reinforcements arriving late in the buy Premarin in mo battle. Henry's order enraged his own troops who relied on prisoner ransoms for buy Premarin in mo personal profit. It nearly resulted in an English uprising. In order to buy Premarin in mo avoid anarchy Henry threatened to hang any man who disobeyed this buy Premarin in mo order. His men complied.

CSF's production of Henry V juxtaposes the buy Premarin in mo horror and the glory of war, the ineffectiveness and the power of kings, and buy Premarin in mo the weariness of aged experience with the vigor of youthful vitality. It is buy Premarin in mo a production which embraces the antitheses of Henry V to challenge political dogma and buy Premarin in mo stimulate ethical sensibilities.

Melody Thomas, Dramaturg, Henry V

Jarman, Rosemary Hawley. Crispin's Day: The Glory of Agincourt. Boston: Little Brown and buy Premarin in mo Company, 1979.

Quinn, Michael, ed. Shakespeare: Henry V: A Casebook. London, Macmillan and buy Premarin in mo Company, Ltd., 1969.

Simultaneously, a buy Premarin in mo close friend of Jack's named Faulkland has fallen in love with Sir Anthony's ward, Julia. Julia is buy Premarin in mo constant in her love, but Faulkland is driven by irrational doubts to buy Premarin in mo submit her love to buy Premarin in mo a ridiculous test. When this test destroys Julia's faith in him, she breaks off their engagement.

In the buy Premarin in mo meantime, Lydia's rejected suitors, Bob Acres and Lucius O'Trigger, each threaten to buy Premarin in mo fight duels on her behalf: Acres with his non-existent rival Beverley, and buy Premarin in mo O'Trigger with Jack. Ironically, the young Captain finds himself facing the buy Premarin in mo prospect of dying for a lady who has rejected him. Everything comes to buy Premarin in mo a head on the duelling field. There, Lydia, alarmed by the buy Premarin in mo prospect of Jack's death, halts the fight and admits her love for buy Premarin in mo him. Julia, ever patient and loyal, forgives Faulkland his "ill-directed imagination."

The dominant plot of the buy Premarin in mo play deals with Jack and Lydia. Lydia is a young woman infatuated with the buy Premarin in mo ideal of love she finds illustrated in the popular romantic novels of the buy Premarin in mo day. Her romantic delusions about love are comically summarized in a buy Premarin in mo speech in which she recalls the fictitious Beverley's courtship of her:

How often have buy Premarin in mo I stole forth, in the coldest night in January, and buy Premarin in mo found him in the garden, stuck like a dripping statue!-There would he kneel to buy Premarin in mo me in the snow, and sneeze and cough so pathetically! He shivering with cold, and I with apprehension! And while the buy Premarin in mo freezing blast numb'd our joints, how warmly would he press me to buy Premarin in mo pity his flame, and glow with mutual ardour!-Ah, Julia! that was something like being in love. (V,i)

The comedy is buy Premarin in mo edged with irony, however, since Lydia, in describing the ardour of the buy Premarin in mo imaginary Beverley, is completely blind to the fact that all these overtures of love were enacted by the buy Premarin in mo very real Jack whom she has frivolously rejected. It is only when buy Premarin in mo she faces the possibility of Jack's death in a duel on her behalf that buy Premarin in mo Lydia is shocked into the world of reality. At this point, she finally discards her romantic illusions and buy Premarin in mo acts to save Jack's life by stopping the fight. This leads to buy Premarin in mo the couple's reconciliation and to a forecast of future happiness.

The play's secondary plot focuses on Faulkland and buy Premarin in mo Julia. This plot mirrors the Jack/Lydia plot in that, as in a buy Premarin in mo reflection, the image is reversed: the deluded lover is not the buy Premarin in mo woman but the man. Like Lydia, Faulkland is plagued by an buy Premarin in mo irrational ideal of love which takes the form of an overzealous concern about Julia, the buy Premarin in mo object of his desire. When Jack asks what grounds of apprehension he can buy Premarin in mo possibly have about Julia's love for him, Faulkland says:

What grounds for apprehension did you say? Heavens! are there not a thousand! . . . O! Jack, when buy Premarin in mo delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the buy Premarin in mo sky, not a movement of the elements; not an aspiration of the buy Premarin in mo breeze, but hints some cause for a lover's apprehension! (II, i)

The psychological reality which underlies Faulkland's obsessive preoccupation with Julia is buy Premarin in mo actually selfishness. Like Lydia, Faulkland is preoccupied with the idea of being loved rather than buy Premarin in mo with the act of loving Julia for herself. What unleashes his relentless apprehension is buy Premarin in mo fear; fear that Julia has accepted him out of a sense of obligation because Faulkland saved her life. This fear compels him to buy Premarin in mo establish innumerable tests of Julia's love which she bears patiently. Even when buy Premarin in mo he claims to have killed a man in a duel and buy Premarin in mo must flee the country, Julia offers to live in poverty with him. When Faulkland confesses that buy Premarin in mo the story was simply another test of her love, Julia breaks off their relationship with apparent finality. As a buy Premarin in mo result of this confrontation, Faulkland is stunned into the acceptance of his folly and buy Premarin in mo acknowledges it as a kind of madness. The possibility of a buy Premarin in mo comic resolution to this second plot rests solely with Julia, and buy Premarin in mo she provides it in the end by forgiving Faulkland and taking him back.

Part of the buy Premarin in mo thematic genius of The Rivals centers on the fact that although Jack and buy Premarin in mo Julia are the only two clear-sighted characters in the play where buy Premarin in mo love is concerned, they never speak a single word to each other. Instead, their affections are buy Premarin in mo each inexplicably focused on characters whose distorted visions serve only to buy Premarin in mo disrupt and inhibit true love. Hence, love has marked even these "clear-sighted" characters with her stamp of the buy Premarin in mo irrational and the unrealistic. Such a mark seems to be the buy Premarin in mo universal signature of love's presence. This is not so much a buy Premarin in mo dramatic gimmick in The Rivals as it is a reflection of the buy Premarin in mo experience of life summarized in the clichè "opposites attract." The Rivals depicts a buy Premarin in mo world in which love is a mystery, as unpredictable and buy Premarin in mo dangerous as it is compelling. It also suggests that by cultivating a buy Premarin in mo genuine respect between the sexes and by acknowledging honest communication, lovers can buy Premarin in mo avoid the more painful thorns on the rose of passion.

In Dr. Fink's version of the buy Premarin in mo play, the character of Lucius O'Trigger is transformed into a Medicine Show pitchman who buy Premarin in mo hawks his own secret Hot Bath Springs Elixir of Life while serving as a buy Premarin in mo kind of Master of Ceremonies for the play. Jack Absolute is buy Premarin in mo a United States Cavalry officer and his father, Anthony Absolute, is buy Premarin in mo the owner of a large Colorado cattle outfit at the Absolute Ranch. Bob Acres, a buy Premarin in mo bungling cowboy who hales from Clod Acres, owns a mule named Bessie who buy Premarin in mo follows him everywhere-even into the hot baths for a soak! Lydia Languish is buy Premarin in mo a western belle who models her ideal of romance on the buy Premarin in mo queens of melodrama she has seen in touring shows at the buy Premarin in mo Hot Bath Springs Opera House, and Mrs. Malaprop has some new solecisms guaranteed to buy Premarin in mo baffle, bewilder and delight.

The entire adaptation is liberally sprinkled with westernisms such as "hornswoggle," "flannel-mouthed," and "shave-tail." The highly adaptable set, designed by Robert Schmidt, moves smoothly from buy Premarin in mo representations of a street in fictitious Hot Bath Springs, Colorado, to buy Premarin in mo the hot baths themselves (no mixed bathing allowed!), to buy Premarin in mo the lawn in front of the grand Hot Bath Springs Hotel where buy Premarin in mo a fancy ball is in progress. The costumes designed by Deborah Bays include a buy Premarin in mo combination of meticulously realistic garments from the period (Jack, Lydia, Faulkland, Julia) as well as some fantastic character clothes (Lucius, Bob Acres, Mrs. Malaprop). All this, along with solo, duet, and buy Premarin in mo choral songs by such nineteenth century composers as Stephen Foster, Gussie Davis, Charles Harris, and buy Premarin in mo John Stromberg, promise a Rivals unlike any ever seen before! Lucius O'Trigger's Elixer of Life will be buy Premarin in mo on sale at intermission, and the script of Joel G. Fink's adaptation of all this buy Premarin in mo loveable madness will be available for purchase as well.

A. Bryan Humphrey, Dramaturg, The Rivals

Moorwood, James, The Life and buy Premarin in mo Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan . Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985.

Price, Cecil. The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 2 Vols. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1973.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley. The Rivals . Edited by Vincent F. Hopper and buy Premarin in mo Gerald B. Lahey. New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1958.

Sixteen years later, Perdita, who buy Premarin in mo was found and raised by shepherds in Bohemia, is wooed by Florizel, Polixenes' son. Polixenes is buy Premarin in mo opposed to their marriage and threatens punishment. Florizel and Perdita flee to buy Premarin in mo Sicilia, where Perdita's identity is revealed and the kings are buy Premarin in mo reconciled. When all go to view a lifelike statue of Hermione, there is buy Premarin in mo a mysterious transformation and a joyous reunion.

The most critical change is buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare's creation of two separate worlds and the movement between them. Greene's Pandosta begins in Bohemia, then buy Premarin in mo moves to Sicilia. However, this movement does not serve to underscore the buy Premarin in mo themes of the story as it does in The Winter's Tale. Shakespeare reverses the buy Premarin in mo locations and adds the return to the Sicilian kingdom. The court in Sicilia is buy Premarin in mo chaotic and artificial, a cold, confining place where Leontes' jealousy can buy Premarin in mo grow into an unreasonable rage which tragically destroys marriages, families, friendships, even life itself. In contrast, the buy Premarin in mo kingdom of Bohemia is natural, delightfully comic and festive, a life-restoring world where buy Premarin in mo Florizel and Perdita's love can blossom. In this pastoral setting, the buy Premarin in mo issues of courtship and marriage are treated lightly and hold the buy Premarin in mo potential for a happy resolution. The return to Sicilia unifies these contradictory worlds in a buy Premarin in mo new realm of serenity and acceptance. Here, love and friendship are buy Premarin in mo renewed, and faith in the spontaneous, mysterious processes of Nature is buy Premarin in mo restored in one miraculous moment. This movement between Sicilia and Bohemia marks the buy Premarin in mo redemptive, renewing qualities of the passage of Time, and the human journey through life-the primary themes of The Winter's Tale.

Throughout the buy Premarin in mo production history of The Winter's Tale, critics and directors have buy Premarin in mo been challenged by the tryptic form-how to unify and reconcile the buy Premarin in mo tragic, comic, and romantic elements without sacrificing one for the buy Premarin in mo others. The Winter's Tale begins as a tragedy, in which Leontes' obsessive jealousy destroys families and buy Premarin in mo lives, leading him to sorrow and remorse. The second part is buy Premarin in mo a comedy where the issues of love, courtship and marriage are buy Premarin in mo treated lightly through song and disguise in a pastoral setting. The final part is buy Premarin in mo a romance, a reunion of lovers and friends in the buy Premarin in mo serene warmth of acceptance and forgiveness. Director Patrick Kelly sees The Winter's Tale and buy Premarin in mo this "journey through the genres" as a buy Premarin in mo mirror of human life marching on through the generations. The passage through the buy Premarin in mo richly emotional Winter, to the bucolic comedy of Summer, to the buy Premarin in mo resolution of Autumn represents the passing of Time, while "disturbing the deepest, darkest emotions of the human experience."

In 1856, Charles Kean set his production in ancient Greece, cutting everything that buy Premarin in mo clashed with the chosen period. The result was a brilliant spectacle, with emphasis on visual images rather than buy Premarin in mo on excellence of acting and exploration of character. However, Kean's interpretation became the buy Premarin in mo norm for productions of The Winter's Tale until the turn of the buy Premarin in mo century, making it one of Shakespeare's more popular "Greek" plays.

The first professional production of the play in "Elizabethan" style after 1634 was staged in 1910 by Winthrop Ames, who buy Premarin in mo gave focus and unity to the passage of time through a buy Premarin in mo permanent set which changed character as the seasonal elements within it buy Premarin in mo changed. Granville-Barker's production in 1912 emphasized the text by opting for buy Premarin in mo a much simpler and more stylized white and gold set, which, according to buy Premarin in mo the critics, set the imagination roaming between past and present. This production, and buy Premarin in mo subsequent Granville-Barker productions of Shakespeare, put an end to the buy Premarin in mo overblown spectacles of the 19th century in which scenery dominated the buy Premarin in mo text.

More recently, productions of The Winter's Tale have buy Premarin in mo explored the development of character, and the movement in time and buy Premarin in mo location. Peter Brook's London production (1951) concentrated on character. Actor John Gielgud portrayed Leontes with romantic dignity, jealousy smoldering within him. Influenced by the buy Premarin in mo idea of the dream as defined by Freud and Jung, Trevor Nunn's 1969 production by the buy Premarin in mo Royal Shakespeare Company was played on a set of abstract symbols which mirrored the buy Premarin in mo play's images. In this production, Leontes' Sicilia was a dreamlike, childhood world of a buy Premarin in mo nursery that included a man-sized white rocking horse. In 1975, at Stratford, Connecticut, the buy Premarin in mo balance swung towards symbol and allegory. The main symbol of destruction and buy Premarin in mo renewal in this production was a circle which was consistently repeated in different contexts. The idea of duality was also evident in the buy Premarin in mo doubling of the roles of Hermione and Perdita, and Time and buy Premarin in mo the bear. At Stratford, Ontario (1986), David Williams staged the buy Premarin in mo play as a fairytale adventure, with emphasis on coincidence and chance. The production included a buy Premarin in mo visualization of Time and his "children" as tableau figures on a sculptural clock.

The 1992 CSF production of The Winter's Tale seems, at first glance, to buy Premarin in mo be firmly set in the 17th century. But only at first glance. Director Patrick Kelly describes the buy Premarin in mo world of the play as one in which strange coincidences and buy Premarin in mo fantastic moments are made believable. It encompasses extraordinary events "which in the buy Premarin in mo doing, seem scary, but later, in the telling, have humor." This magical quality is buy Premarin in mo reflected in Robert Schmidt's unit set of wooden panels, which are buy Premarin in mo painted with water-colored landscapes and light. Bruce McInroy's costumes for the buy Premarin in mo play draw their inspiration from the 17th century artists Rubens and buy Premarin in mo Veronese. The soft, rich colors and loose, draped lines evoke the buy Premarin in mo magical world of The Winter's Tale. Brian Otte's original music and buy Premarin in mo Michael Wellborn's lighting further create the iridescent world of the play, described by Kelly as the buy Premarin in mo "shimmering suggestion of a memory." The result is buy Premarin in mo a production which embraces the play's rich, contradictory life: while exposing our fear of loss, it buy Premarin in mo touches on our hope in the continuity of living and loving.

Susan L. Ernest-Stengel, Dramaturg, The Winter's Tale

Frey, Charles. Shakespeare's Vast Romance: A Study of The Winter's Tale. University of Missouri Press, 1980.

Antony and Octavia take up residence in Athens. When Octavia returns to Rome to mediate a dispute between her brother and Lepidus, Antony heads east to Cleopatra. Upon hearing of Antony's affront to his sister, Caesar makes preparations for war. Although Antony's military advantage is on land, he accepts Caesar's challenge to buy Premarin in mo a naval battle at Actium, where Cleopatra's fleet can join his own forces. At the buy Premarin in mo height of the battle, Cleopatra unexpectedly turns her royal flagship and buy Premarin in mo flees. In a colossal blunder, Antony chooses to follow her--leading to full-scale retreat.

Caesar sends a buy Premarin in mo messenger to Cleopatra to win her over by flattery and bribery. Antony's continued willingness to subordinate his political and military responsibilities to his infatuation with Cleopatra causes his good friend Enobarbus to buy Premarin in mo desert his cause--only to die of guilt and a broken heart. Even the god Hercules, Antony's most-loved ancestral spirit, abandons the infatuated warrior.

When the buy Premarin in mo Egyptian fleet again deserts at the end of the second day of battle with Caesar, Antony fears that buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra has betrayed him. She flees to buy Premarin in mo the safety of her monument--sending him word that she has committed suicide. The grief-stricken Antony orders his loyal attendant Eros to buy Premarin in mo kill him, too. Rather than make the choice to kill his master or buy Premarin in mo disobey his orders, Eros kills himself. Antony falls on his own sword, wounding himself mortally. When another messenger appears to buy Premarin in mo inform him that Cleopatra is in reality still alive, Antony asks to be taken to her. He dies in the comfort of her embrace.

Caesar visits the monument to promise Cleopatra protection, but she has buy Premarin in mo been warned not to trust him. A rustic clown is allowed to buy Premarin in mo pass Caesar's guards with a buy Premarin in mo basket of figs for the queen. The basket also contains highly poisonous asps that buy Premarin in mo she knows will provide a swift and painless death. After donning her royal regalia, Cleopatra applies the lethal snake to buy Premarin in mo her breast and expires. Caesar orders Antony and Cleopatra entombed side-by-side.

Antony and Cleopatra has often been called one of Shakespeare's "problem plays" because it is so difficult to fit into any of the usually accepted formal categories. The heroic stature of the play's central characters and the circumstances of their deaths indicate a play of tragic nature and buy Premarin in mo proportion. Samuel Coleridge felt that it rivaled Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and Othello as one of Shakespeare's premiere tragedies. However, many critics have questioned his evaluation and buy Premarin in mo prefer to include it as one of the history plays. Some cite superficial structural arguments, noting the original script's lack of act or buy Premarin in mo scene divisions--rather like a 3,600 line one-act play. They say that buy Premarin in mo the inclusion of many short scenes to serve the play's historical purpose detracts from the lovers' tragic downfall. Some are frustrated by the buy Premarin in mo lack of traditional soliloquies in Antony and Cleopatra and the resultant uncertainty about what sort of attitudes and motivations really drive the buy Premarin in mo famous lovers to make their choices. Only Enobarbus shares his inner thoughts with us in soliloquy, and buy Premarin in mo his sarcastic asides and humorous comments make him a sympathetic figure. Janet Adelman, a well-known authority on Antony and Cleopatra, sees our empathic link with Enobarbus as a buy Premarin in mo natural affinity for a figure of moderation who buy Premarin in mo is caught-up in the world of excess that necessarily surrounds history's most extravagant lovers. His broken-hearted death illustrates for buy Premarin in mo us the futility of too much skepticism and too little imagination. He fails to buy Premarin in mo come to grips with the issue of his own spirituality, a condition that results in an over-identification with the foibles of the buy Premarin in mo high and mighty, rather than an appreciation of the essential immortality that defines the mythology of such noble figures. In spite of legendary power and buy Premarin in mo wealth, Antony and Cleopatra fall victim to the most common of human faults. Antony dies in Cleopatra's arms only after a buy Premarin in mo series of rather unheroic failures in politics, in naval warfare, in communication with his love, and buy Premarin in mo even in the act of suicide itself. Subsequently, Cleopatra's famous suicide represents an buy Premarin in mo act of despair that is difficult to reconcile with her position as the buy Premarin in mo most powerful ruler in the world at that time. What is buy Premarin in mo clear is buy Premarin in mo that Antony and Cleopatra are certainly subject to human failings, but the buy Premarin in mo ambiguity of their motivations makes it difficult for us to judge them. Their emotions are unreliable, changeable, and often acted out in order to buy Premarin in mo produce a desired effect. They are presented to us not as fixed historical legends, but as history's "star actors" striving to achieve legendary station. As critic Michael Goldman says, "Antony and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra act on each other and on their audiences. They act on and buy Premarin in mo act out their becomingness, striving even in death to become themselves, in both senses of the phrase." When Antony makes an early exit he leaves Cleopatra alone with us to buy Premarin in mo bring the story to a climax as she oversees the buy Premarin in mo spiritual metamorphosis that lies at the elusive emotional center of the buy Premarin in mo play. In one of Shakespeare's most paradoxical speeches, Cleopatra self-consciously bemoans her reputation and foretells her own coming immortality by predicting the theatrical circumstance that occurs simultaneously for us, the audience:

. . . The quick comedians/Extemporally will stage us, and present/Our Alexandrian revels: Antony/Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see/Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness/I' the posture of a whore. [5, 2, 215-20]

Antony and Cleopatra is assumed to have been produced at least once during Shakespeare's tenure at the Globe theatre, but no confirming documentation has been discovered. The folio script contains many indications of appropriate stage actions, music, and pageantry that relate to performance and to the known stage practices of the King's Men--Shakespeare's company at the Globe. If the buy Premarin in mo play entered in the Stationer's Register in 1608 was completed in 1607, then buy Premarin in mo it is likely that the staging notations refer to performances from 1606. Shakespeare might have been involved personally in the production, and Richard Burbage would have been available to play Antony. Cleopatra would have buy Premarin in mo been played by a boy. John Edmans, who buy Premarin in mo is known to have been particularly effective in such roles, is buy Premarin in mo the likely originator of one of the most complex and sexy roles in Shakespeare. Even given the extraordinary talents of the Elizabethan boy actors, some scholars find it buy Premarin in mo difficult to believe that any of them could successfully play Cleopatra, and argue that this explains the play's nonexistent production history prior to David Garrick's production in 1759, when buy Premarin in mo women could finally tackle one of the most poetic and demanding roles in English drama.

Historically, there are two additional explanations for the dearth of productions of Antony and Cleopatra: 1) The popularity of John Dryden's version of the buy Premarin in mo story, All for Love, is well established. Although formal and stilted by today's standards, post-Restoration audiences favored Dryden's dignified poetry and adherence to neo- classic forms. Even productions of Shakespeare's play were often augmented or "improved" by the interpolation of scenes or dialogue from Dryden; 2) The abandonment of the Elizabethan stage that had facilitated the presentation of multiple locations in rapid-fire sequence also worked against Antony and Cleopatra. The audience's desire to experience the scenic effects made possible by the proscenium stage made the buy Premarin in mo production of a play with some 40 scenes extremely difficult and buy Premarin in mo expensive. As a result, when the play was produced it usually became more spectacle than history, more pageantry than poetry, and buy Premarin in mo for nearly a century the problem of the sheer scale and buy Premarin in mo scope of Antony and Cleopatra kept productions to a minimum.

Even in the era of modern scenic and lighting techniques, the balancing of elements of grandeur with the buy Premarin in mo intimacy of a love story has buy Premarin in mo been a major challenge in Antony and Cleopatra. Success has buy Premarin in mo most often come to productions that used space effectively and simply while relying upon great acting to buy Premarin in mo carry the day. One of the most critically acclaimed productions was the 1947 version starring Katharine Cornell. Reviewers were nearly universal in their praise of her performance and that of Godfrey Tearle as Antony. Most mentioned the spaciousness and grandeur of Leo Kerz's settings and the tasteful costumes created by two designers--Valentina for the women, and John Boyt for the men. The play was performed in an almost uncut version lasting over three hours, but its vitality and buy Premarin in mo movement created an atmosphere of excitement. The supporting cast was noteworthy for the presence of Maureen Stapleton, Charlton Heston and Eli Wallach.

Peter Brook's highly experimental 1978 production at Stratford used his "empty space" theories, rereading the text in the light of Antonin Artaud's "Theatre of Cruelty." He viewed Antony and Cleopatra as a small, intimate, personal play and buy Premarin in mo framed it with movable panels and trestles, using sound and light economically. Alan Howard and Glenda Jackson were praised for buy Premarin in mo their clarity and focus, but Brook was criticized for dealing with the play's scope by eliminating spectacular elements. The result was an buy Premarin in mo intimate production left searching for the grandeur and passion needed to clearly define the play's tragic outlines.

In 1987, Peter Hall directed the buy Premarin in mo play as his last big production at the National Theatre. He left the buy Premarin in mo script intact and paced the scenes at lightning speed, using entrances and buy Premarin in mo exits in nearly every corner of the buy Premarin in mo Olivier theatre. Still, the running time was over four hours. antony Hopkins received good notices for buy Premarin in mo his Antony, but Judi Dench was universally praised for her portrayal of the "infinite variety" of Cleopatra and buy Premarin in mo for her command of the language in the final act, which featured live snakes in bit parts.

Jack Clay's production, which draws inspiration from the haunting juxtapositions of artist Giorgio De Chirico, deals with classical motifs iconically--suspended in the vastness of time and space. By adjusting the spatial relationships between stage and audience, the buy Premarin in mo immensity of the events and characters in Antony and Cleopatra can be counterbalanced with intimacy when required--as in the buy Premarin in mo key scene at the end of the play in which Cleopatra raises Antony to buy Premarin in mo her monument in a physical representation of the ascension to buy Premarin in mo immortality that lies at the thematic center of the play.

The idea of image-building that is so important to the play is reinforced by framing those classical motifs in the buy Premarin in mo clear, elegant lines of Art Deco, resulting in a buy Premarin in mo graceful representation of Rome and Egypt that may suggest parallels with contemporary styles. Correspondingly, costumes are buy Premarin in mo strongly influenced by the flowing lines of Erte's prints in a way that articulates the theatricality of the characters. Cleopatra's final costume--an historically accurate recreation of the robes of the goddess Isis--emphasizes once again the production's central concern with the transformation of the earthly into the immortal.

Brooke, C.R. Tucker, ed. Shakespeare's Plutarch. New York: Haskell House, 1966.

Goldman, Michael. Acting and Action in Shakespearean Tragedy. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1985.

Lamb, Margaret. Antony and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra on the English Stage. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson U P, 1980.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth plot and carry out the murder of King Duncan while he is buy Premarin in mo a guest in their house. Malcolm and Donalbain, Duncan's sons, flee Scotland for buy Premarin in mo their lives, and Macbeth is made king.

Fearing that buy Premarin in mo the third prophecy of the witches will come true, Macbeth devises a buy Premarin in mo plan to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. On the way to buy Premarin in mo a feast at Macbeth's castle, Banquo is killed, although Fleance manages to escape. At the banquet, Banquo's ghost haunts Macbeth.

Seeking further information, Macbeth searches out the witches. They present three apparitions: an buy Premarin in mo armed head that warns the king to beware of Macduff, a buy Premarin in mo rival thane; a bloody child, who tells him he need not fear "the pow'r of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth"; and a crowned child holding a bough, who soothes him with the buy Premarin in mo knowledge that he is safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to buy Premarin in mo Dunsinane Hill. The witches show Macbeth a buy Premarin in mo vision of bloody Banquo and eight of his descendants, all crowned. Encouraged by this spectacle, Macbeth vows to hasten the speed of his "dread exploits" in an effort to hold on to the throne.

Macduff flees to buy Premarin in mo England to join the army Malcolm is raising against the buy Premarin in mo Scottish tyrant. In a bloody rage Macbeth has Macduff's wife and buy Premarin in mo children brutally murdered. Consumed with guilt, Lady Macbeth takes her own life. Macbeth has buy Premarin in mo scarcely time to mourn her passing when news of the rebellious army is brought to him.

Shut up in Dunsinane castle, Macbeth waits for the arrival of Malcolm's army when a messenger enters bearing strange tidings: Birnam Wood has begun to move towards Dunsinane Hill. Malcolm's men, camouflaged with boughs, have reached the outer walls. During the buy Premarin in mo siege, Macduff and Macbeth meet. Macduff, not born naturally of woman but "from his mother's womb untimely ripped," decapitates Macbeth. The play ends as Malcolm takes his rightful place as king of Scotland.

The theme of doubleness and equivocation are emphasized in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of Macbeth in characterization and design. The actors' playing, the look and feeling of scenery and buy Premarin in mo costumes, and the shifting brilliance of the lighting point up the buy Premarin in mo idea that something can be two things at once: the buy Premarin in mo physical and moral atmosphere is both "fair and foul," the battle is both "lost and won." Macbeth is a murderer, yet we are paradoxically drawn to buy Premarin in mo him because he is a sympathetic, if unconventional hero. To encourage an intimate relationship between the audience and Macbeth, the stage is uncluttered, evoking the cold, remote, unpopulated moors of Scotland, and buy Premarin in mo allowing our focus to stay directly on the hero/murderer. In this production Macbeth is neither forced into crime by Lady Macbeth nor by the witches. Macbeth chooses evil knowingly, and buy Premarin in mo it is he alone who is responsible for the consequences that buy Premarin in mo follow. Although Malcolm restores order at the end of the play, the buy Premarin in mo corrupt world he inhabits is only precariously righted. Macbeth has buy Premarin in mo stained the buy Premarin in mo whole notion of kingship forever and an audience is left uncertain as to whether Scotland can wash away the blood.

The set design for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of Macbeth emphasizes the buy Premarin in mo theme of doubleness in its ability to suggest several places at once. Resembling an abstract wooden sculpture, the buy Premarin in mo set is composed of lengths of rough cut timber joined together at angles with crude, rusted steel straps and buy Premarin in mo sockets. The wood is worn and broken, suggesting the physical and emotional distress of the play. The one detail on the buy Premarin in mo set is a massive rusted steel disk that hangs from buy Premarin in mo the top, used as an alarm bell for both Duncan's death and the battle scenes. Director Patrick Kelly describes the unit, reminiscent of both a bombed out ruin and a palace, as a "dream castle" or a "floating cloud of timbers." Completely open without any solid portions, the scenery conceals nothing. It provides an organizing gridwork for buy Premarin in mo the world of the play, and remains free of definition as any particular locale. The set works both practically and aesthetically, allowing the buy Premarin in mo rapid action of the play to unfold without the need for buy Premarin in mo cumbersome set changes, and providing a powerful visual metaphor for the play's theme of doubleness and ambiguity.

Although interpretations of character may vary greatly, each director of Macbeth must make a firm decision about the nature of the witches, and buy Premarin in mo their place in the action of the play. In the buy Premarin in mo Colorado Shakespeare Festival production, the weird sisters are real women, more "psychic" than supernatural. Ragged and semi-deranged, the witches have buy Premarin in mo little control of the world around them. Rather, their influence lies in setting off an buy Premarin in mo uncontrollable chain of events. The role of the buy Premarin in mo weird sisters in the play is to create a situation in which Macbeth knowingly chooses evil, but they do not cause the buy Premarin in mo action to happen and are not responsible for Macbeth's decisions. Relying less on supernatural power, and buy Premarin in mo more on trickery, the witches create their "magic" illusions out of improvised materials. Both their appearance and physical vulnerability suggest images of the homeless in our society. Their clingy dresses reveal bodies with sores and scorch marks, signs of decay that buy Premarin in mo are symbolic of their frayed moral fiber, and of Scotland's corrupt body politic.

Written and produced at the Globe Theatre in 1606, Macbeth continues to be among the most popular works of Shakespeare's canon. The shortest of all his tragedies, each scene of the buy Premarin in mo play is suspenseful and compact, and the action moves swiftly to its horrifying end. Along with a buy Premarin in mo riveting plot, Macbeth's power lies in its poetry, and buy Premarin in mo the universal questions it raises about good and evil. Witchcraft, ghosts, apparitions, murder, and the many images of blood provide spectacle, and buy Premarin in mo introduce us to the darker side of human nature.

Shakespeare's three "instruments of darkness," the "weird sisters," have buy Premarin in mo long fascinated directors of the play. Who are they, and how should they be represented on stage? Little information is given about them in the buy Premarin in mo play itself. The 1623 First Folio edition of Macbeth describes them as "Weyward" and "Weyard." They are not addressed by Macbeth as actual witches although they are commonly identified by that name in contemporary criticism. Scholars argue over their origin. Some believe they are Scottish or English witches. Others propose they are Scandinavian Norns, fates, hags, furies, or merely evil women. In the buy Premarin in mo play, Banquo describes them as withered women with beards, and Macbeth refers to them as "secret, black, and midnight hags," "filthy hags" and "juggling fiends." Most critics agree that buy Premarin in mo although the sisters exert some power over Macbeth, they are not ultimately responsible for the murder of Duncan. The prophesy of Macbeth's ascendance to buy Premarin in mo the throne might suggest murder but it in no way forces Macbeth to commit the crime. The three sisters can predict the buy Premarin in mo future but they do not have the ability to change it.

As a buy Premarin in mo result of the text's ambiguity about the witches, their portrayal on stage is left open to interpretation. Several eighteenth and nineteenth- century productions turned the weird sisters into comic characters, adding songs and dances that were quite popular with contemporary audiences. Twentieth-century productions of Macbeth have tended to stay away from the comic approach, although directors realize that terrifying an buy Premarin in mo audience with the witches is harder to do now than buy Premarin in mo in Shakespeare's day when buy Premarin in mo the belief in evil spirits was more common. The challenge for buy Premarin in mo today's director is to find a modern equivalent for the buy Premarin in mo weird sisters that will convince a modern audience. Robert Cohen, in his 1982 Colorado Shakespeare Festival production, cast three beautiful women as the witches. Dressed in topless gowns they seduced Macbeth into a buy Premarin in mo life of crime and corruption. Trevor Nunn, in his acclaimed 1976 Royal Shakespeare Company production, chose to buy Premarin in mo make the weird sisters eerie women who dabbled in the art of black magic but they were not supernatural.

The weird sisters play an buy Premarin in mo important thematic role in the tragedy of Macbeth. First scenes in Shakespeare are often important clues to character and buy Premarin in mo motif. In the first scene of the play the witches' line, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair," introduces the idea of doubleness, of things having two truths. The line refers both to buy Premarin in mo the physical climate, as well as to buy Premarin in mo the inverted topsy turvy moral landscape of the play, where there are "daggers in men's smiles" and things are not what they appear to be. Macbeth's first line on stage, "So foul and fair a day I have not seen," echoes that of the weird sisters, and immediately links him to buy Premarin in mo the idea of doubleness and duplicity, skills he quickly learns to buy Premarin in mo master as he, like the witches, deceives those who trust in his words.

Equivocation, saying one thing but meaning another, is buy Premarin in mo at the core of evil in Macbeth. In the famous "double, double, toil and trouble" cauldron scene, the weird sisters repeat the word "double" several times in their incantation, doubling, perhaps, the pain and sorrow experienced in the world. The witches' emphasis of the word "double" foreshadows their use of equivocation to destroy Macbeth. Believing he need not fear any man born of woman, and buy Premarin in mo that he is safe until Birnam Wood comes to buy Premarin in mo Dunsinane Hill, Macbeth thinks of himself as indestructible. In truth, the buy Premarin in mo weird sisters have deceived him, giving him false confidence with their double-talk, and Macbeth, dependent on their prophesies, is ultimately destroyed.

Macbeth. Video. Dir. Trevor Nunn. With Ian McKellen and buy Premarin in mo Judi Dench. Thames Television, 1979.

McCutchan, J. Wilson. Macbeth: A Complete Guide to buy Premarin in mo the Play. New York: Barnes and Noble Inc., 1963.

Rogers, H. L. 'Double Profit' in Macbeth. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1964.

Watkins, Ronald, and Jeremy Lemmon. Macbeth: In Shakespeare's Playhouse. Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1974.

Orsino is buy Premarin in mo in love with the Countess Olivia. Olivia, in mourning over the buy Premarin in mo death of her brother, refuses to buy Premarin in mo consider any suitors, including Orsino. Orsino, impressed with Viola/Cesario's youthful good looks and charm, decides to use Cesario as his spokesperson to win Olivia.

At the same time, Olivia's gentlewoman, Maria, keeps company with Olivia's drunken uncle, Sir Toby Belch, as well as Feste, her "fool," and buy Premarin in mo Sir Andrew Aguecheek, an elderly nobleman who wishes to woo Olivia. Malvolio, Olivia's steward, scorns the tomfoolery of Maria, Sir Toby, Feste and buy Premarin in mo Sir Andrew, and they determine to get revenge on him.

Cesario arrives at Olivia's house and so eloquently delivers Orsino's message of love that buy Premarin in mo Olivia falls in love with Cesario. Further tangling this "knot," Cesario/Viola has fallen in love with Orsino.

Meanwhile, Maria, Sir Toby, Feste and buy Premarin in mo Sir Andrew proceed with their plan to get revenge on Malvolio. Maria devises a plan in which Malvolio will find a buy Premarin in mo note, supposedly written by Olivia, in which Olivia confesses her secret love for buy Premarin in mo Malvolio and asks him to wear absurd clothes and buy Premarin in mo to smile continuously in her presence. Malvolio finds the note and buy Premarin in mo is beside himself with joy over what he believes to buy Premarin in mo be Olivia's secret declaration of love. To please Olivia, Malvolio arrives smiling and wearing yellow stockings. Olivia, surprised by Malvolio's peculiar behavior, decides he has buy Premarin in mo lost his wits and confines him to a dark room.

Sebastian, Viola's brother, has been rescued by Antonio, a sailor. When Sebastian decides to visit Illyria he is mistaken for Viola/Cesario and a complicated "comedy of errors" follows. Sir Andrew, still determined to woo Olivia, becomes aware that Olivia loves Cesario, and buy Premarin in mo he challenges Cesario to a dual. Unfortunately, Sir Andrew ends up fighting Sebastian instead.

As disguises are dropped and misunderstandings resolved, Sebastian and buy Premarin in mo Viola are reunited. With Sebastian married to Olivia, and Viola engaged to buy Premarin in mo Orsino, Twelfth Night concludes with a song by Feste. The steward, Malvolio, will not join in the buy Premarin in mo festivities and exits with a pledge to buy Premarin in mo be revenged on them all. As Shakespeare wrote, the course of true love never runs smooth, and in life, "the rain it raineth every day."

. . . the women characters were never once allowed to drop to the dreamy and emotional; they were always high, clear and ringing, coming out of a passionate mood. Malvolio was a Puritan prig who flamed up in fury on "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you." Feste was cast not as a young, sprightly court jester, but as a sad, mature man who exhibited that vein of irony which is so often the mark of one of life's self-acknowledged failures.

Peter Hall's 1958 production presented Olivia as a pouting, giggling, squealing woman affecting a buy Premarin in mo love for her dead brother that she didn't really feel, and buy Premarin in mo bored to death with acting the role of the great lady. In 1971 John Barton staged a production that presented the characters with all their contradictions intact. He invested Twelfth Night with psychological detail without depriving it buy Premarin in mo of its magic. In 1987 Bill Alexander's Stratford-upon-Avon production made Malvolio a major focus of the buy Premarin in mo play. Antony Sher's Malvolio was everywhere, spying on everyone and buy Premarin in mo peevishly primping while waiting on Olivia. In the final scenes Malvolio appeared mad, as if he had buy Premarin in mo been driven out of his wits. In the buy Premarin in mo same year Kenneth Branagh directed a production in which a snowflake covered Christmas setting tended to veil the production in prettiness which left some of the buy Premarin in mo darker areas of the play untouched.

The 1994 Colorado Shakespeare production is set in the Victorian period at the end of the Christmas season. The dark, repressed sense of the buy Premarin in mo Victorian era is highlighted by the set's theatrical self- consciousness. The Victorian costumes capture the elegance and style of the period, while the musical score combines traditional seasonal songs with more melancholy music. Against this backdrop the buy Premarin in mo production looks at the power of love, the love of power, and buy Premarin in mo at death as the overriding force in Twelfth Night.

Critical interpretations of Twelfth Night have exhibited a change over time, shifting from a lighthearted acceptance of its improbabilities to buy Premarin in mo a more serious examination of the play's outlook on humanity. For example, earlier interpretations of the buy Premarin in mo play suggest that we accept the improbabilities which pervade Twelfth Night's imaginary country of Illyria simply because the buy Premarin in mo play is a comedy, a genre which, by its very nature, defies rational explanation.

This interpretation is buy Premarin in mo seen in the response of some critics to the surprising love matches and marriages which mark the play's final action. Anne Barton explains: "Olivia and Sebastian, Viola and Orsino confront us at the buy Premarin in mo end less as representatives of a new society than as people who, by the buy Premarin in mo special dispensation of comedy, have been allowed to escape from death and time" (Twelfth Night, Riverside Shakespeare, 407).

Other critics who have adopted the "courtly world" interpretation of Twelfth Night tell us that buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare is not interested in moral judgments at the buy Premarin in mo end of the play. Instead, he is presenting and playing with literary conventions of love. In his introduction to buy Premarin in mo the Pelican edition of Twelfth Night, Charles T. Prouty explains, "of course people fall in love at first sight; they always do in the buy Premarin in mo love poems and romances of the age. Orsino, Viola, and Olivia all behave in thoroughly traditional fashion"(18).

Historical reading tells us that buy Premarin in mo the title of Twelfth Night places us at the feast of Epiphany. On January 6, the feast of Epiphany was observed in England and buy Premarin in mo throughout Europe as the last day of the Christmas festivities. This was a boisterous, "mad" celebration in which it was customary to choose a "King" or "Lord of Misrule." The "Lord of Misrule" was often a servant who would act for one day as master of the buy Premarin in mo household and preside at a feast in the great hall. Historians point out that buy Premarin in mo Epiphany was an occasion for toasts, games, mock trials, dancing, processions, feasting and disguises; a perfect setting for the antics of Twelfth Night.

Other critics have buy Premarin in mo sought to explain the topsy-turvy world of Illyria by focusing on the idea of metamorphosis, or transformation. In this interpretation, various powers of metamorphosis govern Illyria: mysterious energies turn two into one and buy Premarin in mo one into two, and strange forces lead people to become actors, donning disguises, willfully turning themselves into what they are not. According to these interpretations, the metamorphoses experienced when Olivia, Orsino and Viola fall in love dominate the play.

Recent approaches to Twelfth Night question the accuracy of these lighthearted interpretations of the play. They also examine the earlier traditional position that "marriage in Shakespeare is an image of happiness that buy Premarin in mo ends his comedies almost as invariably as death ends a buy Premarin in mo tragedy. Shakespeare's comic vision is the firm assertion of basic harmony" (Arden, vii). As a result of this shift in perceptions of the play, characters are buy Premarin in mo no longer simply functionaries of a comedy which inevitably ends in happy wedlock; rather they are individuals struggling with the buy Premarin in mo puzzle of life. They have doubts, are vulnerable, want money, hope for buy Premarin in mo love, and fear death. From this viewpoint, Twelfth Night becomes a story which examines and dramatizes realistic human concerns about society, sexuality, love, class struggles, cruelty and death.

Through exploring the buy Premarin in mo characters' motivations in this light, we see that Viola's choice to buy Premarin in mo dress like a man carries more significance than to cause happy confusion on the buy Premarin in mo stage. Viola adopts male dress as a practical means of survival in an buy Premarin in mo alien environment and, perhaps, as a magical means of keeping alive a buy Premarin in mo brother believed drowned. In short, for buy Premarin in mo her, crossdressing is not so much a political act as a buy Premarin in mo psychological haven, a buy Premarin in mo holding place. Ultimately she realizes she must reveal her inner feelings for Orsino if she is to become fully human.

Viola's revelation results in marriage with Orsino, but questions remain. When Orsino, who buy Premarin in mo has been blindly and hopelessly in love with Olivia, turns his attention to buy Premarin in mo Viola at the end of the play, his seemingly abrupt change of heart raises questions about the ultimate success of their marriage. The other two marriages at the buy Premarin in mo end of the play raise similar doubts. Olivia and buy Premarin in mo Sebastian are married but neither really knows the buy Premarin in mo other. The third marriage, which we only hear about, occurs between Maria and buy Premarin in mo Sir Toby, because Sir Toby is indebted to Maria for writing the letter deluding Malvolio.

If comedy is buy Premarin in mo defined by marriage and resulting harmony, the last scene of Twelfth Night might make us question what Shakespeare was trying to buy Premarin in mo convey about marriage. Rather than resolve the unlikely happenings in Illyria, the unlikely is perpetuated with these three questionable marriages. Shakespeare does not provide solutions. He simply raises questions and issues for us to ponder.

Directors' Shakespeare: Approaches to Twelfth Night. ed. Michael Billington. London: Nick Hern, 1990.

Girard, Rene. "'Tis Not So Sweet as It Was Before': Orsino and buy Premarin in mo Olivia in Twelfth Night." Stanford Literature Review. 1990, Spring-Fall, v7(1-2): 123-132.

Howard, Jean E. "Crossdressing, The Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England." Shakespeare Quarterly. 1988 Winter v39(4): 418-440.

Leech, Clifford. Twelfth Night and Shakespearian Comedy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965.

Malcolmson, Cristina. "'What You Will': Social Mobility and Gender in Twelfth Night." The Matter of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. ed. Valerie Wayne. Ithaca: Cornell University, 1991: 29-57.

The Arden Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. Eds. J.M. Lothian and buy Premarin in mo T.W. Craik. London: Routledge, 1991.

Julia is buy Premarin in mo coy at first but soon confesses her love in a letter to buy Premarin in mo Proteus. No sooner does he read it buy Premarin in mo than his father orders him to join Valentine in Milan. Proteus sorrowfully parts from Julia and they exchange rings. After his departure Julia decides to follow Proteus and disguises herself as a boy.

Meanwhile, Valentine has discovered love in the person of Silvia, daughter of Milan's ruler. When Proteus arrives in Milan, Valentine asks for buy Premarin in mo help in planning an elopement with Silvia. Proteus, smitten by Silvia's charms, decides to buy Premarin in mo win her for himself. He betrays his friend to the Duke who banishes Valentine. When Julia arrives in Milan (disguised as Sebastian) Proteus employs her as a page and orders her to buy Premarin in mo deliver the ring she had once given him to his new love, Silvia.

Outside Milan, outlaws ambush Valentine. When Silvia flees the court to buy Premarin in mo look for him, she is captured by the outlaws, but rescued by Proteus. When she shows no buy Premarin in mo inclination to reward him with her love, he attempts to force himself on her. Valentine intervenes but bloodshed is averted when Proteus repents. Julia reveals her identity and Proteus swears to love her as before. The Duke forgives Valentine, and everyone prepares for a double wedding.

Most of its notable productions have buy Premarin in mo relocated the play in time and/or place. In 1971 Two Gentlemen of Verona premiered as a buy Premarin in mo musical with a contemporary urban style. This blend of modern colloquialisms and Elizabethan language became a Broadway hit. It used an interracial cast and songs based on many different cultural traditions.

This year's staging at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival also plays with time and buy Premarin in mo place. The production invokes the exuberance of the 1960s to buy Premarin in mo evoke the play's own youthful charms. Milan is transformed into a University town where these young gentlemen experience freedom from parental authority for the first time.

Sights and sounds of the '60s enhance the themes of the play. In the protected rural community of Verona sweet rock ballads and pastoral sounds surround the buy Premarin in mo young people. In contrast, the city of Milan offers sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The young people from Verona "drop out and tune in." The audience sees them change radically as they replace their rural clothes with trendy '60s attire (tie-dyed shirts and cowboy boots) and trade their circumscribed behavior for freedom of action and deed.

This fascinating time in recent history introduced the terms "sexual revolution" and "summer of love" into our vocabularies. Combined with the turbulent adolescents depicted in Two Gentlemen, this production promises romantically explosive results.

Shakespeare introduces many plot elements in The Two Gentleman of Verona which he develops in later plays. Perhaps the buy Premarin in mo most striking parallel for buy Premarin in mo this year's audience is to Twelfth Night. Both plays have young women disguised as boys who woo their master's mistress. Julia even adopts the name Sebastian, the name Shakespeare later uses for Viola's brother.

But the circumstances are very different. In Two Gentlemen, Proteus vows love and buy Premarin in mo fidelity to Julia and then abandons her, while in Twelfth Night, Orsino does not meet Viola before she disguises herself as a buy Premarin in mo boy. Instead of pleading for Proteus (as Viola pleads for Orsino), Julia reminds Silvia of Proteus' perfidy to buy Premarin in mo his first love. This successfully elicits Silvia's sympathy for the "absent" Julia. It enlists the audience's sympathy as well and buy Premarin in mo validates Silvia's refusal of the ring that was once Julia's.

Shakespeare uses the buy Premarin in mo lover's ring motif for the first time in Two Gentlemen. He also includes such a buy Premarin in mo ring in Twelfth Night. Viola discovers that buy Premarin in mo Olivia loves the boy she appears to be when a buy Premarin in mo servant is sent after her to "return" a ring she did not leave. In the parallel situation in Two Gentlemen, Silvia refuses the buy Premarin in mo ring that Julia offers her from buy Premarin in mo Proteus. At the end, Julia's identity is confirmed by the buy Premarin in mo ring she received from Proteus.

Shakespeare develops this theme of exchanged rings in playful form in The Merchant of Venice when buy Premarin in mo two wives tease their husbands with rings they obtain by trickery. He uses it buy Premarin in mo dramatically in All's Well That Ends Well when buy Premarin in mo Helena claims Bertram with the ring she obtained by disguising herself. If a buy Premarin in mo ring symbolizes love in these plays, ownership of an exchanged ring signals love reclaimed.

Confusion and resolution in the woods is another favorite Shakespearean theme. In As You Like It the buy Premarin in mo exiled Duke and his men live in the buy Premarin in mo forest like the outlaws of Two Gentlemen. A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and buy Premarin in mo Cymbeline all have climactic scenes in the woods. In Shakespeare's earlier play, the magical woods harbor Two Gentlemen's comic outlaws. In the later plays, inhabitants range from fairies, to humans disguised as fairies, to royal humans unwittingly disguised as common humans. The forest always surprises and delights the characters and the audience. All of these elements in Two Gentlemen come from buy Premarin in mo tales and plays familiar to Shakespeare. The multitude of sources may account for puzzles in the script. Inconsistencies about location, time, and dramatis personae may be hold-overs from the source material.

No specific source exists for the play's conclusion. When Proteus rescues Silvia from buy Premarin in mo outlaws in the woods, he tries to assault her. Valentine prevents him and buy Premarin in mo reproaches him by reminding him of their friendship, "oh time, most accurst: 'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst." Proteus asks for forgiveness. Valentine immediately forgives him. To prove the buy Premarin in mo strength of this friendship, he offers "all that is mine in Silvia I give to thee."

All this happens in less than sixty-five lines. Noted Shakespeare scholar John Dover Wilson argues that buy Premarin in mo part of the play's conclusion was omitted by negligent revision. Proteus' quick repentance and Valentine's equally sudden relinquishment of Silvia seem more the stuff of sitcom or soap opera than Shakespeare's superior stagecraft.

The most convincing explanation seems to be that this is an exuberant play of youthful love and friendship. When Proteus first starts to buy Premarin in mo love Silvia, the loss of Valentine's love worries him as much as the buy Premarin in mo loss of Julia's. Valentine's first thought on rescuing Silvia is buy Premarin in mo not to comfort her, but to upbraid Proteus for his lack of faith and friendship. Perhaps Shakespeare recognized that adolescents sometimes act impulsively out of love or friendship. Shakespeare himself married at eighteen, and buy Premarin in mo his first child was born only six months after his marriage.

Leggat, Alexander. Shakespeare's Comedy of Love. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1974.

Leech, Clifford, ed. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The Arden Edition of the buy Premarin in mo Works of William Shakespeare. London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1992.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Videocassette. Dir. Don Taylor. BBC-TV and buy Premarin in mo Time- Life Television, 1983.

Tillyard, E.M.W. Shakespeare's Early Comedies. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1965.

Wilson, John Dover. Shakespeare's Happy Comedies. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1962.

Susan has buy Premarin in mo directed at regional and university theaters around the country including The Repertory Theatre of St, Louis, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Asolo in Sarasota and buy Premarin in mo Capital Repertory in Albany. Her university directing credits include Purdue University, The University of Iowa, North Carolina School of the buy Premarin in mo Arts and Cornell University. Her New York off-Broadway credits include work at The Lambs, Primary Stages, Perry Street Theatre, Theatre for buy Premarin in mo the New City, Westbeth, The Westbank, The Actors Studio and buy Premarin in mo in various back rooms and basements. She also is buy Premarin in mo on the advisory board for The Gathering at Bigfork. This is Susan's first season with CSF.

Bassanio arrives at Portia's Belmont estate, where, to buy Premarin in mo wim her hand in manage, he first must pass a test. Devised by Portia's late father in his will, the buy Premarin in mo test calls for Portia's suitors to choose the casket, or chest, containing her portrait.

Back in Venice, after discovering Jessica has buy Premarin in mo fled, Shylock learns Antonio's ships have wrecked at sea and insists on payment of the buy Premarin in mo bond. Antonio sends a letter to Bassanio asking him to return to buy Premarin in mo Venice to attend his trial. Bassanio leaves Belmont and Portia, and buy Premarin in mo returns to Venice to help his friend. Portia and her maid, Nerissa, disguise themselves and buy Premarin in mo secretly follow.

Adaptation became the buy Premarin in mo norm for Dream during the next few centuries, especially in operas, which often added characters, dances and buy Premarin in mo songs from Shakespeare as well as other poets. Notable operas include Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen (1692) and Madame Lucia Elizabeth Vestris' production in 1840. Vestris' Dream restored much of Shakespeare's dialogue, yet it buy Premarin in mo was foremost a musical spectacle and featured Puck's grand entrance on a buy Premarin in mo rising mushroom.

Hermia and buy Premarin in mo Lysander decide to elope and plan a rendezvous the next night in the buy Premarin in mo woods. They confide in Helena, Hermia's dearest friend who buy Premarin in mo has been jilted by her old lover, Demetrius. Hoping to buy Premarin in mo gain his favor, Helena informs Demetrius of the couple's scheme and buy Premarin in mo they both follow the lovers into the woods.

The same day, a buy Premarin in mo group of workmen begin preparations for a short play they wish to buy Premarin in mo present at Theseus and Hippolyta's marriage celebration. They decide to buy Premarin in mo rehearse in the woods, exactly in the place where Hermia and buy Premarin in mo Lysander have agreed to meet.

The same woods are revealed to be the home of fairies. The fairy king, Oberon, and buy Premarin in mo his queen, Titania, argue, and Oberon plans a joke on Titania. He sends his henchman, Puck, to buy Premarin in mo fetch a purple flower endowed with Cupid's love potion. Oberon plans to buy Premarin in mo squeeze its juice on Titania's eyelids while she is asleep so the buy Premarin in mo first creature she sees when she awakens will become the object of her desire. Oberon then buy Premarin in mo overhears Helena's plight and, when Puck returns, tells Puck to buy Premarin in mo put the potion on the eyes of a man in Athenian garments.

In another part of the buy Premarin in mo woods, Oberon anoints sleeping Titania's eyes. Puck, who buy Premarin in mo does not know that two men in Athenian dress inhabit the buy Premarin in mo woods, mistakenly casts the spell on Lysander. Lysander awakens to buy Premarin in mo Helena's face and finds himself hopelessly in love with her. Meanwhile, as the buy Premarin in mo workmen rehearse, Puck causes one of them, Bottom, to have buy Premarin in mo an ass' head. Titania awakens to buy Premarin in mo the sight of the transformed Bottom and the spell causes her to buy Premarin in mo be enchanted by him.

Oberon, pleased with his joke on Titania, soon learns Puck mistook Lysander for buy Premarin in mo Demetrius. While Demetrius sleeps, Oberon places the potion on his eyes. Now, both men love Helena and spurn Hermia. Puck magically leads the buy Premarin in mo four lovers to places of rest and reverses the potion's effect on Lysander. While the buy Premarin in mo lovers sleep, Oberon breaks Titania's spell and Puck restores Bottom to buy Premarin in mo normal.

Theseus, Hippolyta and buy Premarin in mo Egeus discover the lovers asleep in the woods. Upon awakening, the buy Premarin in mo young people rediscover their first loves Lysander for Hermia and Demetrius for buy Premarin in mo Helena, Theseus then commands that a triple wedding take place.

After the buy Premarin in mo marriage ceremony at the palace, all the lovers and Egeus watch the buy Premarin in mo actors perform their comic play. As the clock strikes twelve, Theseus sends the lovers to bed.

The 20th century yielded important Dream productions in which Shakespeare's text received preeminence over spectacle. Harley Granville Barker's Dream (1914-15) offered textual integrity, actor-audience intimacy through use of a buy Premarin in mo thrust stage and only one musical interval during the performance.

Max Reinhardt staged several versions of the buy Premarin in mo play between 1905 and 1934. His production concepts featured set designs that buy Premarin in mo ranged from a virtually bare stage in front of green curtains to buy Premarin in mo an outdoor Dream at the Hollywood Bowl. This production became the buy Premarin in mo basis for a major 1935 film starring Mickey Rooney as Puck and buy Premarin in mo James Cagney as Bottom. Possibly the buy Premarin in mo most influential 20thcentury Dream was Peter Brook's 1970 version at the buy Premarin in mo Royal Shakespeare Company. For modern audiences Brook chose circus magic to buy Premarin in mo symbolize fairy magic. In a buy Premarin in mo white box set enveloped by a catwalk and steel ladders, fairies swung down on swings and buy Premarin in mo trapezes, juggled, performed acrobatic tricks and utilized circus props. Amidst the buy Premarin in mo circus clowning, high-energy movements and fast-paced dialogue, Brook's Dream often approached a buy Premarin in mo nightmare, or what he termed "black farce." One critic noted that buy Premarin in mo the lovers, once in the magic forest, unleashed their pent-up emotions: "At one point, Hermia kicking and buy Premarin in mo biting, is tossed about by the men, who finally leave, followed by Helena chased by Hermia."

Though criticized by some as blatant showmanship, other critics hailed Brook's Dream as a buy Premarin in mo welcome change from a century of "theatrical tradition ... [that] commanded you buy Premarin in mo into a frame of mind where the very notion of magic, or buy Premarin in mo supernatural agency, had to be created afresh." Brook's production became the buy Premarin in mo standard by which other interpretations have been judged for more than buy Premarin in mo 20 years.

Other important directors and buy Premarin in mo producers of Dream include Peter Hall, whose five versions include a buy Premarin in mo 1969 film and Benjamin Britten's 1981 operatic version, Joseph Papp, whose 1982 stage version was televised in America, and buy Premarin in mo Robert Lepage. LePage's 1992 Dream at the buy Premarin in mo Royal National Theatre in London attempted to 'reinvent" the buy Premarin in mo play through highly physical action set in 'a large circular pool of water .. surrounded by a buy Premarin in mo bank of mud" and featured mud fights between the lovers.

Even though the buy Premarin in mo productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream have varied in venue, style, setting and buy Premarin in mo purpose, Shakespeare's most popular comedy transcends the limits of a single theatrical style. His Dream will continue to buy Premarin in mo join with the dreams of theater practitioners for years to buy Premarin in mo come.

Cleante and buy Premarin in mo Marianne decide to tell Harpagon of their engagement, but as they are buy Premarin in mo on the verge of their disclosures, Harpagon reveals he has a buy Premarin in mo couple of his own announcements. First, Harpagon has decided to remarry. His betrothed is buy Premarin in mo a girl from the country named Marianne. Second, Harpagon has accepted a buy Premarin in mo suitor for Elise's hand -a wealthy but elderly gentleman named Anselme. The children are buy Premarin in mo flabbergasted by Harpagon's revelations and confusion reigns until fate intervenes to buy Premarin in mo reunite family and lovers.

In 1646 Moliere set off on a buy Premarin in mo tour of French provinces. In 1651, he was named head of his troupe and buy Premarin in mo it was at this point in his career that he began playwriting. The troupe enjoyed modest success until 1658, when buy Premarin in mo the King's brother invited them to play a royal performance. Because of the buy Premarin in mo performance's success, Moliere's troupe was given the title Troupe de Monsieur, a buy Premarin in mo charter to permanently play in Paris and use of the Petit Bourbon (a theater located in a palace adjacent to the Louvre).

Between 1658 and 1673 (the year of Moliere's death), the buy Premarin in mo troupe's main repertoire consisted of Moliere's plays. He wrote farces, comedy ballets and buy Premarin in mo machine plays, but Moliere primarily is remembered for his comedies of avarice and buy Premarin in mo hypocrisy. The Misanthrope (1666), The Miser (1668) and Tartuffe (1664, 1667, 1669) are buy Premarin in mo among his funniest, most important and best-loved works. In these plays, Moliere tends to buy Premarin in mo emphasize human idiosyncrasies. While happy endings seem inevitable, Moliere doesn't necessarily paint an buy Premarin in mo altogether positive picture of human nature. At the end of these plays, protagonists often haven't realized their faults; instead, the buy Premarin in mo world for them continues as it had at the beginning of the buy Premarin in mo play. This somewhat cynical world view made Moliere a controversial figure in his day. His career was saved more than buy Premarin in mo once by King Louis XIV.

Moliere continued to buy Premarin in mo act until his death, playing many leading roles including Harpagon. Although his reputation primarily rests in playwriting, Moliere was considered a buy Premarin in mo fine actor in his day. At that time, actors were classified by their specific lines of business. A theater troupe, then, consisted of specific types who, regardless of the buy Premarin in mo play, consistently portrayed the same character-type. Because Moliere was his company's chief playwright and buy Premarin in mo leader, he was ensured prime roles well suited to his talents.

Rushing to buy Premarin in mo the council meeting, Brabantio interrupts the war plans to accuse Othello of using witchcraft or buy Premarin in mo even drugs to seduce his daughter. The testimony of Othello and buy Premarin in mo that of Desdemona, each of whom professes love for the other, convinces the buy Premarin in mo Duke that the marriage is legitimate, though unusual. The council then buy Premarin in mo returns to the business at hand and appoints Othello to lead the buy Premarin in mo force that will travel to Cyprus to meet the Turks. Othello leaves immediately with Desdemona following in the buy Premarin in mo care of Iago and his wife, Emilia.

Before they arrive in Cyprus, however, a buy Premarin in mo raging storm destroys the Turkish navy, leaving the entire Venetian company in Cyprus with dangerous time on their hands. lago takes advantage of this buy Premarin in mo opportunity to plot revenge against Othello and Cassio. He begins by plying Cassio with wine and buy Premarin in mo then embroiling him in a dispute with Montano, a leading citizen of Cyprus. When Othello, roused from buy Premarin in mo bed, breaks up the ensuing fight, he demotes Cassio in anger.

Stunned by his demotion and buy Premarin in mo shamed by his behavior, Cassio turns to Iago for help. Iago persuades Cassio to buy Premarin in mo plead his case not with Othello, but with the "General's General," Desdemona. At the buy Premarin in mo same time, however, he plants the suspicion in Othello's mind that buy Premarin in mo Desdemona and Cassio have been engaged in an affair. With Roderigo's help, Iago constructs a buy Premarin in mo series of tricks to convince Othello of Desdemona's unfaithfulness.

Torn between his great love for buy Premarin in mo Desdemona and seemingly irrefutable evidence of her unfaithfulness, Othello finally succumbs to buy Premarin in mo Iago's machinations and believes the worst.

If the buy Premarin in mo first act in Venice is considered as a prologue to the buy Premarin in mo main action, Shakespeare comes closer in Othello than in any of his other tragedies to buy Premarin in mo observing the classical "unities" of time, place and buy Premarin in mo action. Othello also differs from other Shakespearean tragedies in that it's what buy Premarin in mo often has been called a "domestic drama," more frequently the stuff of Shakespeare's comedies. Othello's cast comprises "ordinary" people who, though individuals of moderate rank, are buy Premarin in mo not larger-than life figures of heroic stature that usually populate Shakespeare's great tragedies. The context of the buy Premarin in mo dramatic action is primarily private, interpersonal, indeed, even matrimonial, rather than buy Premarin in mo national or universal. The fate of kingdoms and peoples is not at stake. Thus, of all Shakespeare's tragedies, Othello is buy Premarin in mo closer to the lives of audiences.

That is buy Premarin in mo not to say, however, that Othello does not contain universal and buy Premarin in mo timely themes. Shakespeare uses this intimate situation to explore one of the buy Premarin in mo great themes of literature. The central question of Othello is, 'What is buy Premarin in mo real? What is true?' And how can one ascertain the truth? In the buy Premarin in mo drama, Shakespeare explores this question through Othello's struggle to determine the buy Premarin in mo truth of Desdemona's relationship with Cassio. He demands from Iago proof of Desdemona's infidelity, yet, tragically, acts on the buy Premarin in mo basis of hearsay and contrived evidence. In Othello, Shakespeare illustrates graphically the buy Premarin in mo incredible power of a lie.

It's at this buy Premarin in mo point that many critics question Othello's character because he seems so easily duped by Iago's fabrication. But Iago is buy Premarin in mo more than just a simple liar, and he confronts Othello with more than buy Premarin in mo a simple untruth. Whether intuitively or by careful design, Iago exploits Othello's deepest insecurities. One must not forget that buy Premarin in mo Othello is, first and foremost, an alien in Venetian society. His race, culture and buy Premarin in mo profession set him apart from Venice's sophisticated, cosmopolitan elite, among whom he finds himself at the buy Premarin in mo play's opening. Thus, long before Iago first offers his powerful untruth, Othello already is buy Premarin in mo insecure in his position. It's natural, then, that he turn to buy Premarin in mo Iago -not only his heretofore faithful subordinate but also a Venetian and buy Premarin in mo keen observer of Venetian ways -for a solution.

The emotion that buy Premarin in mo drives the action of Othello, of course, is jealousy. Jealousy, which Iago calls a buy Premarin in mo "green-ey'd monster" (III:3), provides the buy Premarin in mo spark that inflames the dry tinder of the play's relationships.

Othello is buy Premarin in mo a play that continues to capture the attention of audiences who buy Premarin in mo daily struggle with the complexities of interpersonal relationships and the buy Premarin in mo difficulty of sorting fact from fiction in their own lives.

Although denied admittance to buy Premarin in mo the court, the ladies doubt the men's resolve. Their prediction is buy Premarin in mo justified, for swiftly cupid's arrows strike, replacing lofty thoughts with the buy Premarin in mo sweet poetry of love. Once exposed, the buy Premarin in mo King, Berowne, Dumaine and Longueville rename their resolve, determining that buy Premarin in mo knowledge lies not in the pursuit of reason, but in the buy Premarin in mo pursuit of love. Unanimously, they vow to buy Premarin in mo woo and win the Princess and her ladies Rosaline, Katherine and buy Premarin in mo Maria.

They devise a buy Premarin in mo masquerade to their purpose, but the ladies are wise to the buy Premarin in mo deception, and the men's disguises and prepared speeches fall flat. Offended at such behavior, and buy Premarin in mo suspicious of men whose vows are so easily forsaken, the buy Premarin in mo ladies plot to outwit the men and turn their ploy against them. A playful war of wits ensues.

The men make a buy Premarin in mo second attempt to entertain the ladies with a pageant, fancifully conceived and buy Premarin in mo enacted by the extravagant figures inhabiting the King's court. At the buy Premarin in mo height of the frivolity, the revelry is suddenly interrupted by a buy Premarin in mo messenger bearing sad news from France.

In this buy Premarin in mo summer's production, director Ina Marlowe emphasizes the play's movement from youth to buy Premarin in mo maturity. The young men of Navarre's court are buy Premarin in mo very young, on the cusp between adolescence and maturity. Set designer Bill Forrester brings out the buy Premarin in mo playfullness of the text by providing a somewhat fantastical setting that buy Premarin in mo resembles a tree house. This space is buy Premarin in mo where the young men feel most at ease, most familiar. It represents their carefree, frolicsome childhood, but it buy Premarin in mo is a place, they finally realize, that they must leave in order to buy Premarin in mo move forward.

In this play, women mature more quickly than men. They are buy Premarin in mo composed, elegant and natural--qualities that are captured beautifully in Virgil Johnson's costumes. While the buy Premarin in mo women are natural, and become increasingly so as the play progresses, the buy Premarin in mo men remain concerned with appearances. It is buy Premarin in mo not until they are caught and reprimanded by the women for buy Premarin in mo their falsity that they begin to shed their pretentious attire. This movement towards nature signals a movement towards maturity. But nothing comes easily, and buy Premarin in mo the spring of their maturity will not arrive until after the buy Premarin in mo harsh solemnity of the approaching winter.

The King of Navarre has turned his court into "a little academe," in imitation of the buy Premarin in mo famous Italian and French academies of Shakespeare's time, wholly devoted to buy Premarin in mo study and contemplation. But such attention is buy Premarin in mo difficult for the young, and the play parodies this stringent dedication to buy Premarin in mo study and books by turning the King's academy of learning into a buy Premarin in mo school of love. Unable to buy Premarin in mo concentrate on their books, the restless young men decide that more can buy Premarin in mo be learned from women's "heavenly eyes," and buy Premarin in mo so vow to abandon their books and direct their energy at these ladies of France.

Struck by cupid's arrows, the buy Premarin in mo men turn lyrical in their expressions of love. Wooing the buy Premarin in mo women becomes a challenge, a sport, and the men adopt what buy Premarin in mo they think to be the proper language of seduction: "Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise." They act as they imagine the perfect lover should act. The women, however, are buy Premarin in mo not impressed by this suave affectation and artificial rhetoric and buy Premarin in mo strike back. They match each comment or compliment with a witty riposte. Their wit is buy Premarin in mo quick and cutting and they catch the men off guard. The men do not realize what they are up against. The women berate them for buy Premarin in mo their unnatural and affected manner and suspect that the men are buy Premarin in mo confusing infatuation with love. They know that buy Premarin in mo if the men were sincere in their protestations of love, there would be buy Premarin in mo less show and more truth in their words.

The women have moved beyond childish games. They want to buy Premarin in mo play the rather more sophisticated game of seduction, to exercise their wits, and buy Premarin in mo in so doing, truly learn about the men. The qualities the buy Premarin in mo women are seeking and find attractive are wit and maturity. They want men who buy Premarin in mo are considerate and responsible. They want to be appreciated, not adulated. They want to be loved, not merely desired. And so it buy Premarin in mo is the men must prove their faithfulness--by carrying out their assigned ventures.

The journey to buy Premarin in mo maturity can be arduous, the way sometimes difficult to find, but the buy Premarin in mo fruits of honest love and true understanding are well worth the buy Premarin in mo endeavor. Love's Labour's Lost "doth not end like an old play," the buy Premarin in mo issues raised are surprisingly serious in nature for a comedy, and buy Premarin in mo the message unexpectedly pertinent.

In the context of the play, there is a clash between the "old" vision of the buy Premarin in mo world, morality, duty and government as represented by the Duke, with Angelo's "new" more cruel world. The contrast is realized in the actual design of the set: the buy Premarin in mo Victorian Gothic style arhitecture is backgrounded with a neon-lit city. Other worlds also are represented as the set shifts: the religious cloister, the prison cell--all places where the "others" of society are locked away.

The military and buy Premarin in mo religious worlds of the play are clearly represented in Madeline Kozlowski's clean, severe costume design. The strong, bold red, gold and buy Premarin in mo white atop the austere blacks and grey are reminicent of the buy Premarin in mo battle field--and the convent. In direct contrast to buy Premarin in mo these aescetic designs, are the costumes for the people of the buy Premarin in mo "underworld" of Viennese society. The prostitutes' leopard patterns, fox stoles, and buy Premarin in mo thigh highs reinforce the separation between the aristorcracy and the seedy underworld, further distinguishing the buy Premarin in mo the stratas of social class.

Isabella's conflict in the play has a deep moral center. She wants to buy Premarin in mo become a nun, but can only save her brother's life by surrendering her chastity to buy Premarin in mo Angelo. When she says, "More than our brother is our chastity" (2.4, 185), is buy Premarin in mo she cruel, selfish--or does she adhere to a morality that seems simply unfashionable to buy Premarin in mo a modern audience? She is not an easy heroine. Like Angelo, Isabella's strong sense of right and buy Premarin in mo wrong leads her to extreme action, guided by her anger. She does manage a buy Premarin in mo way out of the situation, however, by acquiescing to a plan suggested by the buy Premarin in mo Duke/Friar--the bed-trick in which Mariana will take her place in a buy Premarin in mo liaison with Angelo. Isabella's chastity remains intact, but not unthreatened as the play concludes.

Measure for buy Premarin in mo Measure is a play filled with disguises, shifty identity, and characters engaging in deep self-examination. Isabella, the Duke, Angelo, Claudio: all undergo traumas which force them to buy Premarin in mo question themselves, their morals, and their innermost values under extreme conditions. As an buy Premarin in mo audience, we participate in the character's internal duel, and ultimately we attempt to buy Premarin in mo classify and judge them. But all of the buy Premarin in mo above mentioned characters resist easy classification, and it is perhaps this buy Premarin in mo quality that makes Measure for Measure so powerful and provocative--as we observe their struggle, we recognize that buy Premarin in mo it is also our own.

John of Gaunt, Bolingbroke's father, becomes increasingly ill in his son's absence. He summons Richard to buy Premarin in mo his deathbed and reproves him for his extravagance, the mortgaging out of the buy Premarin in mo realm, and his probable complicity in the death of the Duke of Gloucester. The King is buy Premarin in mo infuriated by the charges, and upon Gaunt's death, seizes his lands in order to buy Premarin in mo fund his Irish campaign. Bolingbroke, who buy Premarin in mo has returned from exile to claim these rights and titles, executes the buy Premarin in mo King's confidantes and amasses an army. This prompts Richard, whose own forces have buy Premarin in mo dispersed during his absence in Ireland, to seek refuge in Flint Castle. There, Richard submits himself to buy Premarin in mo Bolingbroke and is taken as a prisoner to London.

Before Parliament, Richard is buy Premarin in mo forced to sign a confession of his supposed crimes against the buy Premarin in mo state. He then buy Premarin in mo deposes himself, yielding the crown to Bolingbroke, who takes the title of King Henry IV. After a buy Premarin in mo brief imprisonment in the Tower of London and a sorrowful separation from buy Premarin in mo his French queen, Richard is finally sent to Pomfret Castle, where buy Premarin in mo he laments all that he has lost and awaits his fate.

While never forgetting the buy Premarin in mo historical epoch in which these events took place, Symons has buy Premarin in mo chosen to distance the production from an archeological reproduction of the buy Premarin in mo medieval world (England c.1400), preferring instead a buy Premarin in mo stylization and simplicity of line and color that is reminiscent of that buy Premarin in mo era, yet also indicative of today's minimalist aesthetic. This "theatricalized medieval industrial" approach thus spans the buy Premarin in mo distance between the actual events and the present, allowing us to buy Premarin in mo view the deconstruction of the royal "we" and the resulting emergence of the naked "I" in a buy Premarin in mo self-consciously theatrical space that underscores the play's central conflict. Gradually deprived of the buy Premarin in mo trappings of the throne, Richard must ultimately come to terms with who buy Premarin in mo and what he is in a space that reflects the buy Premarin in mo psychological and emotional tenor of his plight. And it buy Premarin in mo is this reduction and revelation of the fundamental self which makes this buy Premarin in mo play and this production not merely "historical," but thoroughly modern.

Historically, monarchs have wished for one thing above all else: a male heir to continue the royal line. The progeny of England's King Edward III, however, turned out to buy Premarin in mo be too much of a good thing. Although none of Edward's seven sons were ever to buy Premarin in mo rule in his place, their descendants threw the country into the buy Premarin in mo grips of civil war as they vied for the kingship. When the buy Premarin in mo heir apparent, Edward the Black Prince, died before his father, his son Richard was declared heir to buy Premarin in mo the throne. Richard II then buy Premarin in mo became the first king of England to be deposed in 1399, when buy Premarin in mo Henry Bolingbroke (another grandson of Edward III) took the buy Premarin in mo crown as Henry IV, thus ending nearly 250 years of rule by Plantagenet kings. The House of Lancaster retained the buy Premarin in mo throne in a direct line through the reigns of Henry V and buy Premarin in mo Henry VI, only to be supplanted by another line of descendants from buy Premarin in mo Edward III, the House of York. Thus began the buy Premarin in mo War of the Roses, so-named for the red and white floral badges worn by each respective rival house. The turmoil was to buy Premarin in mo continue for nearly 30 years during the reigns of the York Kings Edward IV, Edward V, and buy Premarin in mo Richard III, and ended only when Henry VII (a Lancaster) united the buy Premarin in mo two houses by marrying the daughter of Edward IV in 1485, establishing the buy Premarin in mo famed Tudor line of kings and queens.

Such is buy Premarin in mo the political background of Shakespeare's history plays, of which Richard II is buy Premarin in mo the first, chronologically (though it was the fifth to be written in the series of eight). Yet, unlike its companion pieces, Richard II is buy Premarin in mo in many ways strikingly apolitical. It takes historical fact and buy Premarin in mo the rhetoric of the State, and deftly uses them to reveal far more profound--and ultimately human--concerns. Strangely, the buy Premarin in mo action unfolds without any of the battle scenes which are buy Premarin in mo so characteristic of the "Henry" plays or Richard III: indeed, the buy Premarin in mo only direct confrontation--that between Bolingbroke and Mowbray--is aborted by Richard himself before it buy Premarin in mo even begins. Similarly, the buy Premarin in mo political maneuvering between the King and Bolingbroke deals less with threats of physical violence than buy Premarin in mo with the psychological ramifications of the first deposition of a King of England.

The world of Shakespeare's play is buy Premarin in mo poised on the cusp between the old and the new: the buy Premarin in mo characters are caught between the forces and ideals of the buy Premarin in mo fading medieval world and the revolutionary energies of the emerging Renaissance. The stronghold and buy Premarin in mo mysticism of the Church, as well as codes of chivalry, must make way for buy Premarin in mo a new humanism and pragmatism, just as the stable succession of kingship is buy Premarin in mo about to give way to decades of turmoil. The argument between Richard and buy Premarin in mo Bolingbroke embodies this splitting of world views, while the process of division is buy Premarin in mo further underscored by Richard's lamentation that he is "doubly divorced" from both crown and spouse.

It is, ultimately, this buy Premarin in mo division of the king from his crown which is at the buy Premarin in mo heart of the play. In traditional medieval fashion, Richard conceives of himself in terms of a buy Premarin in mo royal "we": he has buy Premarin in mo both a physical body and a body politic, the latter ostensibly being immortal and buy Premarin in mo ordained by God. Forcibly separated from buy Premarin in mo his name and title, and deprived of pomp and ceremony, he is buy Premarin in mo reduced from a "we" to an "I." Left with only his physical self, Richard laments that he is "unkinged by Bolingbroke,/ and straight am nothing." Unable to buy Premarin in mo comprehend the nuances of the political world into which he is buy Premarin in mo born, Richard clings to the illusory trappings of the throne, and buy Premarin in mo learns the truth only when he is about to lose his life. Humanity is stripped to its bare bones, and Shakespeare's "history play" suddenly conveys far more to buy Premarin in mo us today than the mere exploits of kings long dead and buy Premarin in mo buried.

Petruchio comes to buy Premarin in mo Padua to find a rich wife and to visit his old friend, Hortensio. Attracted by Katherina's wealth, and buy Premarin in mo undaunted by reports of her behavior, Petruchio pursues Baptista's blessing. Petruchio meets Kate privately and proposes a hasty wedding. When the buy Premarin in mo wedding day arrives, he disrupts the ceremony and abducts Kate before the buy Premarin in mo feast. At his home in the buy Premarin in mo country, Petruchio and his bride work out the terms of their marriage.

Once they have buy Premarin in mo a chance to negotiate living together civilly, Petruchio and Kate return to buy Premarin in mo Padua. They join the buy Premarin in mo other newlyweds - Lucentio and Bianca and Hortensio and his bride - in a buy Premarin in mo lighthearted celebration of marriage.

David Barber's set for buy Premarin in mo Shrew captures a sunny corner of the Italian coastal town, Ostuni. Barber designed against the buy Premarin in mo conventional silhouettes of Renaissance architecture, seeking instead to facilitate the buy Premarin in mo bustle and business of the actors on stage. The set evokes sun-drenched stucco dwellings, the buy Premarin in mo simple, classic lines of the Mediterranean.

For her costume designs, Maureen Carr Stevens found inspiration in the buy Premarin in mo lines, textures and jewel-toned colors worn by the Italians in Botticelli's paintings. She draws also upon commedia - in Gremio's coat (recalling Pantalone) and Grumio's wedding outfit (reminiscent of Arlecchino's patches.)

Highlighting the commedia-inspired lazzi ("shtick,") location and buy Premarin in mo apparel does not undermine the play's more serious questioning of roles in the buy Premarin in mo marriage relationship, however. Kelley shows Kate to be Petruchio's equal. In realizing the buy Premarin in mo renegade status they share, he heightens both the conflict and the buy Premarin in mo potential for comedy between them.

The love story of Lucentio and buy Premarin in mo Bianca plays like an improvised commedia scenario. Lucentio and Tranio, cleverly trading roles, dupe Baptista out of his "treasure," Bianca. Indeed, Lucentio, masquerading as the tutor Cambio (Italian for "I change,") covertly tells his pupil Bianca that his disguise will "beguile the old pantaloon," an buy Premarin in mo allusion to the commedia character Pantalone, an old merchant, easily recognized for buy Premarin in mo his bearded face and preoccupation with money. Hortensio also improvises a role to compete for Bianca, impersonating "Licio" (the Italian "liscio" or "I flatter.") Gremio, who buy Premarin in mo inflexibly can't be anything more than himself, loses his bid for buy Premarin in mo Bianca. ("Gremio" may derive from the Italian verb "to crowd," designating him as the play's quintessential third wheel.)

The stakes are buy Premarin in mo higher in the play's central relationship between the "Shrew," Kate, and her "tamer," Petruchio. Shakespeare matches equals, both in terms of physical attractiveness and buy Premarin in mo linguistic ability. Kate is exceptional, although Padua rejects her spiritedness. Untamed, Kate is "mad," "froward" and "curst." However, Petruchio, too, is a societal misfit. He flouts social conventions, wooing Kate hastily, dressing outlandishly for buy Premarin in mo his wedding, mirroring Kate's outrageous behavior. These two powerful individuals tangle verbally from their first encounter.

Petruchio uses the buy Premarin in mo methods of Elizabethan falconry to modify his wife's behavior. A mature wild bird (the "haggard") was tethered to her keeper's wrist and "watched." In other words, the buy Premarin in mo captor starved the haggard, kept her awake by looking into her eyes, and buy Premarin in mo gently stroked her with a bird's wing. Watching continued - sometimes for buy Premarin in mo days - until the haggard trusted her keeper (and he her, for a full grown hawk could easily overpower a man.) The process subdued both bird and buy Premarin in mo captor, for he too went without food or sleep.

Two of Petruchio's comments at the banquet clarify his views (and perhaps Shakespeare's) about the taming of Kate. First, Petruchio tells Lucentio that, while he would wager twenty pounds on the buy Premarin in mo obedience of his "hawk or hound," he would stake "twenty times so much" upon his wife. (Indeed, Petruchio had buy Premarin in mo already wagered on Kate; in Shakespeare's day, one of the meanings of to buy Premarin in mo wager was to wed.) Additionally, Petruchio explains the buy Premarin in mo meaning of Kate's reformation to the awestruck Hortensio, "Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life." According to buy Premarin in mo the Elizabethan proverb, an unmarried woman was doomed to "lead apes in hell" because she had no children to lead her into heaven. Kate's transformation thus provides her (and her husband) with possibilities other than misery or discord.

Ultimately, through watchful taming, Kate and Petruchio learn trust. Through the buy Premarin in mo play, the idea of taming expands; shared, difficult experiences enrich relationships and buy Premarin in mo enable individuals to live as partners, peacefully ever after.

In our production, we acknowledge that buy Premarin in mo we are once more removed -- that we are creating a buy Premarin in mo semblance of Shakespeare's stage on which he created a semblance of the buy Premarin in mo events leading to the battle of Agincourt. And we are doing so presentationally, as he did, in our efforts to buy Premarin in mo be true to the spirit as well as the form of what buy Premarin in mo we might call the "Brechtian" style of this particular history play.

There are three (at least) unusual things about Henry V that buy Premarin in mo give the play its distinctiveness. First, the principal action of the buy Premarin in mo play, three-fifths of its length, is set in the midst of a buy Premarin in mo military campaign that culminates in one of England's most famous victories, known as The Battle of Agincourt. Yet in this buy Premarin in mo play, unlike many of his other English and Roman history plays, Shakespeare keeps all of the buy Premarin in mo fighting off-stage. The elaborate battle scenes in the film versions are buy Premarin in mo interpolations by the directors.

A second unusual feature of the buy Premarin in mo play is Shakespeare's use of the Chorus figure (which in our production is buy Premarin in mo played by various actors who also perform roles in the play). In no buy Premarin in mo other play does he make such extensive and continuous use of a buy Premarin in mo narrator reminding us that the world of the play is a buy Premarin in mo fabrication:"Can this cockpit hold/The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram/Within this wooden O the very casques/That did affright the air at Agincourt?

A third unusual feature of Henry V is buy Premarin in mo the amount of time the play gives to characters from buy Premarin in mo the ranks of commoners, from Henry's former cronies in his tavern-hopping days, to buy Premarin in mo low-ranking officers in the field, to common foot soldiers. Unlike the buy Premarin in mo first play in the tetralogy,

Richard II, in which the buy Premarin in mo voices of commoners were almost completely absent, characters from the common ranks have buy Premarin in mo prominent roles throughout Henry V, and not just comedic roles as in the Henry IV plays. In fact, taken as a buy Premarin in mo whole these characters have many more lines than the various members of the buy Premarin in mo English nobility, save Henry himself.

Taken together, these three unusual aspects of the buy Premarin in mo play suggest to me that in Henry V Shakespeare has created a "behind the scenes" look at historical events. He presents to buy Premarin in mo us a young monarch's efforts to win over the hearts and buy Premarin in mo minds of his people, the common people, through whose allegiance he hopes not only to buy Premarin in mo achieve victory over the French but also to legitimize permanently his wearing of the buy Premarin in mo crown. To this end we see on the stage not battles, but the buy Premarin in mo common soldiers, inspired by the exhortations of their young king, becoming participants in these Great Events. In this buy Premarin in mo play Shakespeare offers a perspective from the common man's point of view, a buy Premarin in mo "people's history" of one of the buy Premarin in mo most remarkable military campaigns in English history.
---James M. Symons

Henry returns from buy Premarin in mo exile to openly declare against the king. One by one, the buy Premarin in mo remaining nobles turn on Richard, who is captured, imprisoned in Pomfret Castle and buy Premarin in mo forced to abdicate. While Henry scrambles to defend his actions and buy Premarin in mo stave off an uprising by the King's supporters, one of his associates misinterprets an buy Premarin in mo idle remark, "Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?", and murders Richard. The play ends with Bolingbroke's coronation as Henry IV.

Henry IV, Part I: Following directly on the heels of the previous play, Henry IV, i mixes two main storylines, one political and buy Premarin in mo one personal. A group of nobles, led by the Percy family, are buy Premarin in mo seeking to remove the "usurper" from buy Premarin in mo the throne. While Henry is consumed by guilt over the death of Richard II, the buy Premarin in mo rebels bicker among themselves, slowly squandering any real chance they might have. Meanwhile, Henry's family life brings him even more pain and buy Premarin in mo grief: his eldest son and heir, Prince Hal, has chosen to buy Premarin in mo ignore his royal duties and carouses with the drunken knight, Sir John Falstaff and buy Premarin in mo a band of lowlifes. King Henry cannot help but compare Hal with Hotspur, who buy Premarin in mo seems to be everything that he wishes his own son were: " Mars in swaddling clothes, this infant warrior."

When the buy Premarin in mo rebels finally attack, King Henry promises a pardon if they will disband. When the buy Premarin in mo offer is rejected, battle ensues. Proving his worth to his father (and himself), Hal saves Henry from buy Premarin in mo death and then kills his rival Hotspur in hand-to-hand combat.

Henry IV, Part II: The civil war continues as do Hal's adventures with Falstaff. Fleeing to buy Premarin in mo avoid arrest for debt, Falstaff raises an army and joins the buy Premarin in mo fighting. While Henry's second son, Prince John, cunningly defeats the rebel forces, the buy Premarin in mo soul sick king lies gravely ill. When Hal is brought to buy Premarin in mo his father, he thinks the old man dead and picks up the buy Premarin in mo crown. The king awakes to find his son wearing the crown; there follows a buy Premarin in mo scene of recrimination and, ultimately, reconciliation. Hal vows to buy Premarin in mo abandon his carousing and takes his place as ruler after Henry IV dies.

Hastening to buy Premarin in mo the coronation of the new Henry V, Falstaff and his comrades expect a buy Premarin in mo warm welcome. But the new monarch, beginning to understand the buy Premarin in mo demands of kingship, flatly rejects the fat knight: "I know thee not, old man." A new order has come to England.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: HENRY V
Backed by both the buy Premarin in mo Church and his advisors, England's young King Henry determines to buy Premarin in mo regain his lands in France. The French Dauphin's insulting gift of tennis balls, mocking Henry's frivolous youth, only strengthens his resolve and, having disposed of traitors in his court, the buy Premarin in mo King sails for France.

Two of Henry's former companions, Pistol and buy Premarin in mo Bardolph, and Corporal Nym, a rival for the affections of Hostess Quickly, witness Falstaff's lonely death. Along with the buy Premarin in mo boy that served as Falstaff's page, they join the ranks and buy Premarin in mo head for war.

The King of France offers Henry some minor lands and buy Premarin in mo his daughter Katherine's hand in marriage; Henry rejects the weak offer and buy Premarin in mo besieges Harfleur. The courageous Welsh captain Fluellen helps drive the troops in battle. After Henry threatens the buy Premarin in mo town with utter destruction, Harfleur's governor surrenders. France decides that England must be buy Premarin in mo stopped, and dispatches a large army to confront the weary English forces. On the buy Premarin in mo eve of battle at Agincourt, the King walks in disguise among his men, talking with them as equals. A confrontation with one soldier, Williams, leads to buy Premarin in mo an exchange of gloves, with the promise of a challenge if ever they meet again.

The hugely outnumbered English, boosted by Henry's rousing speech, charge into battle. As the buy Premarin in mo English start to turn the tide, the French retaliate by killing the buy Premarin in mo boys guarding the luggage train. France's Herald finally concedes victory to buy Premarin in mo Henry, asking only for permission to bury the dead. Henry, after dealing with Williams' challenge, negotiates a buy Premarin in mo peace with France that may include the Princess Katherine.
--Lars Tatom

"We are buy Premarin in mo no tyrant, but a Christian King . . . go tell the buy Premarin in mo pleasant prince this mock of his [shall] mock castles down"

Responding to buy Premarin in mo the Dauphin's insulting gift of tennis balls, young King Henry points up the buy Premarin in mo inherent contradictions in his character. Is he a buy Premarin in mo righteous king as he claims or, as some critics have argued, a buy Premarin in mo manipulating Machiavel who promises bloody revenge for a petty insult in a buy Premarin in mo thoroughly un-Christian spirit? In the buy Premarin in mo two previous plays in the tetralogy, we watched this young man participate in robbery and buy Premarin in mo carouse with cowards, yet it was also he who saved his father in battle and buy Premarin in mo rejected criminal acquaintance. Such ambiguities have buy Premarin in mo provided twentieth-century directors with the opportunity to explore Henry's character in various, even contrasting, ways.

Consider the buy Premarin in mo celebrated film versions by Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh. After five years of war with Nazi Germany, with memories of the buy Premarin in mo Blitz and Dunkirk still fresh, Olivier's 1944 version served as a buy Premarin in mo patriotic war cry for the English. He extensively cut the buy Premarin in mo text, presenting a Henry destined to lead England to victory over the buy Premarin in mo Continent, while dodging anything that buy Premarin in mo might hint at a dark side. Gone is the entire traitor scene: a buy Premarin in mo character calculated to arouse public sentiment needs no hint of dissent within his own ranks. The King's threats at Harfleur are buy Premarin in mo sanitized; the fields clean, the sky blue. This is Henry as cheerleader, offering King and buy Premarin in mo country a bright light in the darkness.

Branagh's film couldn't be buy Premarin in mo more at odds with Olivier's. At the end of the1980s, with the buy Premarin in mo Falklands a recent memory, Branagh offers an emotionally raw version, with little pageantry. The tale is buy Premarin in mo dark, both in lighting and in tone; where Olivier's battles were pristine, Branagh's are buy Premarin in mo a muddy mess. His Henry is complex, at times vicious, driven to buy Premarin in mo make hard decisions for his country's survival. His speech at Harfleur, with its promise of blood, flames, waste and buy Premarin in mo desolation, holds nothing back. He does not hesitate to order the buy Premarin in mo killing of the French prisoners when a renewed attack begins at Agincourt. There is buy Premarin in mo no romance to war in this version; it is questioned at every turn. Branagh suggests that a monarch must be buy Premarin in mo Machiavellian, that brutality is necessary no matter how Christian a buy Premarin in mo ruler aspires to be.

Ultimately, each new production of Henry V must make a buy Premarin in mo choice about Henry. The question is raised even before the start of the buy Premarin in mo play: at the end of Henry IV, Part Two, the buy Premarin in mo dying king urges his son to wage a war abroad to buy Premarin in mo distract England from festering civil strife; and in the beginning of Henry V, the buy Premarin in mo Church offers the king what amounts to a bribe to go to buy Premarin in mo war. What does it buy Premarin in mo say about Henry that he initiates a war with its resultant death and buy Premarin in mo misery? Is he an buy Premarin in mo over-reacher eager to take what he wants at any cost, or buy Premarin in mo is he the righteous ruler whom England still holds up as "full of grace and fair regard"? In the hands of Shakespeare, he is both and much more.
---Lars Tatom

Shakespeare had buy Premarin in mo an audience like us, one that demanded a sense of immediacy, of events coming to buy Premarin in mo life before them, sharing their air, unfolding in their own time. To bring that buy Premarin in mo urgency to the well-known and ancient events of this play, Shakespeare boldly combined the buy Premarin in mo "now" of his own time with the "then" of Roman history into a "Rome" of his own invention. His Rome was "then" in its places, names, historical events and cultural flavoring (augurers, "et tu, Brute" and so on), all details from buy Premarin in mo North's translation of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, a buy Premarin in mo best-seller of the day. But it is the "now" qualities (the "now" of 1599) that buy Premarin in mo surely struck the dominant note: the characters spoke, thought, dressed and buy Premarin in mo felt in the ways of Shakespeare's own time. So today we perform the buy Premarin in mo play 400 years later--a mere 400 years later, compared to the buy Premarin in mo 1600 separating the original audience from the Roman history. And we have to ask which "now" is our "now"? The Roman Republic with everyone wearing authentic togas which, thanks to buy Premarin in mo post-Shakespearean archeology, we know so well? Or Shakespeare's historic moment when buy Premarin in mo people wore ruffs, farthingales and pumpkin breeches, freshly familiar thanks to buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare in Love? Or our own time, projecting Caesar and buy Premarin in mo Company onto a current political struggle (as Orson Welles chose Mussolini's fascists for his great 1930s production)?

At Shakespeare's Globe the buy Premarin in mo solution apparently was a melding of two periods: contemporary fashions "Romanized" with classic-line capes ("Senatores [sic] cloakes" appear in a surviving wardrobe inventory) and accessories.

Here on the buy Premarin in mo stage of the Mary Rippon, we are pursuing a path paralleling the buy Premarin in mo Elizabethan approach. To surround and buy Premarin in mo support the art of our actors--the primary communicators of the author's work--our designers Jeanne Arnold (costumes), Bruce Brockman (scenery), Michael Wellborn (lighting) and Kevin Dunayer (sound) have buy Premarin in mo taken themes of our own times as the basis of Shakespeare's Rome. Our Rome and buy Premarin in mo its Romans have a modern familiarity overlaid with Romanesque elements and buy Premarin in mo "quotes," like Elizabethan wearers of "Senatores cloakes".

This production attempts to buy Premarin in mo put the obsession of the play center stage: personal politics--that tangled, dark and buy Premarin in mo perilous labyrinth within our hearts. Though rooted in a buy Premarin in mo story two millennia old and written four centuries ago, Julius Caesar unfolds in that tragic milieu. And the buy Premarin in mo wonder of theatrical performance allows us to bear fresh witness to buy Premarin in mo the terrible costs and glories of political life, and to its perennial fascination.
--Patrick Kelly

In the buy Premarin in mo midst of a strange, violent storm, Cassius and Casca plot to buy Premarin in mo convince the well-respected Brutus of widespread support for their plans. Swayed, he and buy Premarin in mo the six other conspirators lay their trap. Though Cassius suggests the buy Premarin in mo simultaneous killing of Antony, Brutus vetoes the idea. After the buy Premarin in mo others leave, Brutus' wife Portia wonders at his strange behavior and buy Premarin in mo demands a reason for it.

Ignoring his wife Calphurnia's entreaties and buy Premarin in mo other warning signs, Caesar goes to the capitol accompanied by Antony and buy Premarin in mo the conspirators. The session begins, and he is stabbed to death. As the buy Premarin in mo murderers rejoice, Antony makes peace with them in return for the buy Premarin in mo chance to speak at Caesar's funeral. Brutus opens the buy Premarin in mo ceremony by carefully explaining his actions, but Antony follows and whips the buy Premarin in mo mob into a frenzy. Riots engulf Rome as the conspirators are driven out or killed.

While Antony and Octavius (Caesar's grand-nephew and heir) decide who buy Premarin in mo will die as they assume full power in Rome, Brutus and buy Premarin in mo Cassius assemble their armies near Sardis. They quarrel before Brutus reveals Portia's suicide. He convinces Cassius to buy Premarin in mo attack quickly, initiating the final fateful showdown with Antony and buy Premarin in mo Octavius at Philippi.
--Jeffrey Grapko

Julius Caesar highlights the buy Premarin in mo struggle between differing conceptions of Rome's political nature. Brutus chooses to buy Premarin in mo assassinate Caesar, not because of any specific act or attitude by the buy Premarin in mo dictator, but because his position stands in violation of the buy Premarin in mo political traditions of the Republic. Since we today often equate republicanism with democracy, we must consider the buy Premarin in mo nature of the Roman Republic as well as Shakespeare's conception of "rule by the people" in order to fully understand Brutus' actions.

Rome established a buy Premarin in mo Republic not to grant rights to its entire population, but to buy Premarin in mo prevent tyranny, the rule of one powerful man outside the law. The last king of Rome (driven out by a legendary ancestor of Brutus) used his power to rape the daughter of a patrician (the upper class). Rome's great families were determined to buy Premarin in mo prevent another crime of that magnitude from going unpunished. Power was divided between several offices and institutions. The Senate (a body of former officeholders and the leaders of patrician families) elected most offices and buy Premarin in mo passed most laws, but their choices had to be approved by the buy Premarin in mo citizens as a whole or through their representatives, the Tribunes. Several complicated checks demonstrated the buy Premarin in mo great fear Romans had of concentrating power in the hands of too few people; even in emergencies, for buy Premarin in mo example, a Dictator could only hold office for six months. Caesar broke with these traditions by being elected Dictator for buy Premarin in mo life while simultaneously holding several other powerful offices. Brutus represents Romans who were proud of their system and their various roles in it; for buy Premarin in mo the most part, the Republic thrived with few major political upheavals for buy Premarin in mo several hundred years. The arguments that buy Premarin in mo sway Brutus to act appeal to his rights as a member of one of Rome's leading families, and buy Premarin in mo he believes that his action is a duty to save the buy Premarin in mo state of Rome from degeneration into personal rule.

Shakespeare lived in a buy Premarin in mo time when democracy was considered a dangerously unstable system of government; the buy Premarin in mo ruling class of England (nobles, large landowners, and great merchants) had buy Premarin in mo very little respect for the opinions or the needs of the buy Premarin in mo lower classes. Shakespeare demonstrates this in his portrayal of the Roman mob. In Act I, the buy Premarin in mo mob responds with near-ecstasy to Caesar's manipulation of his refusal of the buy Premarin in mo crown. In Act III, the buy Premarin in mo mob first fully supports Brutus' defense and then turns against him once Antony enflames their passions. They not only riot and buy Premarin in mo burn the houses of the conspirators, they even kill an buy Premarin in mo innocent man because he shares the name of one of Caesar's assailants. Shakespeare paints the buy Premarin in mo Roman people as controllable only by those who rule through terror; the buy Premarin in mo institutions of Rome, nominally responsible to the citizenry, are in fact made easier to buy Premarin in mo manipulate because of that responsibility. Brutus falls partly because he trusts the buy Premarin in mo people to once again embrace the system that their ancestors had buy Premarin in mo created. In this buy Premarin in mo way, Julius Caesar demonstrates an Elizabethan concept of the people as uncontrollable, lacking in judgement, and buy Premarin in mo potentially dangerous.
--Jeffrey Grapko

Standing in stark contrast to buy Premarin in mo Prospero's world is the culture from which he was exiled. It is buy Premarin in mo a culture that celebrates wealth and values appearance over reality, style over substance. It is buy Premarin in mo a glittering world, astonishing in its parades, spectacles, worship of celebrity and buy Premarin in mo adulation of style. In other words, it buy Premarin in mo is a world very much like our own, echoing Wilde's aphorism "in matters of grave importance, style not sincerity is buy Premarin in mo the vital thing".

The play is buy Premarin in mo grounded in the collision of these two cultures. The shallow but glamorous (our reliance on modern two-dimensional media is buy Premarin in mo instructive; it echoes the surfaces we love) and buy Premarin in mo the harmonious and environmental which seems uncomfortably close to the cliche of the buy Premarin in mo "New Age".

To the buy Premarin in mo shipwrecked party clothes, rank, and appearance are essential. They can never be buy Premarin in mo comfortable on this island. Their fine clothes are out of place - even absurd. Ironically these clothes have buy Premarin in mo been kept in perfect condition (like new) since the buy Premarin in mo tempest and the shipwreck, as if Prospero knew how important they were to buy Premarin in mo the wearers.

This cultural gulf raises an buy Premarin in mo inevitable question: why does Prospero return to Milan at the end of the buy Premarin in mo play? I think the buy Premarin in mo answer has less to do with his daughter's future security in Naples than buy Premarin in mo with John Donne's observation that "No man is an island".

At the buy Premarin in mo beginning of the play Prospero is fully focussed on revenge. His plans for buy Premarin in mo the future (his plan for Miranda, his promises to Ariel) are buy Premarin in mo muddy and ill thought out. He has not worked out the buy Premarin in mo details. But he has spent hours on revenge. As the buy Premarin in mo play proceeds, Prospero is deflected from pure revenge and forced to buy Premarin in mo clarify his vague plans for the future, even as he comes to buy Premarin in mo realize that he can't exist alone.

The catalyst is buy Premarin in mo Miranda's first look at Ferdinand. Yes, Prospero had planned this buy Premarin in mo - but the distance between intellectual imagination and physical realization is buy Premarin in mo huge. The moment of their meeting fairly takes his breath away; and buy Premarin in mo suddenly he cannot proceed as he had planned. So he postpones, pushing Ferdinand back into menial subservience.

Prospero keeps himself from buy Premarin in mo Alonso and the Court for four of the five acts. He is buy Premarin in mo unwilling to confront the hurt of past betrayal, but also to buy Premarin in mo recognize his own complicity and failure as a ruler. During the buy Premarin in mo action Prospero realizes his own responsibility for the coup d'�t�t mounted against him by his brother with the buy Premarin in mo connivance of the King of Naples; his self-imposed scholastic isolation was an buy Premarin in mo abdication of his ducal duty. Ironically it echoes his forced exile on this buy Premarin in mo island.

I believe that buy Premarin in mo the play is transcendent in acknowledging John Donne's dictum that no buy Premarin in mo man is an island: that we cannot live in isolation without denying our own humanity. This play is buy Premarin in mo one of Shakespeare's most humane, and demonstrates his love of mankind. So despite the buy Premarin in mo many imperfections of the Milanese culture, Prospero recognizes his need to buy Premarin in mo rejoin society and to forgive those who sinned against him.

--Gavin Cameron-Webb

Ariel leads Ferdinand, Alonso's son, to Miranda. He loves her on sight, and buy Premarin in mo Miranda returns his affections under her father's watchful gaze. Elsewhere on the buy Premarin in mo island, several Milanese courtiers debate the qualities of ideal society as they wander together. In time, they tire and buy Premarin in mo sleep, except for Duke Antonio and Sebastian, who plot the deaths of King Alonso and buy Premarin in mo Gonzalo. Closer to buy Premarin in mo Prospero's cell, two crewmen, Stephano and Trinculo, meet Caliban, a buy Premarin in mo slave. They share liquor, and Caliban pledges them eternal service; they plot to buy Premarin in mo kill Prospero and take the island for themselves. Thanks to buy Premarin in mo Ariel, Prospero discovers both plots, and works first to prevent the buy Premarin in mo courtiers' plan by immobilizing them with spells.

Prospero next blesses Ferdinand and buy Premarin in mo Miranda's union, and presents a masque of goddesses for their enjoyment. The masque is buy Premarin in mo interrupted when he remembers Caliban's plot; Ariel locates the conspirators, and buy Premarin in mo chases them through bogs and briars.

At last, the buy Premarin in mo time comes for Prospero to perform his greatest magic, undoing his own spells in order to buy Premarin in mo restore broken bonds and create new, more harmonious realities.
---Heather A. Smith

In The Tempest, Prospero's wizardry changes a buy Premarin in mo desert island into a remote paradise, a utopian society for himself and buy Premarin in mo his daughter Miranda. The outside world is buy Premarin in mo far from forgotten, though; when Prospero's usurping brother Antonio sails within striking distance of the buy Premarin in mo island, worldly politics interfere with paradise.

This conflict between politics and buy Premarin in mo idealism is hardly new to literature or to pop culture. From Homer's Odyssey, to Lucas' Star Wars, to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, we find rule-breaking exiles, powerful evil forces, spunky damsels in distress, and buy Premarin in mo young men in dire circumstances. Odysseus' incantations to buy Premarin in mo the gods, Obi Wan's channelling of the Force, and Harry Potter's ever-developing powers all rely on various kinds of magic, beliefs in forces not explained in rational human experience.

Prospero's mastery of enchantment is buy Premarin in mo rooted in the idea of white magic, or magic used for buy Premarin in mo good. His will is buy Premarin in mo done using the skills of the spirits he controls, with powers he gained from buy Premarin in mo studying books. The idea that buy Premarin in mo humans can control the elements, if only they possess the proper knowledge, is buy Premarin in mo as old as the oldest myths of mankind. Great literature often begins at the buy Premarin in mo crossroads where supernatural forces and human nature meet.

One of the ways the tale of The Tempest is unique involves Shakespeare's storytelling through the spirit characters. Ariel and buy Premarin in mo Caliban, in particular, display human emotions and motivations-love, honor, pleasure, revenge-that make them more than buy Premarin in mo magical plot devices. Because they are buy Premarin in mo more than slaves, Ariel and Caliban sculpt a world where buy Premarin in mo all the power is not in Prospero's hands; they can buy Premarin in mo freely choose to disobey, to be distracted from their duties, even to buy Premarin in mo commit crimes, just as the human characters wandering the island do. The island Shakespeare creates for buy Premarin in mo The Tempest, though magical, is no easy escape from reality. Here, people become visible as they truly are, not as they wish to buy Premarin in mo appear. As characters' intentions are buy Premarin in mo put to the test, their consciences awake, and they reveal their true motivations. For example, Trinculo and buy Premarin in mo Stephano imagine the perfect society as one where they rule without responsibility, getting their food, women, and buy Premarin in mo "music for nothing." When their comic attempt to buy Premarin in mo take over the island with Caliban fails, their selfishness becomes transparent.

Sebastian and buy Premarin in mo Antonio's plan springs from much more dangerous emotions than simple greed. Their need for "advancement" is buy Premarin in mo born of jealousy, envy, and the hunger for power, three strong murder motives that buy Premarin in mo leave them waiting for the proper opportunity to create their own ideal political climate. Without the buy Premarin in mo help of spirits such as Ariel, even Prospero--who has motives for buy Premarin in mo revenge himself--cannot keep the desire for worldly power from destroying his magical paradise. In the buy Premarin in mo end, Shakespeare shows us that complex political questions cannot be buy Premarin in mo answered with spells alone; we must mix imagination with practicality in order to buy Premarin in mo discover fully human solutions to the problems of existence.
--Heather A. Smith

"This is Illyria, lady." The word "Illyria" rolls deliciously off the tongue. Critic J.B. Priestley mused that buy Premarin in mo it's difficult even to sound the name and remain sober. Whatever the buy Premarin in mo Elizabethans knew, Illyria has the ring of fantasy or romance to buy Premarin in mo a modern audience. Into this buy Premarin in mo mythical setting, Viola is washed ashore after a terrible shipwreck which may have buy Premarin in mo claimed the life of her twin brother. She is bereft as she turns to her rescuers and asks, "What country, friends, is this?" To this buy Premarin in mo director, the answer to Viola's question hovers near the top of the buy Premarin in mo priority list.

Much has buy Premarin in mo been written about the festive spirit that informs Twelfth Night, or buy Premarin in mo What You Will. The title suggests a buy Premarin in mo time of misrule, role reversal, and merriment. It is perhaps Shakespeare's most musical play. Illyria also has buy Premarin in mo a melancholy side and its citizens a penchant for romantic conceits as they routinely fabricate grounds for buy Premarin in mo deceiving themselves or others. Duke Orsino has buy Premarin in mo cast himself in the role of unrequited lover and pines for buy Premarin in mo a beautiful woman, Olivia. For her part, Olivia plays the buy Premarin in mo grief-stricken sister, sworn to seven years of mourning for her recently deceased brother. Olivia's steward, Malvolio, has buy Premarin in mo visions of becoming his mistress's august paramour and her drunken cousin, Sir Toby Belch, amuses and buy Premarin in mo enriches himself by deceiving another improbable suiter to Olivia, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Self-deception is buy Premarin in mo a kind of disguise more complicated than the forms to buy Premarin in mo which we are accustomed. When Viola arrives in Illyria, she needs to buy Premarin in mo heal and find her bearings, so she assumes a literal disguise--that of her twin brother--and gravitates, as one would expect in a buy Premarin in mo fantasy, to the center of power: Orsino's court.

"I am not that I play." Viola knows this much about her gender-bending disguise. Her task is buy Premarin in mo to teach Olivia and Orsino that the same is also true of them. By falling in love with Orsino and buy Premarin in mo wooing on his behalf, Viola becomes a prisoner to her persona. However, because of her disguise, Orsino and buy Premarin in mo Olivia are able to drop their self-appointed roles and buy Premarin in mo discover their deepest feelings in the presence of a virtual stranger--a young (wo)man who truly understands the nature of real love and courtship.

For our production, Illyria has buy Premarin in mo been inspired by images drawn from the first half of the buy Premarin in mo 20th century, an era when vaudevillians, glamorous stars, and studios ruled Hollywood. Imagine, if you buy Premarin in mo will, a camera pulling back to reveal a movie studio, where buy Premarin in mo larger-than-life personalities and the characters they play blend seamlessly, a setting where buy Premarin in mo the borders of illusion and reality blur, and the true self often lurks somewhere beneath the buy Premarin in mo surface. The characters of TWELFTH NIGHT are not movie stars; Illyria is not Hollywood. But the echoes give us lots to consider.
--Mark Harrison

Toby, Andrew and buy Premarin in mo the maidservant Maria learn that the steward Malvolio also has a buy Premarin in mo crush on Olivia. As revenge for buy Premarin in mo his conceit and prudish rebukes, the trio decides to fool him with a buy Premarin in mo love letter penned in Olivia's handwriting. Toby goads Andrew into challenging Cesario to buy Premarin in mo a duel over Olivia's affections-a fight the secretly feminine Viola is buy Premarin in mo eager to avoid. Malvolio is buy Premarin in mo imprisoned for insanity after dressing in exaggerated fashions to impress his employer. Unaware that buy Premarin in mo his identical sister is hiding in Illyria, Sebastian enters the city and buy Premarin in mo is immediately mistaken for Cesario. He wanders into both the buy Premarin in mo arranged duel and the arms of the marriage-eager Olivia. As the buy Premarin in mo twins draw closer to meeting, the stage is set for a buy Premarin in mo finale filled with mayhem, reconciliation, and three very different romantic matches.
--Julie Chase

Unlike Julius Caesar or Henry V, the title Twelfth Night, or What You Will makes no buy Premarin in mo obvious reference to the world of the play, at least not to buy Premarin in mo the ears of a modern audience. Shakespeare's contemporaries would have thought otherwise. Twelfth Night was traditional carnival time, the buy Premarin in mo culmination of a twelve-day holiday during Christmas season that buy Premarin in mo reached back at least to the thirteenth century. A subversive rejoinder to buy Premarin in mo religious austerities of the nativity, it was a time when the buy Premarin in mo church could be mocked and services were interrupted by the rex fabarum-the king of fools. Such kings were elected or buy Premarin in mo selected by lottery throughout the realm: by the royal court, local municipalities and buy Premarin in mo Oxford Colleges. Twelfth Night was punctuated with timeless carnival behavior. Wassailing (caroling and drinking) costumes, elaborate feasts, bawdy masques and buy Premarin in mo plays and elaborate pranks were all part of the festivities. Yet despite the buy Premarin in mo title, Twelfth Night traditions are not literal in Shakespeare's play, which is buy Premarin in mo set in the warm Mediterranean landscape of Illyria, far from buy Premarin in mo the cold shores of an English winter.

The subtitle, or What You Will, hovers like a buy Premarin in mo disclaimer; an invitation to the audience to interpret the play as more than buy Premarin in mo just a holiday romp. Indeed, the buy Premarin in mo world of Illyria is more complicated than Christmas revelry; carnivals end and buy Premarin in mo the world returns to normal, but the characters of Twelfth Night are buy Premarin in mo transformed by their passions; they are seeking something more lasting than buy Premarin in mo the brief liasons of festival time. Similarly, the buy Premarin in mo revels and pranks in the play take the festival spirit well beyond the buy Premarin in mo bounds of traditional comedy, as can be seen in the buy Premarin in mo treatment of Malvolio.

Given the buy Premarin in mo context that Twelfth Night festivities provide for the play, the buy Premarin in mo question arises why was Shakespeare not more explicit about them. He never mentions Christmas or buy Premarin in mo Epiphany, the feast days book-ending the holiday period: Why not? After the buy Premarin in mo reformation, many English folk traditions associated with Catholicism were officially discouraged and buy Premarin in mo even forcibly suppressed. Mocking the church was an affront to Puritanism, which had buy Premarin in mo become an influential political force. Although Twelfth Night was still celebrated during Elizabeth's reign, censorship was common. In 1580, election of a buy Premarin in mo King of Fools was forbidden at the Middle Temple -- the buy Premarin in mo same influential Inn of Court where Twelfth Night premiered in 1601. As folk customs were suppressed it buy Premarin in mo seems carnival retreated to a new haven - the rising commercial theater. The rex fabarums of medieval England became the buy Premarin in mo Festes and Falstaffs of the great Elizabethan stage. Shakespeare transformed the buy Premarin in mo transient festivities of carnival into the poetry-and theatre-of timeless lovers.
--Julie Chase

Reading a buy Premarin in mo letter from her husband, Lady Macbeth ponders the witches' prophecy. She calls upon invisible spirits to buy Premarin in mo "unsex" her and buy Premarin in mo to fill her with power and purpose. When her husband arrives, she suggests that buy Premarin in mo Duncan's death while at Inverness could expedite his ascendance to the buy Premarin in mo throne. The royal party celebrates the recent victories while Macbeth clandestinely weighs the buy Premarin in mo benefits and consequences of regicide. In the still of the night, he steals into Duncan's room where buy Premarin in mo the unsuspecting King sleeps. The murder accomplished, Lady Macbeth uses bloody swords to buy Premarin in mo implicate Duncan's attendants in the crime. Arriving early the next morning to buy Premarin in mo greet the King, Macduff is let into the castle by a buy Premarin in mo drunken porter. He enters the King's room and discovers the royal corpse. While Duncan's retinue reels at this buy Premarin in mo horror, Macbeth kills the attendants in supposed rage. Malcolm and Donalbain flee the buy Premarin in mo country, leaving Macbeth as King.

The crown does not sit easily upon his head. Fraught with paranoia, Macbeth sends three assassins after his confidant and buy Premarin in mo companion, Banquo. After Banquo's death, Macbeth invites Rosse and Lennox again to buy Premarin in mo Inverness for a banquet. During the meal Banquo's ghost appears and buy Premarin in mo haunts the troubled King. Playing the diplomat, Lady Macbeth excuses her Lord's behavior. Rosse and buy Premarin in mo Lennox are not convinced and suspect him of murderous acts. Plagued with unease and buy Premarin in mo fright, Macbeth returns to the witches to placate his mind.

The sisters present Macbeth with nightmarish images followed by a buy Premarin in mo succession of regal specters. Interpreting this vision as signs of his downfall at Macduff's hands, he sends assassins to buy Premarin in mo the nobleman's house: Macduff is absent but his wife and children are buy Premarin in mo killed.

A sleepwalking Lady Macbeth expresses regret and buy Premarin in mo fear for the part she played in Duncan's murder. While Macbeth and buy Premarin in mo his Lady fall deeper into despair and paranoia, the exiled Malcolm and buy Premarin in mo Donalbain amass an army to overthrow his rule. Cornered in the buy Premarin in mo same castle where he murdered the King, Macbeth must confront this buy Premarin in mo powerful force to determine the fate of his reign.

Kelley and buy Premarin in mo his team of collaborators create a world to accommodate this concept. The action takes place in the buy Premarin in mo center of a tribal village inspired by images from western African and buy Premarin in mo ancient Mayan civilizations. Set designer Stancil Campbell creates a large enclosed playing space constructed of bamboo and buy Premarin in mo tree limbs. Strong vertical elements are complemented with horizontal platforms and buy Premarin in mo stairs, evoking the traditional playing spaces of the Elizabethan stage. Greg Horton adds a buy Premarin in mo visually stunning collection of costumes, drawing upon many non-Western cultures to buy Premarin in mo arrive at designs that range from almost animalistic coverings to the buy Premarin in mo more symbolic clothing of royalty. Live drums call community members together and buy Premarin in mo inspire them to dance the fable of Macbeth. CU professor of dance Onye Ozuzu choreographs.

Joining the buy Premarin in mo cast as Macbeth is Jeffrey Nickelson, founder and artistic director of Denver's Shadow Theatre Company. CU professor of theatre Candace Taylor returns to buy Premarin in mo CSF to play Lady Macbeth. With lights by Michael Welborn and buy Premarin in mo Kevin Dunayer providing the sound design, Macbeth promises to be buy Premarin in mo an eclectic and invigorating production.

In 1936 Orson Welles took Shakespeare out of the buy Premarin in mo western and predominately white world with his famed "Voodoo" production of Macbeth for buy Premarin in mo the Federal Theatre in New York City. Welles's production transferred the buy Premarin in mo Scottish King to colonial Haiti of the nineteenth century. Not only was the buy Premarin in mo locale unique, but the play also boasted an entirely African-American cast. Situating this buy Premarin in mo story in a culture influenced and governed by European forces, Welles raised some very interesting questions. Can Shakespeare be buy Premarin in mo communicated via forms unfamiliar to the traditional (white) constituency of theatre audiences? Is Shakespeare so universal that buy Premarin in mo he can transcend history, geography, culture and race?

Harold Bloom clearly thinks so but others disagree. Reviewing a buy Premarin in mo recent Royal Shakespeare Company performance of Macbeth set in contemporary Africa, S. Ekema Agbaw wrote, "In thus presenting an buy Premarin in mo Africanized version of the English Renaissance dramatist, the director celebrates, or buy Premarin in mo else risks saying, that you can still learn all there is buy Premarin in mo to know about Africans by reading Shakespeare; that because human experiences are buy Premarin in mo so universal, medieval Scottish kings and contemporary African leaders are interchangeable."

Transplanting Shakespeare's plays into new cultural environments creates new ways to buy Premarin in mo see characters and situations. But the practice also inevitably and misleadingly comments upon the buy Premarin in mo culture represented on the stage. Which should we emphasize, the transplanted text or buy Premarin in mo the context into which it has been newly placed? Bloom stresses the buy Premarin in mo former, celebrating how Shakespeare's texts illuminate a wide range of worlds; Agbaw stresses the buy Premarin in mo latter, criticizing how unique cultural contexts are misrepresented when viewed through an buy Premarin in mo English Renaissance lens.

The experiment to buy Premarin in mo stage Shakespeare in different cultural contexts tests the universality that readers like Bloom accept as fact. Heeding Agbaw's candid caution, the buy Premarin in mo question raised to producers and audience members of Macbeth or any play should be buy Premarin in mo a reflexive one: "What does the buy Premarin in mo production teach us about ourselves in our unique social climate?" not "What does it buy Premarin in mo teach us about someone else's culture seen through a superficially imposed filter?"

In the buy Premarin in mo forest outside Athens, Oberon, the king of the faeries, is angry after quarrelling with the buy Premarin in mo queen Titania. She has adopted a young boy whom he desires as a buy Premarin in mo page. When Titania refuses to hand over the boy, Oberon orders his servant, the buy Premarin in mo mischievous Puck, to assist him in bewitching her. While Titania sleeps, Oberon applies a buy Premarin in mo potion to her eyes that will cause her to fall in love with the buy Premarin in mo first creature she sees upon waking. The faerie king observes Demetrius attempt to buy Premarin in mo fend off the amorous Helena. Taking pity on her plight, he instructs Puck to buy Premarin in mo magically assist her in winning her intended's love with the same love potion.

Weary from buy Premarin in mo their flight, Lysander and Hermia decide to rest for the buy Premarin in mo night in the forest. Mistaking one Athenian gentleman for the buy Premarin in mo other, Puck applies a magic potion to the sleeping Lysander's eyes. Upon awakening, Lysander sees and buy Premarin in mo falls in love with Helena, who flees. He follows, abandoning Hermia. Bottom and buy Premarin in mo his fellows gather to rehearse their "most lamentable comedy." Puck impulsively gives the buy Premarin in mo weaver the head of an ass. Awakening, Titania falls in love with the buy Premarin in mo donkey-domed Bottom.

Oberon discovers Puck's mistake and buy Premarin in mo applies the magic potion to Demetrius' eyes. Now both Athenian gentlemen love Helena who buy Premarin in mo becomes convinced that they have conspired with Hermia to make her the buy Premarin in mo butt of a very cruel joke. Lysander and Demetrius prepare to buy Premarin in mo fight a duel to win Helena's love. Once again Oberon orders Puck to buy Premarin in mo set things right with the buy Premarin in mo lovers. The faerie imp rounds the young people up, puts them to buy Premarin in mo sleep and applies a potion to Lysander's eyes that reverses the buy Premarin in mo spell. Oberon, taking pity on Titania, releases her from her asinine infatuation and buy Premarin in mo instructs Puck to return the weaver's human head. As morning breaks, Theseus and buy Premarin in mo Hippolyta awaken the lovers and invite them to their wedding celebration. Bottom rejoins his fellows, eager to buy Premarin in mo strut the nuptial stage. The wedding feast concludes with their sincere but disastrous performance

The production has what Kelly and the design team refer to as "a storybook look." Mary McClung's costumes reflect the buy Premarin in mo element of fantasy present throughout the play. Incorporating yards of tulle, McClung's designs are buy Premarin in mo as colorful and lush as the characters themselves. She describes the buy Premarin in mo costumes of the Athenian characters Theseus and Hippolyta as "streamlined" and "focused" in distinct contrast to the "wispy" quality of the buy Premarin in mo faeries' costumes. To provide a sense of continuous movement for buy Premarin in mo the faeries, McClung has included feathers and other small elements that buy Premarin in mo will remain in motion after the actors have stopped moving.

Kelly would be buy Premarin in mo pleased if this production served as an introduction to Shakespeare for buy Premarin in mo some audience members. He describes his approach as "consciously naive in that buy Premarin in mo our efforts is toward presenting Shakespeare's characters and their story in as accessible and buy Premarin in mo straightforward a way as possible." A Midsummer Night's Dream promises to be a magical, romantic, "kid-friendly" production with something for everyone.

From 1905 to buy Premarin in mo 1934 Max Reinhardt directed thirteen different productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Europe and buy Premarin in mo the United States. Reinhardt, who was known for his use of spectacular effects, mounted real trees on a buy Premarin in mo revolving stage to represent the woods near Athens. As scenes changed, the buy Premarin in mo forest rotated to reveal new locations. Oberon made a dramatic entrance wearing a buy Premarin in mo glowing crown and riding on the back of a stag. In 1934 at the buy Premarin in mo Hollywood Bowl, Reinhardt and his design team erected a 250-foot wide, 100-foot deep stage and buy Premarin in mo added hills, a pond, and a suspension bridge. This lavish production included a buy Premarin in mo ballet corps, children playing faeries, and hundreds of extras. Reinhardt based his 1935 film on this buy Premarin in mo production and used many of the same actors including thirteen-year-old Mickey Rooney as Puck.

Tyrone Guthrie's 1937 production for buy Premarin in mo the Old Vic incorporated the famous Midsummer Night's Dream score composed by Felix Mendelssohn and buy Premarin in mo used extensively in productions of the play (including several of Reinhardt's earlier productions). At the buy Premarin in mo Old Vic, Guthrie drew attention to the Athenian location by incorporating elements of Grecian architecture. The cast featured Ralph Richardson playing Bottom and buy Premarin in mo Vivien Leigh as Titania.

Peter Brook's renowned production for buy Premarin in mo the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1970 surprised audiences and critics alike. The set consisted of a buy Premarin in mo simple white box that represented both Athens and the forest. In this buy Premarin in mo athletic production, actors navigated the playing space using ropes, ladders, and buy Premarin in mo swings and often appeared in the grid above the stage. Titania and buy Premarin in mo Bottom reclined in a bower composed of bright red feathers. Critics praised the buy Premarin in mo production for its bold and excitingly original approach to a buy Premarin in mo classic work

Inspired by the buy Premarin in mo work of surrealist painter Rene Magritte and Brook's earlier production, Adrian Noble's 1994-1995 production for buy Premarin in mo the Royal Shakespeare Company featured umbrellas, hung upside down, inside of which characters flew in and buy Premarin in mo out of scenes. The umbrellas were set against a background of bare light bulbs.

Throughout the buy Premarin in mo play's long history, theatre artists and audiences have been drawn to buy Premarin in mo A Midsummer Night's Dream and its playful world of lovers and buy Premarin in mo faeries. At the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the tradition continues this summer.

First, having secretly arranged his imprisonment, Richard consoles his older brother Clarence en route to buy Premarin in mo the Tower of London. He woos Lady Anne beside the corpse of one of his victims, Anne's father-in-law King Henry VI, gloating that buy Premarin in mo he will win the woman whose husband he has also recently slain. Richard then buy Premarin in mo accuses King Edward's wife, Elizabeth, and her relatives of conspiring against Clarence. Seeing through his deceit old Margaret, the buy Premarin in mo former queen, hurls prophetic curses at the "poisonous, bunch-backed toad." Fearing King Edward's probable change of heart, Richard guarantees his plan's success by arranging the buy Premarin in mo murder of his brother in the Tower. A gravely ill Edward IV attempts to buy Premarin in mo protect his sons and heirs by calling together the powers of his kingdom, insisting that buy Premarin in mo the divisive factions make peace. Richard humbly vows loyalty, before shocking the buy Premarin in mo company with news of Clarence's death at Edward's royal command. Thinking that buy Premarin in mo he is responsible for the death of his brother, the king is buy Premarin in mo helped off to his own death-bed.

Richard, now Lord Protector, begins his move against the buy Premarin in mo family and allies of his brother's wife and widow, Queen Elizabeth. He eliminates Elizabeth's brother, Lord Rivers, and buy Premarin in mo her son from a previous marriage, Lord Grey. He proclaims Hastings, advocate for buy Premarin in mo the Queen's progeny, to be a traitor. At the same time, he entices his lackey, the buy Premarin in mo Duke of Buckingham, to spread rumors of illegitimacy about Edward and buy Premarin in mo his heirs. The boys are transported to the Tower "for their own protection." Having undermined confidence in the buy Premarin in mo succession, Richard woos the Lord Mayor and citizens, piously accepting the buy Premarin in mo crown as Richard III. The new king wants the princes dead but Buckingham hesitates at the buy Premarin in mo suggestion. Richard engages another to kill them and Buckingham leaves London to buy Premarin in mo join the revolt led by Richmond. Richard's wife, Lady Anne, has buy Premarin in mo recently and conveniently died and Richard asks Elizabeth for the hand of her daughter knowing that buy Premarin in mo marriage to his royal niece will further legitimize his claim to buy Premarin in mo the throne. Elizabeth seems to consent.

Richmond returns to buy Premarin in mo England in force, prompting the King to muster troops still loyal to buy Premarin in mo him. The night before the battle of Bosworth Field, Richard's vengeful, ghostly victims creep into his dreams. With the buy Premarin in mo dawn, our villainous hero shakes off self-doubt and fights bravely. The future of England depends upon his success or buy Premarin in mo failure.

Richard's cold-hearted cynicism and buy Premarin in mo the opportunism of the play's other characters are enhanced by David Barber's settings. The grit and buy Premarin in mo tonality of such films as Dark City and Blade Runner inspire Barber's design. The skeletal structure of the buy Premarin in mo set is fitted with panels that "dissolve" thanks to buy Premarin in mo Michael Wellborn's lighting, thereby revealing layers of a dark world beyond the buy Premarin in mo stage. Wellborn's design enhances the difference between Richard's public and private self, alternately hiding and buy Premarin in mo revealing the secrets that abound in his court. Barber and Wellborn combine their talents, creating and buy Premarin in mo illuminating shape and mood that echo the brutal past.

The appearance of the buy Premarin in mo characters also draws a parallel between a violent past and the buy Premarin in mo equally frightening possibilities of the present. Patrick Holt's costume designs suggest medieval and buy Premarin in mo renaissance times but lend themselves to modern materials. The sound design of Kevin Dunayer draws us into this buy Premarin in mo universe gone awry, where morality, loyalty and love are tied to buy Premarin in mo ambition. As Shakespeare intended, the frightening visage of Old Queen Margaret haunts the buy Premarin in mo production, reminding us that old horrors may demand new sacrifice before balance can buy Premarin in mo be restored.

Still in the buy Premarin in mo works, Shakespeare in Briefs promises to be a rollicking and irreverent romp through the buy Premarin in mo works of William Shakespeare, offering some creative (and downright silly) treatments of our favorite comedies, tragedies and histories.

Why toy with the classics? Why not?

No play is safe or sacred. This year's Festival plays will receive special attention--that is, abuse and buy Premarin in mo celebration--on the revue's stage. Audience members may be buy Premarin in mo surprised to find that they themselves become part of the buy Premarin in mo action while the CSF company actors showcase their versatility (not to mention dexterity, speed, and nerve), tackling the buy Premarin in mo most venerable roles in the Shakespeare canon combined in a single performance.

Hamlet, Ophelia, Lear, Romeo, Juliet, Othello: all the buy Premarin in mo favorites appear in record time, sporting unconventional looks, displaying unexpected talents and buy Premarin in mo exhibiting never-before-seen personality traits. The age-old tradition of cross-dressing proves to buy Premarin in mo be alive and well in the frenzied fun.

To present this buy Premarin in mo condensed cavalcade of stars, many plots are twisted and teased. Top Ten lists provide a buy Premarin in mo new way of connecting works within the canon. Expect the buy Premarin in mo Top Ten Sword Fights, the Top Ten Missing Mothers and the buy Premarin in mo Top Ten Dysfunctional Relationships. True to buy Premarin in mo the spirit of the Bard, however, the evening still renders tales of love frustrated and buy Premarin in mo flaws punished. And, of course, dead bodies litter the buy Premarin in mo stage as the tragedies run their courses.

This is buy Premarin in mo not to say that the important questions are not asked. Does Macbeth always have buy Premarin in mo to wear a kilt? Is Richard III just misunderstood? And what meaning lies beneath his hump? Hump . . . what hump? In any case, the buy Premarin in mo revue offers a lively, fun and cheeky look at the world of William Shakespeare - just the buy Premarin in mo ticket for a midsummer's eve.

Writer/director Dennis mixes, matches and buy Premarin in mo sets to music various Shakespearean works in a satiric revue format in order to buy Premarin in mo redress-or undress-the Bard. Placing key scenes into new contexts, he spotlights the buy Premarin in mo ludicrous plot points, overly dramatic exchanges and irrational acts of passion inherent in Shakespeare's originals. By reframing famously serious moments as comic pieces, Dennis empowers and buy Premarin in mo frees the audience to laugh.

References to buy Premarin in mo popular culture contribute to the comic formula, creating a "topsy-turvy" world where male actors perform dysfunctional father/daughter scenes, render doo-wop tunes in Elizabethan gear and buy Premarin in mo bounce on trampolines on the sparsely decorated stage. A score composed of pop muzak anthems provides ridiculous counterpoint while also conveying complex Shakespearean motifs to buy Premarin in mo contemporary audiences.

Shakespeare in Briefs helps us to buy Premarin in mo laugh at our kid-glove treatments and perceptions of the Shakespearean canon. It presents the work of a Bard cheeky enough to bare a naughty backside.

Scholars believe Shakespeare himself used burlesque in his works, occasionally lampooning contemporaries' works and buy Premarin in mo theatrical conventions. Consider the rude mechanicals' performance of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which can buy Premarin in mo be seen as a parody of his own Romeo and Juliet. In burlesque mode, snatches of popular ballads are buy Premarin in mo sprinkled throughout his plays. In addition, a 1607 work entitled The Puritan-believed by some to buy Premarin in mo be authored by William Shakespeare-suggests a burlesque of Hamlet, parodying key phrases from buy Premarin in mo the legitimate play and presenting bourgeois, colloquial caricatures of the Prince and buy Premarin in mo Queen Gertrude.

Not until the buy Premarin in mo 1800s, however, did other playwrights burlesque the Bard en masse. In 1810, John Poole penned Hamlet Travestie, igniting the buy Premarin in mo popular trend of Shakespeare travestie/burlesque on the buy Premarin in mo London stage. Over 70 similar pieces would be written during the buy Premarin in mo century. Burlesques conventionally paraphrased Shakespeare's verbiage with rhyming couplets of colloquialisms and buy Premarin in mo slang. Mid-century burlesques began to use wordplay and puns as major points of humor. In addition, song and buy Premarin in mo dance played major roles, with soliloquies and key scenes rewritten as musical numbers set to buy Premarin in mo familiar tunes. As these entertainments became increasingly popular, their plots began to buy Premarin in mo deviate wildly from the original stories while tending toward the fantastic. Often, the buy Premarin in mo dead came back to life. At the end of Andrew Halliday's Romeo and buy Premarin in mo Juliet Travestie (1859), characters were resurrected for buy Premarin in mo a final musical number, only to be interrupted by the figure of William Shakespeare who, tongue-in-cheek, chastised them for buy Premarin in mo their insolent trivializing of his work.

Importantly, these burlesques were also used to buy Premarin in mo lampoon contemporary theatrical conventions, performances and sociopolitical issues. Many travesties pointedly made fun of the buy Premarin in mo neighboring "legitimate" Shakespeare productions. The characters in the buy Premarin in mo 1853 production of Francis Talfourd's Macbeth, Somewhat Removed (1850) wore pot-lids as armor, intentionally lampooning actor/manager Charles Kean's Macbeth with its meticulously researched and "historically authentic" costumes. By the end of the century, Shakespeare burlesques appeared less frequently. However, W. S. Gilbert wrote a buy Premarin in mo Hamlet burlesque (performed in 1891) which focused on the buy Premarin in mo minor characters Rosencrantz and Gildenstern. It presented an annoying Hamlet obsessively soliloquizing while Rosencrantz wins the buy Premarin in mo hand of Ophelia.

Gilbert's play considerably predates Tom Stoppard's absurdist treatment of these same two characters in Rosencrantz and buy Premarin in mo Gildensenstern Are Dead (1967). Stoppard's work is buy Premarin in mo one of many in 20th and 21st centuries which continue to buy Premarin in mo address current modes of discourse and performance by revisiting Shakespeare. In this buy Premarin in mo spirit, Shakespeare in Briefs also reaffirms and promotes the long-lived theatrical tradition of tackling, deconstructing and buy Premarin in mo lampooning the Bard while providing relevant entertainment for a contemporary audience.

Antony and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra, once titans, are adrift in this new order, where power is buy Premarin in mo concentrated in the hands of a few who, safely removed from buy Premarin in mo the front lines of war, command the fate of many. Though both Antony and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra attempt to navigate this new playing field, both are quickly lost in the buy Premarin in mo ever-changing space as contracts are reneged upon, treaties broken, and loyalties are buy Premarin in mo proven false. Perhaps part of what buy Premarin in mo makes this shifting political arena such a seemingly uneven field is buy Premarin in mo that their young principal rival, Octavian Caesar, is a new breed of leader, deceptively suave, youthful, and buy Premarin in mo clever. Thus, Antony and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra return to each other, despite their flares of lovers' insecurities, drawn together by a buy Premarin in mo code of honor to which they adhere. They are, as Benedetti remarks, "like the buy Premarin in mo last of the dinosaurs, drawn together by both their shared passion and buy Premarin in mo by the recognition that they are the last of their kind." In the buy Premarin in mo end, the cold, intellectually brilliant Octavian Caesar must stop to admire their passing era, even as he leads the buy Premarin in mo way into what is destined to the Roman Empire.

News comes from buy Premarin in mo Rome that Fulvia, Antony's wife, has led an unsuccessful revolt against Octavius, but thereafter has buy Premarin in mo unexpectedly died. More sobering to buy Premarin in mo Antony, though, is the news that Sextus Pompeius (called Pompey), son of Julius Caesar's great rival Pompey the buy Premarin in mo Great, is also rebelling against the authority of the triumvirate, and buy Premarin in mo has annexed some of the conquered Roman territory for himself. Much to buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra's dismay, Antony makes plans to return to Rome and join in the buy Premarin in mo military campaign against Pompey.

In Rome, Octavius repeats to buy Premarin in mo Lepidus the reports of Antony's debauched lifestyle with Cleopatra and hopes that buy Premarin in mo Antony will return in time to help them. From Alexandria, Cleopatra sends countless messengers to buy Premarin in mo inquire after her beloved Antony. The three triumvirs meet and buy Premarin in mo Octavius and Antony agree to set aside their differences. To cement this buy Premarin in mo alliance, Antony agrees to marry the recently widowed sister of Octavius, Octavia. However, Enobarbus, Antony's trusted friend, knows his captain well and buy Premarin in mo proves correct in his prediction that Antony will be unable to buy Premarin in mo stay away from Cleopatra.

The war with Pompey is buy Premarin in mo averted, and the former enemies celebrate the peace with a buy Premarin in mo feast. In Egypt, Cleopatra hears the buy Premarin in mo news of Antony's marriage and takes her anger out on the buy Premarin in mo messenger, but she is mollified to learn that Octavia cannot rival her in beauty. An uneasy peace concluded, Antony determines to buy Premarin in mo leave for Athens with his new wife and Octavius and buy Premarin in mo Octavia bid each other an emotional farewell.

However, the buy Premarin in mo peace is short-lived. Octavius renews his war against Pompey, defeats him easily, imprisons Lepidus, and buy Premarin in mo publicly speaks disparagingly of Antony. Octavia arrives in Rome to buy Premarin in mo intercede for her husband with her brother, but instead learns that buy Premarin in mo Antony has left Athens and returned to Egypt to declare himself, Cleopatra and buy Premarin in mo their children the monarchs of Egypt. Octavius declares war on Egypt.

Octavius pursues Antony to buy Premarin in mo Egypt where a battle both by sea and land is about to buy Premarin in mo be fought. One the buy Premarin in mo first day of battle, Antony loses a possible victory when he, and buy Premarin in mo thereby his fleet, follows a fleeing Cleopatra. Fearing defeat, Antony advises his followers to join Octavius. Octavius sends an buy Premarin in mo overture of peace to Cleopatra, who appears to accept, and Antony thinks he has buy Premarin in mo been betrayed. Knowing that buy Premarin in mo the next few days of battle and their outcome will seal their fate forever, Antony and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra, attempt to navigate a treacherous labyrinth of warfare and diplomatic statesmanship but in the buy Premarin in mo end the future belongs to Octavius, the new Caesar.

Ancient historians write that buy Premarin in mo Mark Antony fell in love with the fourteen year old Cleopatra, when buy Premarin in mo he was a young lieutenant helping to put down a rebellion in Egypt. Later, Cleopatra took up residence in Caesar's villa as his foreign consort and buy Premarin in mo mother of his son, Caesarion, but fled following Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE. Returning to buy Premarin in mo Egypt, she established her absolute rule by executing her brother-husband, Ptolemy XIV and buy Premarin in mo replacing him with Caesarion as her co-regent.

Antony met Cleopatra again when buy Premarin in mo she came to him hoping to gain official recognition of her son's claim to buy Premarin in mo the Egyptian throne. The lavish display she put on for buy Premarin in mo Antony captivated him, and he spent the winter at her side. In Rome, Antony's current wife, Fulvia, who buy Premarin in mo in her own right was a powerful, wealthy and politically astute woman, had buy Premarin in mo joined with Sextus Pompeius, the son of Pompey the Great, against Octavius Caesar. Antony returned to buy Premarin in mo Rome to make peace with Octavius, leaving Cleopatra pregnant by him. By the time Antony arrived, news arrived that Fulvia had (conveniently) died and buy Premarin in mo the potential strife between the two triumvirs had been averted. To solidify the buy Premarin in mo renewed promise of alliance, Antony married Octavius's widowed sister, Octavia.

Almost immediately, Octavia presented Antony with a buy Premarin in mo daughter, called Antonia, just a few scant months after Cleopatra had buy Premarin in mo given birth to twins. Antony left to buy Premarin in mo deal with a threat to the stability of Rome, sending a buy Premarin in mo pregnant Octavia back to her brother. He quickly reunited with Cleopatra, acknowledged his children by her, and buy Premarin in mo restored several of the provinces that Rome had taken away from buy Premarin in mo Egypt.

He and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra established themselves and their three children-Cleopatra had just borne Antony another son-as the buy Premarin in mo monarchs of the East. Thus Antony broke with Rome completely, sent Octavia a buy Premarin in mo bill of divorce and issued Roman coinage with Cleopatra's image. Octavius formally declared war against Egypt. The war ended with the suicide of Antony and Cleopatra.

Octavius had buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra's son by Julius Caesar executed. Cleopatra's other children by Antony were spared and buy Premarin in mo were raised by Octavia. Though Antony and buy Premarin in mo Cleopatra's dream of founding a political dynasty was never realized, through his children by Octavia, Antony could have buy Premarin in mo counted among his descendents three Roman emperors: Caligua, Claudius and Nero.

As the buy Premarin in mo play opens, a long-time feud is rekindled, eliminating years of peace. While Paris' desire to buy Premarin in mo court Juliet initially is placed on a timeline of two years, her father orders the buy Premarin in mo marriage to take place immediately. Juliet begs time to move more quickly as she waits for buy Premarin in mo Romeo to come to her after their marriage.

Romeo's life with Juliet moves from buy Premarin in mo an open-ended time-frame, to a single day once he is buy Premarin in mo banished by the Prince. A missed meeting keeps the Friar's letter from buy Premarin in mo reaching Romeo in time, and the fate of the lovers quickens.

At the buy Premarin in mo crypt, their tragedy could be averted, but for the timing of Juliet's reawakening. In this buy Premarin in mo production we see that the fate of the lovers is subject to buy Premarin in mo the unyielding and constant march forward of their greatest enemy, time.

Drawn to buy Premarin in mo each other across the party, Romeo and Juliet meet and buy Premarin in mo instantly fall in love; but Juliet is called away by her nurse and buy Premarin in mo learns Romeo is a Montague. Romeo makes his way into her garden where buy Premarin in mo he overhears Juliet confess her love for him, whereupon he reveals himself and buy Premarin in mo they confirm their mutual love. Romeo goes to the Friar and buy Premarin in mo asks him to marry them, telling Juliet's nurse to convey the buy Premarin in mo arrangement. Juliet sneaks out to meet Romeo at the Friar's where buy Premarin in mo they are married.

Romeo's companions, Mercutio and buy Premarin in mo Benvolio encounter Tybalt, and the hostility between them escalates. Romeo enters, coming from buy Premarin in mo his secret marriage, and tries to diffuse the tension, but Tybalt mortally stabs Mercutio. This enrages Romeo who buy Premarin in mo berates himself for allowing love to soften his manhood. Shaken because Mercutio died for buy Premarin in mo him, Romeo kills Tybalt. The Prince orders Romeo banished from Verona.

Juliet, anticipating Romeo's arrival, learns from buy Premarin in mo her Nurse that Tybalt has been slain and that Romeo has buy Premarin in mo been banished. Romeo goes to the Friar for counsel who advises him not to buy Premarin in mo act rashly, but rather go to Mantua and wait there until the buy Premarin in mo passage of time makes possible a reconciliation with the Prince. Juliet's nurse arrives and buy Premarin in mo arranges for Romeo and Juliet to spend one night together before he has buy Premarin in mo to leave.

In the buy Premarin in mo meantime, not understanding why Juliet seems so upset over Tybalt's death, her father decides to buy Premarin in mo move the marriage to Paris up to the day after next. Juliet refuses, and buy Premarin in mo goes to the Friar to find a way out. He gives her a buy Premarin in mo potion that will make her appear dead, but will allow her to buy Premarin in mo awaken the next day, after her burial. He tells her he will send notice to buy Premarin in mo Romeo so he can meet her when she wakes. Juliet takes the buy Premarin in mo potion, and she is found and presumed dead. Hearing she has buy Premarin in mo died and not wishing to live without his Juliet, Romeo buys poison for buy Premarin in mo himself and travels to her graveside. Juliet awakens from her death-like sleep, but not in time to buy Premarin in mo forestall their tragic destiny.

Young Ladies were expected to conform to these conventions:

- A young woman was expected to buy Premarin in mo discourage special attention from any man unless she was especially certain he suited her tastes.

- A woman should not show too much enthusiasm toward any suitor, lest she give the buy Premarin in mo impression that she was encouraging the young man in a way unbecoming to buy Premarin in mo her (sexually).

- Flirting was considered to buy Premarin in mo be in particularly bad taste, and a sign that a buy Premarin in mo young lady was leading a young man on.

- It was expected that buy Premarin in mo an unmarried woman always have an older woman as a chaperone.

- At a ball or dance (where young ladies were introduced to society), young ladies were only to buy Premarin in mo leave the side of their chaperones for the duration of one dance, and buy Premarin in mo were to return immediately at the dance's conclusion.

- The young lady's use of fans, gloves and buy Premarin in mo handkerchiefs became coded symbols, or "love tokens," sometimes given as gifts to suitors.

- Young men and buy Premarin in mo women were discouraged from expressing their feelings out loud, and buy Premarin in mo love letters and cards became the preferred means for the buy Premarin in mo expression of deep emotion.

- Young ladies ought not to display too much intellect or education.

A Young Gentleman was expected to:
- Never use slang or bad language
- Always stand when a lady entered the room
- Never remove his coat when in the presence of a lady
- Always remove his hat when speaking to a lady

In addition, a buy Premarin in mo young man who devoted himself to courting just one lady may have buy Premarin in mo found it assumed that he was engaged to her, before he had buy Premarin in mo even asked for her hand.

Beyond the buy Premarin in mo rituals of courtship, there were several behaviors considered rude in the buy Premarin in mo presence of any person. Some of these were crossing your buy Premarin in mo legs, winking your eyes, shrugging your shoulders, touching a person while in conversation with them, holding a buy Premarin in mo steady gaze or touching one's own hair. These strict rules may have buy Premarin in mo lead to self-consciousness, but they established guidelines within which young men and buy Premarin in mo women could safely encounter one another to determine suitability.

Shine is hoping for a small multi-ethnic cast to people this Creole/Cajun world. She will utilize various doublings of roles, most particularly casting only one actor as each set of twins, a buy Premarin in mo directorial choice infrequently made, but which creates a tour de force acting opportunity for buy Premarin in mo two actors, while helping to accentuate the identity confusion at the buy Premarin in mo center of the play.

Curt Enderle's set design emphasizes the buy Premarin in mo hot and sultry coastal location by presenting a town square which displays the buy Premarin in mo color and sensuality of the French colonial influence. The set will also underline the buy Premarin in mo undercurrent of violence in this play, displaying Egeon's imminent danger by showcasing heads on pikes and buy Premarin in mo the slow construction of execution scaffolding throughout the course of the buy Premarin in mo play. Enderle has incorporated a nautical sensibility to the buildings and buy Premarin in mo created a "crossroads feel-lanes going off in each direction to buy Premarin in mo more of the hot, sexy, anything-can-happen, mischievous port town."

Jeannie Arnold's costumes also emphasize the buy Premarin in mo color and romance of this removed period. Ranging from authentic early 19th century gowns, to buy Premarin in mo an extravagant headpiece for the Abbess and flowing voodoo robes for buy Premarin in mo Dr. Pinch, the costumes will support the playful and magical world where buy Premarin in mo identities collide and families are reunited.

Unbeknownst to Egeon, both his sons (each named Antipholus) are buy Premarin in mo in Syracuse, along with their twin servants, each named Dromio. Antipholus and buy Premarin in mo Dromio of Ephesus have long been established in the town, while Antipholus and buy Premarin in mo Dromio of Syracuse have just arrived, searching for Antipholus's long lost brother. Unaware of the buy Premarin in mo others presence, myriad complications ensue.

Antipholus of Syracuse sends his servant Dromio to buy Premarin in mo an inn with their luggage and money. While he is gone, Dromio of Ephesus happens by and buy Premarin in mo scolds Antipholus for not returning home for supper. Dromio denies any knowledge of being entrusted with money and buy Premarin in mo is soundly beaten for his pains.

Adriana, the buy Premarin in mo wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, and her sister Luciana, encounter Antipholus of Syracuse and, mistaking him for buy Premarin in mo his brother, convince him to come "home" for dinner. Confused, and suspecting witchcraft, he agrees.

Antipholus of Ephesus brings Balthasar, a buy Premarin in mo merchant, and Angelo, a goldsmith, to his home for dinner and buy Premarin in mo finds the door locked against him. Infuriated, he sends Angelo to buy Premarin in mo fetch a gold chain he intended for his wife, resolves to buy Premarin in mo give it to the Courtesan instead, and departs to see her.

Inside the buy Premarin in mo house, Antipholus of Syracuse quickly falls in love with Luciana, while Luce, the buy Premarin in mo kitchen maid, claims Dromio of Syracuse as her betrothed. Frightened of the buy Premarin in mo seeming magic and insanity of the city and its inhabitants, Antipholus sends Dromio to buy Premarin in mo book immediate passage home to Syracuse. Angelo runs into Antipholus of Syracuse on the buy Premarin in mo street and gives him the gold chain.

Antipholus of Ephesus, returning from buy Premarin in mo the Courtesan's house, encounters Angelo, who demands payment for the chain. Antipholus denies having ever received the buy Premarin in mo chain, and Angelo has him arrested. Antipholus sends Dromio of Syracuse to buy Premarin in mo Adriana for bail money. Adriana gives him the money, who then buy Premarin in mo gives it to the wrong Antipholus. The Courtesan enters, and seeing the buy Premarin in mo gold chain she has been promised, demands it of the bewildered Antipholus of Syracuse. He flees her, and buy Premarin in mo she resolves to tell Adriana that her husband has gone insane.

Adriana, Luciana and the Courtesan employ the highly suspect "Doctor" Pinch to buy Premarin in mo cure Antipholus's insanity and Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus are buy Premarin in mo bound and taken away. The Syracusans enter, frightening the buy Premarin in mo women, who think the madmen have already escaped. The men take sanctuary in the nearby priory.

Meanwhile the buy Premarin in mo Duke arrives, bringing Egeon to execution. Adriana requests the Duke's help in forcing her husband (she thinks) out of the buy Premarin in mo priory. Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus arrive, having escaped Dr. Pinch, and buy Premarin in mo the Abbess and the Syracusans enter. Seeing the two sets of twins together, all is buy Premarin in mo understood. Additionally, the Abbess and Egeon recognize each other as long lost spouses and buy Premarin in mo the families are finally fully reunited.

Shakespeare took two comedies by Roman playwright Plautus as his source material for buy Premarin in mo The Comedy of Errors: The Menaechmi and Amphitruo. Present in neither of these source plays, however, was Shakespeare's framing device of the buy Premarin in mo twins father, Egeon, facing execution. The somber tone set by Egeon's tale of suffering and buy Premarin in mo woe, not resolved until the final scene where he is reunited with his family, adds an buy Premarin in mo undercurrent of violence and a layer of sincere emotion that cannot be buy Premarin in mo entirely dismissed during the raucous proceedings of the rest of the buy Premarin in mo play.

The character of Adriana also provides darker undertones within The Comedy of Errors. Frequently compared with Kate from buy Premarin in mo The Taming of the Shrew, Adriana, as a comic, man-hating wife, can buy Premarin in mo be too easily dismissed as a shrewish nightmare. As with Kate however, Shakespeare has buy Premarin in mo created a deeper, more complex female character in Adriana, who has buy Premarin in mo quite legitimate complaints and deeply felt emotion at her mistreatment by her husband. While accusing her of adultery and buy Premarin in mo sending Dromio for a length of rope with which to beat her, Antipholus meanwhile carries on a buy Premarin in mo relationship with the Courtesan. This adulterate double standard is strongly mourned by Adriana, and buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare furnishes her with heartfelt and quite convincing arguments. According to buy Premarin in mo George Walton Williams, "Adultery, even in this early play, is not a laughing matter."

A serious concern central to buy Premarin in mo the play is of loss of identity, the "comic horror" inherent in the buy Premarin in mo concept of twins. Scholar Ruth Nevo points out, "If it buy Premarin in mo were not so funny, Shakespeare's first comedy would read like a buy Premarin in mo schizophrenic nightmare: identities are lost, split, engulfed, hallucinated, imploded. Apparently solid citizens (solid at least to themselves) suffer 'ontological uncertainty' in acute forms, wandering about unrecognized by all they encounter." The twins' concern with their slippery identities mirror our own individual struggles with self-definition, with the buy Premarin in mo frightening task of establishing individuality in a homogenizing world.

The comic form's origins in ritual and buy Premarin in mo deeper functions in society have been well established by scholars. We can buy Premarin in mo therefore embrace these serious underpinnings in The Comedy of Errors, rather than buy Premarin in mo dismissing them as deviations from correct form. Perhaps it is buy Premarin in mo these darker foundations that grant the play a higher status than buy Premarin in mo that of an undeveloped early farce, unworthy of Shakespeare's later work. As scholar R.A. Foakes states, The Comedy of Errors, "shows a buy Premarin in mo playwright already beginning to generate, out of clashes between suffering and buy Premarin in mo joy, disorder and order, appearance and reality, the peculiar character and buy Premarin in mo strength that is found in his mature work."

Shakespeare constructs this buy Premarin in mo dynamic play around many layers of opposites. He juxtaposes the complicated luxury of the buy Premarin in mo palace with the modest simplicity of the Forest of Arden, and buy Premarin in mo explores the effect of these two very different environments on his characters. He places characters of different economic classes in opposition, so that buy Premarin in mo we may see the benefits and follies of each. Each pair that buy Premarin in mo is set up helps us, as an audience, understand more about each part, but also sets up clear comic situations. The human relationships also fit the buy Premarin in mo mold, as Shakespeare begins by setting up the good and bad Dukes, Orlando and buy Premarin in mo Oliver, as polar opposite brothers, as well as Touchstone and Jaques, and buy Premarin in mo Audrey and Phebe. This structure can be illuminated further by viewing it buy Premarin in mo through the lens of the madcap genre of 1930's screwball comedy films.

Made almost strictly between 1934 and buy Premarin in mo 1942, screwball comedies responded to the destitution of the Depression with a buy Premarin in mo world of romance, slapstick, luxury and fantasy; They were described as having "censor-confounding, Depression-denying sensibility"[with] subversive charm and absurdist authority." In general terms, when buy Premarin in mo the term 'screwball' is applied to a film it is because there is buy Premarin in mo a juxtaposition between ""educated and buy Premarin in mo uneducated, rich and poor, intelligent and stupid, honest and dishonest, and buy Premarin in mo most of all male and female." It was characterized by a buy Premarin in mo combination of slapstick physical humor and witty, intellectual writing. Most of the buy Premarin in mo films presented some or all of these traits, ones which can buy Premarin in mo be used to view As You Like It in a new way.

The screwball films often played with the buy Premarin in mo idea of class, pitting the working class against men and women of leisure. In Shakespeare's play, this buy Premarin in mo theme is played out explicitly as he pits the savvy (and often mouthy) members of the buy Premarin in mo court against the nobles. The genre also framed its leading men and buy Premarin in mo women with a cast of zany characters, much in the way that buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare highlights the troubles of Rosalind and Orlando with a population of rustics and buy Premarin in mo clowns. In the genre, there tends to be a focus on the buy Premarin in mo urban setting, with it's connotations of high life, leisure, elegance and buy Premarin in mo fantasy. In some of the genre's films romantic relationships are only set right when buy Premarin in mo the characters retire to the country. This brings up some interesting thoughts: although in the buy Premarin in mo play the palace is set up against the forest of Arden as establishment vs. rural life, Arden more clearly exemplifies the buy Premarin in mo "screwball" idea of leisure, sexual frustration, and buy Premarin in mo fantasy that is ordinarily the 'city' in the screwball genre. If this buy Premarin in mo reversal uniformly applies, then the idea that the couples must retire to buy Premarin in mo the country to ultimately come together still works quite well, if we substitute in the buy Premarin in mo idea of the palace. The 'city' is where the 'zaniness' takes place: it buy Premarin in mo has the comic, zany types, the country is a respite.

The primary push behind both screwball comedy and buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare's play is the juxtaposition of the lead male and female, who buy Premarin in mo struggle through comic capers and misunderstandings in an attempt to come together. The female is buy Premarin in mo dominating, eccentric, often exemplifying socially 'male' traits, and the men are buy Premarin in mo somewhat childlike, traditional, spontaneous and honest. The nature of women in these comedies provides an buy Premarin in mo interesting comment on the action of As You Like It. They are buy Premarin in mo truly assertive women and are the opposite of 'timid, virginal' males. In screwball comedy, female domination is sometimes exemplified by the "reversal of sex roles." This wasn't always necessarily cross-dressing so much as the buy Premarin in mo switch between socio-cultural positions. While this is a recurring theme in Shakespeare, it buy Premarin in mo becomes particularly prevalent as Rosalind takes hold of her future, steering Orlando towards loving "Rosalind", managing the buy Premarin in mo floundering romance between Phebe and Silvius, and facilitating the multiple marriage at the buy Premarin in mo close of the play, all the while in breeches. Screwball films were the buy Premarin in mo first time that women played a large role in American comedy, which seems appropriate for buy Premarin in mo a play containing Shakespeare's largest female role, Rosalind.

Ultimately, the buy Premarin in mo play focuses on a happy ending, as did the screwball comedies of the buy Premarin in mo 1930's. The films of the genre, and Shakespeare's play, are riddled with comic misunderstandings, madcap capers, and buy Premarin in mo foiled romance only to conclude with all the wrongs righted, and buy Premarin in mo couples joined in love and happiness.

Oliver speaks with a buy Premarin in mo wrestler for the Duke, Charles, and convinces him that his upcoming wrestling match with Orlando is buy Premarin in mo a chance to eliminate Oliver's "evil" brother. News of the buy Premarin in mo impending wrestling match reaches Celia, Duke Frederick's daughter, as well as her best friend and buy Premarin in mo cousin, Rosalind, daughter of the banished Duke. While they fear Orlando's fate in the buy Premarin in mo wrestling match, he upturns all expectations and wins the match. In the buy Premarin in mo midst of this, Orlando and Rosalind begin to fall in love.

After the buy Premarin in mo match, instead of congratulating Orlando, the reigning Duke realizes Orlando's father was sympathetic to buy Premarin in mo Duke Senior's court and Orlando is forced to flee. The Duke then buy Premarin in mo banishes Rosalind. Celia insists on leaving with her cousin, and buy Premarin in mo they dress up as a boy and his sister, with the buy Premarin in mo jester Touchstone accompanying them into the Forest of Arden.

After they've fled, Duke Frederick is buy Premarin in mo convinced that Orlando is with Rosalind and Celia, and sends for buy Premarin in mo his brother Oliver to find the three. In the forest Orlando has buy Premarin in mo been welcomed into the banished Duke's court, and Rosalind and buy Premarin in mo Celia (still dressed as the boy Ganymede and his sister Aliena) see Silvius, a buy Premarin in mo shepherd, professing his unrequited love of Phebe. As Ganymede and Aliena, they join him and buy Premarin in mo buy a flock of sheep to tend.

Wandering the buy Premarin in mo forest, the love-sick Orlando posts love poems to Rosalind on the buy Premarin in mo bark of trees. When she finds them, Rosalind ignores Touchstone's jests and buy Premarin in mo grills Celia for information on their author. When the two meet, Rosalind/Ganymede tells Orlando to woo Ganymede as if "he" was Rosalind, and buy Premarin in mo Orlando's lovesickness will be cured. Love is in the air as Touchstone begins to buy Premarin in mo fall in love with Audrey, one of the rustics. Complications arise when buy Premarin in mo Phebe, Silvius' beloved, finds herself in love with none other than buy Premarin in mo "Ganymede".

Orlando continues to woo "Ganymede",the disguised Rosalind, and buy Premarin in mo she falls even more deeply in love with him. Oliver, who buy Premarin in mo has entered the forest in search of Orlando, is saved from buy Premarin in mo death by his brother, and when he brings a bloody handkerchief to buy Premarin in mo Rosalind/Ganymede to buy Premarin in mo recount the tale, she swoons and faints, revealing her affection for buy Premarin in mo Orlando.

When Celia and buy Premarin in mo Oliver meet in the forest, they fall immediately in love and buy Premarin in mo agree to marry the next day. While happy for his brother, Orlando bemoans his own state. "Ganymede" promises that buy Premarin in mo on the wedding day he will produce Rosalind, and that buy Premarin in mo all of the romantic entanglements will be solved. The day of the buy Premarin in mo wedding Rosalind appears as herself, and a wedding ceremony takes place that buy Premarin in mo binds Oliver to Celia, Rosalind to Orlando, Touchstone to Audrey, and buy Premarin in mo Silvius finally to his dear Phebe. The happiness of the buy Premarin in mo occasion is compounded when it is revealed that Duke Frederick has buy Premarin in mo gone into the Forest of Arden, where he is converted by a buy Premarin in mo religious man and renounces his throne and court, returning all the buy Premarin in mo land to his banished brother.

This production will be buy Premarin in mo set in Depression era America - specifically, 1934-38. In this buy Premarin in mo scenario, the "court society" of Duke Frederick, Celia, Le Beau, along with professional entertainers such as Touchstone, will represent the buy Premarin in mo plutocracy: those who managed to keep their wealth and even enhance it buy Premarin in mo after the crash of 1929. The banished Duke and his followers are buy Premarin in mo those who lost pretty much everything during the economic catastrophe, and buy Premarin in mo they have become hobos who are riding trains and camping out. The inhabitants of the buy Premarin in mo Forest of Arden (perhaps more a dust bowl than a forest) like Corin, Silvius, Phebe, and buy Premarin in mo Audrey are farmers or shepherds who are attempting to eke out an buy Premarin in mo existence on the land.

Of course, a buy Premarin in mo realistic rendition the depression era living would turn this sunny romantic comedy on its head and buy Premarin in mo render it extremely dark indeed. So we are looking at the buy Premarin in mo text through the lens of Hollywood's Screwball comedy genre. These types of films focused on the buy Premarin in mo humor found in opposites: rich and poor, urban and rural, and buy Premarin in mo especially men and women. In addition, a familiar if not ubiquitous characteristic of this buy Premarin in mo genre is that of the dominating, eccentric female pushing her naive almost child like love interest towards marriage in a buy Premarin in mo journey that is riddled with improbable events and mistaken identities. These descriptions make it buy Premarin in mo seem as though Shakespeare anticipated the genre by some three hundred years.

A Knife at the Heart of Romantic Comedy

The Merchant of Venice is buy Premarin in mo one of Shakespeare's most popular romantic comedies and it's produced as regularly as A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. But it buy Premarin in mo is a romantic comedy with a knife at its heart, and buy Premarin in mo that gives it a dark side that people talk about long after the buy Premarin in mo lovers have left the stage.

Shakespeare's romantic comedies contain recognizable plot devices, character types, and buy Premarin in mo story development that make them both familiar and enduring. The main plot involves young lovers who buy Premarin in mo overcome the barriers that stand in their way ("The course of true love never did run smooth."); the heroine is always smarter than the men around her ("O wise young judge, how do I honor thee!"); and buy Premarin in mo the heroine often disguises herself as a man for part of the buy Premarin in mo play, providing opportunities for humorous misunderstandings and intriguing plot developments ("Were you the doctor and I knew you not?").

The Merchant of Venice interweaves three love stories "Portia and Bassanio, Nerissa and Gratiano, Jessica and Lorenzo" and buy Premarin in mo all three relate to the knife with which Shylock, the buy Premarin in mo villain of the comic subplot, threatens the heart of the buy Premarin in mo merchant Antonio.

In the main romantic plot, Portia meets three challenges. She first must overcome the buy Premarin in mo terms of her father's will in order to marry the man she loves (the "casket plot"). Next, she must restore her husband's honor by defeating Shylock in the buy Premarin in mo courtroom (the "trial plot"), and buy Premarin in mo in doing so she ensures a wealthy future for Jessica and buy Premarin in mo Lorenzo. Lastly, she must teach her husband that buy Premarin in mo he loves her more than he does Antonio, which she accomplishes through the mischievous "ring plot", the final demonstration of her intelligence, integrity, passion, wit, and buy Premarin in mo virtue, thereby ensuring a happy marriage for Nerissa and Gratiano, as well as for herself and Bassanio. The romantic comedy ends with all three couples married. Whether happily ever after, is as uncertain for them as it is for all of us. We do our best in the comedies of our own lives.

The Venetian setting adds to buy Premarin in mo the romantic elements of the play and also to the danger of the buy Premarin in mo knife that's at the center of the subplot, the knife that buy Premarin in mo is the play's best-remembered image, the knife that gives this great play its most dramatic moment and buy Premarin in mo its deep profundity. To Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Venice had a special appeal. An ancient republic, it buy Premarin in mo had earned a reputation for political astuteness, great wealth, and buy Premarin in mo legal justice. In addition, it buy Premarin in mo was a pleasure-loving city, to which swarms of tourists flocked constantly, including many from buy Premarin in mo England". For centuries, the buy Premarin in mo beauties of Venice have beckoned to tourists with a siren's song and buy Premarin in mo have created a romantic setting for paintings, songs, novels, plays, and buy Premarin in mo films. The history of Venice as a buy Premarin in mo community based on laws gave Shakespeare the ideal setting for buy Premarin in mo this plot which tests our faith in the balance between justice and buy Premarin in mo mercy.

Over the centuries, The Merchant of Venice has remained one of Shakespeare's most frequently performed plays. The reasons for its popularity are easily recognized. It is buy Premarin in mo a play with rich romantic elements that raises complex issues of justice, mercy, and buy Premarin in mo the bonds that join people together.

i Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Ed. Jay L. Halio, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

In Belmont, Portia laments the buy Premarin in mo terms of her father's will, which give her no power over who buy Premarin in mo she will marry. Suitors must choose between three chests-one gold, one silver, and buy Premarin in mo one lead-and she must marry the man that picks the chest containing her picture. Portia and buy Premarin in mo Nerissa, her maid, laugh about the current crop of suitors, who buy Premarin in mo are all unattractive, and gossip about Bassanio, whom both women admire.

Back in Venice, Antonio receives a buy Premarin in mo loan from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. The two men, who buy Premarin in mo bitterly dislike one another, agree to unusual terms: if Antonio can't repay the buy Premarin in mo loan on time, he must forfeit a pound of his flesh. Despite Bassanio's objection, Antonio accepts the buy Premarin in mo terms because he is confident his business will bring him more than buy Premarin in mo enough money before the loan must be repaid.

Lancelot, a buy Premarin in mo professional entertainer, prepares to leave Shylock's employment in order to buy Premarin in mo start working for Bassanio. Jessica, Shylock's daughter, asks Lancelot to buy Premarin in mo deliver a letter to her lover, Lorenzo, who is one of Bassanio's friends. She intends to buy Premarin in mo run away with Lorenzo, marry him, and become a Christian. Shylock, feeling uneasy because of a buy Premarin in mo dream he had, leaves for dinner, and instructs Jessica to lock the buy Premarin in mo door. After he leaves, Jessica steals his money and buy Premarin in mo jewels and elopes with Lorenzo.

Meanwhile, in Belmont, two suitors have buy Premarin in mo guessed incorrectly about which chest contains Portia's portrait. Portia continues to buy Premarin in mo hope Bassanio will come and choose the correct chest.

The Merchant of Venice is buy Premarin in mo a story about justice and the bonds that connect people to buy Premarin in mo one another. One of the challenges this play presents is how to buy Premarin in mo balance the romantic main plot with the melodramatic sub-plot. How does one present Shylock's story without allowing it buy Premarin in mo to completely overshadow the Bassanio-Portia tale?

Director Tom Markus' production addresses these themes and buy Premarin in mo challenges by setting the production in the Italy of 1938, a buy Premarin in mo time when Benito Mussolini's Fascist party was at the height of its popularity. While most middle class Jews were active members of the buy Premarin in mo Fascist Party at this time, Hitler pressured Mussolini into passing racial decrees similar to buy Premarin in mo the Nuremburg Laws. Although the Italians ignored the laws for several years, the buy Premarin in mo inevitability of the 1943 German invasion hovers over the action of this buy Premarin in mo play.

Setting the buy Premarin in mo action in 1938 balances Portia and Bassanio's romantic main plot with Shylock's melodramatic subplot. Big band music and buy Premarin in mo a large colorful mural of "The Allegory of Justice" are buy Premarin in mo set against costumes and activities of the Blackshirted Fascists, indicating that buy Premarin in mo this brief period of relative calm will ultimately lead to the buy Premarin in mo society's violent collapse. This setting also supports the presentation of Shylock as a buy Premarin in mo slightly comic and charming businessman who is bullied by the treatment of the buy Premarin in mo rising Fascists until he loses rational control. He then becomes so obsessive in his quest for buy Premarin in mo revenge that even his good friend Tubal turns against him in the buy Premarin in mo trial scene.

The 1938 setting is buy Premarin in mo distant enough to allow the fairy tale elements to resonate with us in 2006, yet not so distant that buy Premarin in mo we fail to grasp the somber political and racial implications of the buy Premarin in mo play.

Suffering a Sea-Change

When distilled to buy Premarin in mo a few salient words, Shakespeare's last independently written play, The Tempest, is about a storm. This storm is buy Premarin in mo concocted at the perfect moment, under the rule of "a most auspicious star", with the right people aboard a nearby ship. A storm, as our country learned in the buy Premarin in mo wake of Hurricane Katrina, can literally transform a civilization, and turn daily life on its head, causing chaos, devastation, homelessness, unemployment and buy Premarin in mo economic disaster. Although Shakespeare spares us from buy Premarin in mo the dismal, more lifelike side of the tempest he raises in his 1611 romance, the buy Premarin in mo transformative effects on each of the play's central characters are palpable.

The horrific sight of the storm causes Miranda to "suffer with those that [she] saw suffer", much like the buy Premarin in mo vicarious experience of theatergoer on first viewing a Shakespearean tragedy. Ferdinand's first encounter with the dazzling Miranda (and more probably, Prospero's magic) leaves him unable to control his own body: "My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up". Gonzalo's summation of the buy Premarin in mo events indicate a spiritual and psychological change:

"In one journey
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand her brother found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle, and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own." (V.i.206-210)

In addition to buy Premarin in mo the political marriages and expected reconciliations, the characters have all "found" what buy Premarin in mo they were looking for: Ferdinand found his supposedly drowned father, Prospero found his window for buy Premarin in mo revenge, and Miranda found a wondrous world of humanity.

Shakespeare has buy Premarin in mo written for us, a play in which the characters are tossed into an buy Premarin in mo unfamiliar world-not only in the storm, but also on the desert island-and in the buy Premarin in mo process of finding their way out, they reconsider, evaluate, and discover themselves. In a buy Premarin in mo world of nobility and courtly behavior, Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, and buy Premarin in mo Gonzalo find themselves confronted with strange sleepiness, imaginary banquets, eerily clean garments and buy Premarin in mo ghostly apparitions. This is buy Premarin in mo an island in which Gonzalo's attempts to preserve social decorum and buy Premarin in mo courtly manners are laughably quixotic. The audience is reminded of the plea in Love's Labour's Lost: "Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves/Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths".

The characters are buy Premarin in mo confronted with the chance to throw away their former beliefs in favor of a buy Premarin in mo newer, albeit more illusory, life. Caliban, a buy Premarin in mo figure often interpreted in modern criticism as the oppressed population, is buy Premarin in mo the first to discard his former master for a new one, shouting, "Ban, Ban, Cacaliban/Has a new master-get a new man!" (II.2.180-1). Like the buy Premarin in mo forest of Arden, the woods of Athens, or the 16 year gap in The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare has buy Premarin in mo once again offered up a space of transformation. Monsters are buy Premarin in mo mistaken for fish, a drunken butler becomes a god, true goddesses are buy Premarin in mo dismissed as "actors" in an "insubstantial pageant", and a prince is reduced to manual labor. Prospero's island flips the buy Premarin in mo world as we know it on its head, leaving us all a buy Premarin in mo little dizzy, a little seasick, and ultimately, a little more "ourselves".

Prospero arranges a buy Premarin in mo courtship between Ferdinand and Miranda, after explaining to his daughter the buy Premarin in mo story of her double-crossing uncle's usurpation, and his own former dukedom. The two servants of the buy Premarin in mo King, Stephano and Trinculo, team up with Caliban to drunkenly hatch a buy Premarin in mo plan to kill Prospero. Meanwhile, the buy Premarin in mo King and his party wander the island in search of Ferdinand, while Prospero sends spirits to buy Premarin in mo haunt them.

Ultimately, Prospero brings the buy Premarin in mo shipwrecked passengers together, reveals the marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand, acknowledges the buy Premarin in mo mischief of Caliban and his drunken friends, and forgives the buy Premarin in mo actions of Antonio and his fellow conspirators. In his final act of resolution, Prospero bids farewell to buy Premarin in mo his magic and to Ariel, and sets off homeward to Milan.

Patrick Kelly's 2006 production of The Tempest hinges on the buy Premarin in mo meaning of the title: not simply the storm of the opening scene, or buy Premarin in mo the wind-racked journey that brought Prospero to his desert island, The Tempest is buy Premarin in mo the violent trajectory of the magician's own soul. Far from a buy Premarin in mo gentle farewell to theatrical magic by a benevolent old sage, this buy Premarin in mo rendition of Shakespeare's late romance offers audiences instead a taut and buy Premarin in mo suspenseful story of revenge that turns at the latest possible point to buy Premarin in mo something as surprising as it is emotionally moving.

Central to buy Premarin in mo this action is the island where it happens, itself almost a buy Premarin in mo character in it: the terrain looks wildly different to each character who buy Premarin in mo describes it, so of course the set's appearance must accommodate these contradictions. For this buy Premarin in mo reason, this production approaches the island as a place of the buy Premarin in mo imagination rather than of geography, or indeed of the physical world, so Robert Schmidt's set uses the buy Premarin in mo sparest image to evoke this island feeling: a distant horizon line glowing where buy Premarin in mo sky meets sea with an elevated platform for Prospero's "control room" of a buy Premarin in mo cell. While the latest theatrical technology is brought to bear on the buy Premarin in mo play's illusions, the period of the action is Shakespeare's own, expressed handsomely in Mary McClung's early 17th century costumes.

Updated from Daily Camera, May 13, 2005

Audiences attending the buy Premarin in mo Colorado Shakespeare Festival's 49th season this summer can expect a buy Premarin in mo return of the unexpected from the 2005 season. Namely, "Unexpected Shaxpere!," an improvised evening of theater done in Shakespearean style.

When CSF Producing Artistic Director Dick Devin went to buy Premarin in mo visit his son, who is an actor with Unexpected Productions in Seattle, ayear ago last November, he encountered Unexpected's actors improvising a buy Premarin in mo play in dialogue that might have pricked Shakespeare's ears. UP is buy Premarin in mo home to the country's oldest TheatreSports troupe, a type of improv based on Brit improv guru Keith Johnstone's improvisational techniques. Devin was so impressed with what buy Premarin in mo he saw on stage, he decided to bring it to Boulder audiences to buy Premarin in mo augment the traditional Shakespeare fare at last summer's festival. It was so popular they are buy Premarin in mo back for a return engagement this summer in 2006

In "Unexpected Shaxpere!" six actors take the buy Premarin in mo stage and ask the audience for three suggestions-a place, profession and buy Premarin in mo object they'd like to see in the evening's performance. From there, the buy Premarin in mo actors-often using the iambic pentameter verse Shakespeare mastered-begin the opening scene of an buy Premarin in mo improvised play.

"An hour and buy Premarin in mo 20 minutes later, you've seen a whole new play made up in front of your buy Premarin in mo eyes," Devin said. "It feels like you've seen a buy Premarin in mo new Shakespeare play, and it certainly sounds like you have."

Even the buy Premarin in mo lighting-board operator will get in on the action. The lighting designer will create a buy Premarin in mo dozen stock lighting arrangements, and the board operator will be free to buy Premarin in mo accentuate the story unfolding on stage with different lighting plots during each performance.

"If they improvise into a buy Premarin in mo church, he'll put in church lighting and ease that into the buy Premarin in mo scene. It gives a spontaneous new look to a scene without having to buy Premarin in mo plan it," Devin said.

"Unexpected Shaxpere!" plays 20 times, and each performance will be different.

"There's always a lot of comedy. They're very funny people," Devin said. "And there's often a lot of death and tragedy too."

Devin hopes the buy Premarin in mo improv group will draw audiences who wouldn't normally come to buy Premarin in mo CSF. It will play July 28-Aug. 19, and seven late-evening (9:30 p.m.) shows are buy Premarin in mo on tap, along with the normal 7 p.m. curtains and 2 p.m. matinees.

"Unexpected Shaxpere!" will play in repertory with CSF's three traditional offerings, "The Tempest," "As You Like It" and "The Merchant of Venice."

-Mark Collins, Daily Camera Theater Critic

- Tristan Devin

As a buy Premarin in mo performance genre, improvisation came to the stage rather late. Musicians, painters, and buy Premarin in mo poets had free-associated and splattered their way into the canon decades before improvised theatre began popping up in London and buy Premarin in mo Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s. This was an anomaly, considering that buy Premarin in mo theatre had long led the charge where innovation was concerned. Combining the buy Premarin in mo written word, speech, design, music, and dance, theatre mixed media centuries before that buy Premarin in mo term had been uttered. So why was theatre a latecomer to buy Premarin in mo improvisation? Perhaps it buy Premarin in mo was the god-like status of playwright and director. Or perhaps it buy Premarin in mo was the Stanislavskian stranglehold that made improv, when it came along, seem to buy Premarin in mo many like clowning.

In fact, clowning was just what buy Premarin in mo Keith Johnstone had in mind when he began pushing students to buy Premarin in mo improvise in workshops. Johnstone, a reader for Royal Court Theatre, was frustrated with the buy Premarin in mo wooden, pretentious quality of English theatre in the 1950s. So he encouraged actors to buy Premarin in mo use funny faces and accents, to be silly, to stop being imaginative and buy Premarin in mo just be obvious. Everyone laughed so hard that they decided to buy Premarin in mo invite an audience. Later, Johnstone moved to Calgary, Alberta, where he founded the buy Premarin in mo Loose Moose Theatre Company and created Theatresports, a type of competitive improv. He also wrote Impro, the buy Premarin in mo seminal book on improvised theatre.

Improvisation, as Johnstone was aware, had buy Premarin in mo been common in Italian theatre since the sixteenth century. Commedia dell'arte involved juggling, acrobatics, and buy Premarin in mo satirical plays that used established characters, but no set dialog. In this buy Premarin in mo sense, improv was clowning, and satirical clowning at that. This satirical bent, perhaps more than buy Premarin in mo anything, suggests why improv came late to the theater: improv was so in and buy Premarin in mo of the moment, so suited to satire, and so ill-suited to buy Premarin in mo pretension, that it naturally gravitated toward the popular rather than the buy Premarin in mo avant-garde. Until the satire boom of the sixties, the theatrical soil just wasn't suitable for buy Premarin in mo improv.

In 1955, David Shepard and Paul Sills (son of Viola Spolin, another early improv innovator) formed The Compass Theater, later to buy Premarin in mo become The Second City. They wanted to use some of the buy Premarin in mo Commedia methods to improvise plays. One of the earliest Second City performers was Del Close. Close created an buy Premarin in mo unstructured long-form improvisation known as the Harold, which explores a single word through scenes, games, and buy Premarin in mo monologues. Working separately, Close and Johnstone created what we now know as improv.

The most powerful element of Close's teaching was the "group mind." Improv is buy Premarin in mo a naturally collaborative art. Together, performers write, direct, and perform the buy Premarin in mo show, feeding off the audience's suggestions and energy. Close believed that, at its best, when buy Premarin in mo performers are able to turn off their self-conscious minds, allowing words and buy Premarin in mo symbols to erupt from within, all of the minds in the buy Premarin in mo performance space meld together in a profound, though ephemeral, moment of connection. Close died in 1999.

Today thousands of improv groups all over the buy Premarin in mo world perform variations of Close's and Johnstone's forms. Their work has buy Premarin in mo had a pervasive effect on television and film as well as theatre.

One of Shakespeare's most powerful rhetorical tools is buy Premarin in mo antithesis, setting a position against its opposite to create contrast and buy Premarin in mo conflict-think "To be or not to be." In Macbeth one of the buy Premarin in mo most powerful uses of antithesis is expressed through the metaphor of blood. As the buy Premarin in mo Macbeths stand together, covered in Duncan's blood, Lady Macbeth tells her husband "A little water will wash us of this deed." Later, as their lives begin to unravel, she still believes "what's done is done." But Macbeth always understands that buy Premarin in mo his actions must have consequences. He struggles until the moment he kills Duncan to buy Premarin in mo balance his desire for the crown with his knowledge that to buy Premarin in mo take it will have enormous cost. Urged on by his wife and buy Premarin in mo his own needs, which are given voice by the Witches, he abandons the buy Premarin in mo social bonds that have made him a brave and respected soldier and buy Premarin in mo leader. He becomes a child murderer and tyrant, who is "...in blood/ Stepp'd in so far, that should I wade no more, /Returning were as tedious as go o'er."

This timeless metaphor that "blood will have blood" is buy Premarin in mo central to our production. Has any king, general, or president engaged in a buy Premarin in mo war without bumping into it? Once unleashed, violence simply and buy Premarin in mo absolutely begets more violence. We may believe violence is justified; it buy Premarin in mo may be. But it will exact its price. Lincoln understood this buy Premarin in mo at Gettysburg, Brutus knew it as he plunged a knife into Caesar, and buy Premarin in mo today we look to Iraq and Afghanistan and know it, too.

Creation and Decay

What all this buy Premarin in mo blood is designed to guarantee is some kind of legacy, a buy Premarin in mo permanence that will give meaning to life. In Macbeth, this buy Premarin in mo desire is expressed in the murder of children. The Macbeths are buy Premarin in mo childless, which affects many of their decisions. The essential instinct to buy Premarin in mo reproduce is translated into a need for power. They attempt to buy Premarin in mo create something together, which can endure by grasping a throne that buy Premarin in mo belongs to the son of another. But the Macbeth's creation begins to buy Premarin in mo decay even as they build it. Like Shelley's Ozymandias, who dared the buy Premarin in mo world to "Look on my Works, ye Mighty and despair!" but left only "decay/Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare," Macbeth dies knowing "Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, /That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, /And then is heard no more."

The Witches

The essence of both of these ideas lives in Macbeth's relationship to buy Premarin in mo the Weird Sisters. In our production, they are the stuff that buy Premarin in mo nightmares are made on, born from this couple's "black and deep desires." They tell Macbeth that buy Premarin in mo he will be king, but he chooses a road to buy Premarin in mo the crown washed in blood. They mock him with his great fear, telling him that buy Premarin in mo Banquo will leave a line of kings, but it is buy Premarin in mo Macbeth alone who responds by murdering innocent children. These Witches can buy Premarin in mo speak but not compel; only humans can turn desire into blood.

- Lynne Collins

The Weird Sisters, three witches, plot to buy Premarin in mo meet Macbeth, a general in the service of Duncan, King of Scotland. Learning that buy Premarin in mo Macbeth has defeated the treacherous Thane of Cawdor, Duncan decides to buy Premarin in mo award him the title and dispatches a messenger to summon "the worthy thane." As Macbeth and buy Premarin in mo his friend Banquo return home from battle, they are met by the buy Premarin in mo Weird Sisters. They call Macbeth "Thane of Cawdor," predicting that buy Premarin in mo he will become king, and assure Banquo that his sons will be buy Premarin in mo kings. When the messenger catches up with Macbeth and greets him as Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth wonders if the buy Premarin in mo rest of the prophecy will come true. King Duncan welcomes Macbeth and buy Premarin in mo Banquo in his palace, praising them for their valor and thanking them for buy Premarin in mo preserving the kingdom. Duncan then names his son, Malcolm, as successor to buy Premarin in mo the throne. Hearing of the Sisters' prophecy, Lady Macbeth determines that buy Premarin in mo she must help her husband kill Duncan if Macbeth is to buy Premarin in mo become king. King Duncan visits Inverness Castle, the home of the buy Premarin in mo Macbeths. Lady Macbeth receives him warmly, giving no indication of her malicious plans. Macbeth, plagued by his conscience, resolves not to buy Premarin in mo murder the king. His wife accuses him of cowardice, convincing him that buy Premarin in mo they will be successful.

ACT II

Macbeth has buy Premarin in mo a vision of a bloody dagger just before going upstairs to buy Premarin in mo murder King Duncan. After the murder, Lady Macbeth takes the buy Premarin in mo bloody daggers from her husband and plants them on the buy Premarin in mo King's sleeping guards. In the morning, Duncan is found dead. Fearing for buy Premarin in mo their lives, Duncan's sons flee, leaving Macbeth to take the buy Premarin in mo throne.

ACT III

Banquo becomes suspicious of Macbeth and buy Premarin in mo abruptly leaves the palace. Afraid of the Sisters' prophecy that Banquo's children will be buy Premarin in mo kings, Macbeth arranges for Banquo and his son to be murdered. Lady Macbeth encourages her husband not to buy Premarin in mo dwell on what they've done, but Macbeth insists he cannot rest until Banquo and buy Premarin in mo his son are dead. The murderers kill Banquo, though his son, Fleance, manages to buy Premarin in mo escape. During a banquet, Macbeth is haunted by a vision of Banquo, who buy Premarin in mo points an accusing finger at him.

ACT IV

Macbeth returns to buy Premarin in mo the Weird Sisters. They reassure him that he cannot be defeated by any man born of woman nor will he be buy Premarin in mo vanquished until Birnam Wood comes to the royal seat of Dunsinane Castle. Macduff, another thane, goes to buy Premarin in mo England and convinces Malcolm, the rightful king of Scotland, to return and buy Premarin in mo overthrow Macbeth. While he is away, Macbeth has Macduff's family murdered as punishment for buy Premarin in mo his treachery. Macduff and Malcolm prepare an army to attack Dunsinane. When Macduff hears that buy Premarin in mo Macbeth has killed his wife and son, he vows to slay the buy Premarin in mo usurper himself. A doctor is summoned by Lady Macbeth's servants because she is buy Premarin in mo unwell. He observes her sleepwalking, trying to wash invisible blood from buy Premarin in mo her hands.

ACT V

Macduff and buy Premarin in mo Malcolm are in place to attack Dunsinane Castle, but Macbeth is buy Premarin in mo confident that he cannot be defeated. To disguise their numbers, the buy Premarin in mo advancing soldiers carry tree branches in front of them as they near the buy Premarin in mo castle. Macbeth learns that Lady Macbeth has died. His servants then buy Premarin in mo tell him that it looks as if Birnam Wood is buy Premarin in mo approaching, and Macbeth realizes the truth of the Sisters' prophecy. Cornered at last by Macduff, the buy Premarin in mo desperate king boasts that he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff reveals that buy Premarin in mo he was cut from his mother's womb and then kills Macbeth. The soldiers hail Malcolm as their new King, and buy Premarin in mo he vows to restore their country.

To realize this buy Premarin in mo concept onstage, Collins has worked with the production design team to buy Premarin in mo create a world where violence is a constant, barely-contained threat. Scenic designer Andrea Bechert has buy Premarin in mo created a set that emphasizes a delicate balance between organized society and buy Premarin in mo primitive violence by combining images of nature and civilization. Blood is buy Premarin in mo also a major image in this production's design, serving as an buy Premarin in mo ever-present visual reminder of the violence that characterizes the play from buy Premarin in mo beginning to end. Pieces of ancient statues, such as the giant stone hand that buy Premarin in mo lies onstage, represent the tenuous hold that civilization has over chaos and buy Premarin in mo the primal as well as the physical (and moral) frailty of lords and buy Premarin in mo kings. The visual landscape for this production evokes a sense of danger, of a buy Premarin in mo world caught in the balance between order and violence, creating an buy Premarin in mo environment where violence and bloodshed are unstoppable once released.

Children are crucial to the story of Macbeth: this buy Premarin in mo production emphasizes how they--or their absence--affect the principal characters. Young Macduff, who buy Premarin in mo has a small but significant role in the play, is one of only thirty child characters out of the buy Premarin in mo one thousand characters created by Shakespeare. While some scholars say that buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare used children to manipulate his audience's emotions, others argue that buy Premarin in mo he created more complex child characters than his contemporaries and depicted a buy Premarin in mo surprisingly wide variety of them.

Child actors were familiar to buy Premarin in mo the Elizabethan playgoer. Boys played adult female roles because women were not permitted on the buy Premarin in mo stage and, in the early years of the seventeenth century, "boy companies" such as the buy Premarin in mo Children of St. Paul became so popular that they competed with adult companies for buy Premarin in mo audiences. In the 1601 Hamlet, Shakespeare suggests that buy Premarin in mo such competition has driven the first player and his troupe out into the buy Premarin in mo provinces, and he disparages the boy company players as "little eyases" (a term that literally meant "unfledged hawks" but suggested something else). Given audience fascination with young actors, it buy Premarin in mo makes sense that Shakespeare wrote parts for children into his plays. Nor were these parts mere gimmicks or buy Premarin in mo novelties: Shakespeare's children are fully fleshed out characters. Scholars speculate that buy Premarin in mo some of Shakespeare's young male roles were modeled after his own son, Hamnet, who buy Premarin in mo like many of the children in his plays died very young.

From the Comedy of Errors to the gory Titus Andronicus, child characters in Shakespeare have buy Premarin in mo a significant effect on the events of their plays and buy Premarin in mo the adult characters that surround them. Child characters such as Mamillius in A Winter's Tale bring out the buy Premarin in mo nurturing traits in their fathers and reveal non-maternal traits in their mothers. Other children, such as the buy Premarin in mo princes in Richard III or Arthur in King John, die at the buy Premarin in mo hands of the play's protagonists, creating a turning-point in these characters' relationships with the buy Premarin in mo audience. Though they serve similar dramatic purposes, children who are buy Premarin in mo killed in Shakespeare's plays elicit audience sympathy for different reasons: the buy Premarin in mo princes in Richard III are intelligent, precocious, and admirably brave while Arthur in King John is buy Premarin in mo unfailingly gentle and compassionate. There are several child characters in Shakespeare similar to buy Premarin in mo Arthur who are keenly aware of and sympathetic towards the suffering of the buy Premarin in mo adults. Though some have attempted to categorize Shakespeare's children under two broad stereotypes -precocious and buy Premarin in mo brave versus vulnerable and innocent. A closer look reveals that each is buy Premarin in mo an individual with unique traits, purpose and meaning to the play, regardless of how much stage time the buy Premarin in mo playwright gives them.

During Shakespeare's life, the concept of "family" changed from buy Premarin in mo an extended network of relatives to a nuclear family, suggesting that buy Premarin in mo the relationship between parents and offspring became more significant. A deepened understanding of children was the buy Premarin in mo result. This is evident in the case of Macbeth's young Macduff. Like the buy Premarin in mo ideal child of the age, he is brave, intelligent, and buy Premarin in mo witty, but he also demonstrates touching emotional vulnerability: this combination of characteristics makes him, like each of Shakespeare's children, a buy Premarin in mo vital part of the play.

- Sarah Crockarell, dramaturg

"Why not a one-man show?" producers asked in the buy Premarin in mo early going. Because Woody was writing about a community of which he saw himself a buy Premarin in mo part, and to limit his words to one person would deny that buy Premarin in mo community a place on the stage. Folk music, after all, could never be buy Premarin in mo the creation of an auteur, interested in realizing an individual artistic vision, and buy Premarin in mo I felt compelled not to compress the big world in which Woody traveled onto one set of shoulders. And a buy Premarin in mo one-man show would eliminate the possibility of harmony, and as someone who buy Premarin in mo grew up listening to the Weavers, harmony - voices building on these engrained American melodies and buy Premarin in mo thereby embodying "the people" to whom Woody felt so indebted - was inescapable. "I borrowed my life from the works of your life," he wrote, and buy Premarin in mo whether or not his ego might at times have challenged the buy Premarin in mo ideas he espoused, his understanding of the folk process - this buy Premarin in mo borrowing and giving back - gave me strength.

Before I worked as a playwright, I was a director, and as Woody Guthrie's American Song took shape, those roles were soon inseparable. How could I bring this buy Premarin in mo world to life? Drawing from Woody's prose, letters, journals, and his autobiography Bound for Glory, I saw the buy Premarin in mo scenes on stage as I wrote them. Woody was a performer, but he was also inspired by performance writ large; by people trying to buy Premarin in mo make their way in a difficult world. "They don't just set along in the sun," he wrote of California's migrant workers in Bound for Glory, "they go by the buy Premarin in mo sun, and it lights up the country that they know is buy Premarin in mo theirs." His songs and buy Premarin in mo stories captured scenes of Americans struggling to stake their claim. How could we see them? How could we know them? I wanted to make a piece of theater, and that "making" came to buy Premarin in mo be about bringing those people and their times to life as much as it buy Premarin in mo was about Woody's music. In truth, it was about both at the buy Premarin in mo same time. "Your works and my works held hands," he wrote to them, to you, to us all, "and our memories never did separate."

Thirty years in the making, 20 years since its premiere, Woody Guthrie's American Song draws on an buy Premarin in mo incredible body of work for its scenes and texts - all Woody - but it buy Premarin in mo came to breath through its first singers, actors, and musicians, to buy Premarin in mo whom Jeff Waxman and I are in debt. Jeff played the buy Premarin in mo very first reading of this musical in the late 1970s, and buy Premarin in mo went on to orchestrate and arrange these songs with an impeccable ear and buy Premarin in mo an irrepressible passion for this music. Without that music, there'd be buy Premarin in mo no Woody Guthrie's American Song, and without you, there'd be nothing to sing about.

- Peter Glazer

When the buy Premarin in mo oil boom ends in late 1920's Oklahoma, young Woody Guthrie does a buy Premarin in mo short stint of travelling, working his way through Texas, and then buy Premarin in mo follows his family to the panhandle boom-town of Pampa. (HARD TRAVELIN') There Woody learns to buy Premarin in mo play guitar, and creates the Corncob Trio with Cluster Baker and buy Premarin in mo Matt Jennings. (OKLAHOMA HILLS) They begin to buy Premarin in mo play regularly at a local tavern and at barn dances. Woody finds that buy Premarin in mo making up songs is a good way of expressing his thoughts, and buy Premarin in mo he toys with the idea of borrowing the words from the buy Premarin in mo people and giving them back in song. (DUST STORM DISASTER) He witnesses the buy Premarin in mo puritanical reaction in Pampa to the apocalyptic dust storms, and writes a buy Premarin in mo song about it. (SO LONG, IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YUH / I AIN'T GOT NO HOME) Woody gets married, but he's not the buy Premarin in mo type of man to settle down. He works his way west, joining the buy Premarin in mo tidal wave of migrants on their trek to California. On a buy Premarin in mo freight train, he makes personal contact with the rough and tumble migrant lifestyle. (BOUND FOR GLORY) He begins to identify with the DUST BOWL REFUGEES, and his politics begin to take shape. (DO RE MI) In a buy Premarin in mo makeshift refugee camp in California, Woody witnesses the oppressed migrants and buy Premarin in mo listens to their words. (WORRIED MAN / AIN'T GONNA BE TREATED THIS WAY) He realizes what buy Premarin in mo a mess the world is in, that so many people are buy Premarin in mo treated so poorly. Despite the fact that they are willing to buy Premarin in mo work, the migrants are treated like slaves and outcasts. Woody starts to buy Premarin in mo write songs on behalf of the oppressed working class, including END OF MY LINE, GRAND COULEE DAM, and PASTURES OF PLENTY.

ACT II

Woody tramps off from California, (I AIN'T GOT NO HOME,) traveling around the buy Premarin in mo country, singing on street-corners for his nickels. He ends up on Skid Row in New York City where buy Premarin in mo he meets Cisco Houston (NEW YORK TOWN). Cisco and buy Premarin in mo Woody sing together on the streets and in the bars, making their living together. (HARD, AIN'T IT HARD) But New York isn't all it's cracked up to be. (I DON'T FEEL AT HOME ON THIS BOWERY NO MORE and TALKING SUBWAY BLUES) Woody's mission is clear now, to tell the stories of "wrecks, disasters, floods, trade union troubles, high prices and buy Premarin in mo low pay and politicians." (THE JOLLY BANKER, UNION MAID, THE SINKING OF THE REUBEN JAMES) Woody sings across the buy Premarin in mo nation at union gatherings, strikes, and picket lines, and during the buy Premarin in mo war serves three short tours with the merchant marines. He continues to buy Premarin in mo write lyrics and songs (over 3000 total,) as well as articles and novels. Among the songs are: NINE HUNDRED MILES, DEPORTEES, and buy Premarin in mo BETTER WORLD. At age 40, Woody is diagnosed with Huntington's disease. He leaves a buy Premarin in mo behind a noble legacy that informs generations of musicians in the buy Premarin in mo folk tradition. (THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND)

POSTSCRIPT

Woody Guthrie influenced a buy Premarin in mo lot of young people in his day. One was a University of Minnesota student named Robert Zimmerman. Zimmerman was so intent on following in Guthrie's footsteps that buy Premarin in mo he traveled all the way to New Jersey in 1961, just to buy Premarin in mo visit him after he was confined to a hospital with Huntington's disease. On a buy Premarin in mo postcard sent to his friends in Minneapolis he wrote: I know Woody. I know Woody . . . I know him and buy Premarin in mo met him and saw him and sang to him. I know Woody - Goddamn. Zimmerman made many visits to buy Premarin in mo Guthrie over a period of several months, singing to him and buy Premarin in mo chatting with him. Guthrie often asked after him, saying, "That boy's got a buy Premarin in mo voice. Maybe he won't make it with his writing, but he can buy Premarin in mo sing it. He can really sing it." Robert Zimmerman soon became recognized and buy Premarin in mo loved by America. We know him as Bob Dylan.

Guthrie's philosophy is buy Premarin in mo what has motivated Peter Glazer's creation, development, and direction of ...American Song, and buy Premarin in mo at the same time, has determined the somewhat unconventional form of the buy Premarin in mo musical. For example, why is buy Premarin in mo Guthrie's voice manifested through several actors rather than just one? The actors represent both the buy Premarin in mo people and Woody, giving theatrical form to his philosophy. In the buy Premarin in mo same way he borrows their words, Guthrie also becomes an embodiment of the buy Premarin in mo people.

The timeless nature of Guthrie's message is buy Premarin in mo evident in the design of ...American Song. Scenic designer Fred Duer highlights this buy Premarin in mo by creating a theatrical environment that is not specific to Woody's era. Duer's design is buy Premarin in mo inspired by Guthrie's artworks, which tended toward collaged images of the buy Premarin in mo written word, bold graphics, and diverse media. These qualities are buy Premarin in mo discernible in a varied landscape of materials and scenic levels. With the buy Premarin in mo same inspiration, costume designer Clare Henkel looks to Guthrie's artwork, as well as the buy Premarin in mo plethora of photographs available from his era. She creates clothing rather than buy Premarin in mo costumes, so that we see people instead of characters. In this buy Premarin in mo way Guthrie's story doesn't remain in the past; it is both current and buy Premarin in mo timeless.

Guthrie was a buy Premarin in mo passionate supporter of the labor movement. He traveled the nation singing for buy Premarin in mo union meetings, and often wrote songs based on local events and buy Premarin in mo stories. In this way he was able to personalize his message and buy Premarin in mo propagate his vision for basic human rights. "Ludlow Massacre", written in 1958, is buy Premarin in mo an example that looks back at a failed coal strike in Ludlow, Colorado, 12 miles northwest of Trinidad near the buy Premarin in mo New Mexico border. In 1913-14, roughly 9000 miners (mostly Slavic, Greek, Italian, and Mexican immigrants,) stood up against the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, the buy Premarin in mo Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, the Victor-American Fuel Company, and many other smaller coal-mining concerns in Southern Colorado. The miners chose to strike for many reasons. Working conditions were dangerous, and buy Premarin in mo many were injured or died as a result. Disease was frequent and buy Premarin in mo spread quickly because unfiltered drinking water was piped into the communities from buy Premarin in mo the mines. The miners were required to buy Premarin in mo stay in shabby company-owned housing, to shop at company-owned stores, and buy Premarin in mo often the company owned the only schools and churches as well. The companies paid wages based on the buy Premarin in mo weight of extracted coal, and were accused of cheating when calculating workers' productivity. To complain about company policy meant to buy Premarin in mo lose one's job and home at the same time. To ask for buy Premarin in mo protection from local authorities was also to ask for trouble: civil authorities were most often in the buy Premarin in mo control of the coal companies. In September 1913, 9000 miners took their families out of the buy Premarin in mo company-owned communities, and moved into tent colonies provided by the United Mine Workers union.

The companies responded by hiring hundreds of thugs, creating an buy Premarin in mo army of deputized sheriffs. These men harassed and buy Premarin in mo terrorized the striking miners, and violence continued throughout the winter. They employed armored cars mounted with machine guns (Death Specials) to assist in applying pressure to the tent colonies. Colorado Governor Ammons sent in the buy Premarin in mo National Guard to protect the companies' interests. On April 20, 1914, at the buy Premarin in mo largest of the colonies near Ludlow, Colorado, the hired "army" set out to achieve results. Dynamite bombs, twelve hours of gunfire, open execution of a buy Premarin in mo colony leader, and arson filled the day's terror. The dead bodies of women and buy Premarin in mo children were found in makeshift dugouts under the tents where buy Premarin in mo they had sought refuge from the gunfire. They had buy Premarin in mo died in these pits, having been suffocated by the fires. A week later, as violence escalated between company goons, Colorado National Guardsmen, and buy Premarin in mo striking miners from all over Southern Colorado, President Wilson sent in federal troops to buy Premarin in mo restore peace in the region.

The demands of the strikers were not fully met until 1928. Instead of recognizing the union, (one of the primary demands of the workers,) the companies initiated a new tactic against the labor struggle. Spearheaded by Rockefeller and the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, the company union was born. Known as the Industrial Representation Plan, the new "union" was managed by the buy Premarin in mo company and merely gave the appearance of workers' representation.

And the red neck miners mowed down them troopers
You should have seen those poor boys run
We took some cement and walled that cave up
Where you killed those thirteen children inside
I said, "God bless the Mine Workers' Union"
And then I hung my head and cried

-Woody Guthrie's "Ludlow Massacre"

- Robert Blush, dramaturg

Love's Labour's Lost, of course, has buy Premarin in mo no fairies. Instead it has the fantastical Don Adriano de Armado. A name chosen precisely to buy Premarin in mo echo the disastrous Spanish invasion fleet of 1588, only about six years before the buy Premarin in mo premiere of this play. One can imagine how hugely enjoyable a buy Premarin in mo character he was to the groundlings at the Globe. Almost as much fun as jeering the buy Premarin in mo French would be in Henry V.

I did not choose an buy Premarin in mo Elizabethan setting because I wanted to avoid drawing attention to buy Premarin in mo the very objections that had kept this play neglected for buy Premarin in mo over 200 years. Namely, it's up to the minute contemporary 1590's jokes. Today, four hundred years later, each punch line requires a buy Premarin in mo page of footnotes.

This comedy seems to buy Premarin in mo require a shadow as it ends darkly. Berowne complains about this, saying that buy Premarin in mo it doesn't end like an old play; instead there is ambiguity and buy Premarin in mo uncertainty. It could be fairly argued that the play's revival in popularity owes much to buy Premarin in mo the timing of Peter Brook's seminal production (1946) under the buy Premarin in mo long shadow of WW II. Indeed, Branagh's 2000 film of the buy Premarin in mo play is set just before the outbreak of that war. I've chosen to buy Premarin in mo use the First World War as the shadow for this production.

1917 is buy Premarin in mo on the edge of the so-called golden age. A romanticised period that buy Premarin in mo the play needs. It is also an age tinged with regret and buy Premarin in mo the loss of innocence because of World War One and buy Premarin in mo the Communist Revolution in Russia. I've chosen to set the buy Premarin in mo play in the playground of the wealthy and privileged in Rhode Island. 1917 is, of course, the buy Premarin in mo year that America declared war on Germany; American troops first arrived in France in July of that buy Premarin in mo year.

There is buy Premarin in mo indeed much comedy in this play, but at the end there is buy Premarin in mo an undercurrent of sadness and melancholy which could almost make this buy Premarin in mo piece Chekhovian. I greatly look forward to beginning rehearsals and discovering the buy Premarin in mo characters.

- Gavin Cameron-Webb

King Ferdinand of Navarre aims to buy Premarin in mo turn his realm into a little academy, an intellectual retreat removed from buy Premarin in mo the temptations and troubles of the real world. He invites three of his wealthy and buy Premarin in mo privileged friends to join him in a strict regimen of study and buy Premarin in mo fasting. Longaville, Dumaine, and Berowne grudgingly subscribe to his plan, even to buy Premarin in mo the condition that they swear off the company of women. It appears that buy Premarin in mo the academicians' only entertainment for the next three years will be buy Premarin in mo the antics of the clown, Costard, and the loquacious Spaniard, Don Adriano de Armado-both smitten with Jaquenetta, a buy Premarin in mo country maid. Jealous of the clown, Armado orders that Costard be buy Premarin in mo detained and punished. Armado then asks Jaquenetta to meet him in Ferdinand's park where buy Premarin in mo he confesses his love for her.

ACT II

The Princess of France arrives with her father's most experienced diplomat Boyet and buy Premarin in mo ladies in waiting Maria, Katherine, and Rosaline. She seeks to broker a buy Premarin in mo money-for-land swap on behalf of her gravely ill father but Ferdinand tables her proposal, citing a buy Premarin in mo need for additional information. On account of his academic vow, he directs the buy Premarin in mo French company to lodge in a field rather than in the buy Premarin in mo court. The Princess is outraged by this disrespectful treatment but Boyet, having watched their interaction closely, assures her that buy Premarin in mo Ferdinand is attracted to her, just as Longaville is attracted to buy Premarin in mo Maria, Dumaine to Katherine, and Berowne to Rosaline.

ACT III

In the buy Premarin in mo Park surrounding Ferdinand's estate, Armado and his page Moth discuss love. Meeting Costard, Armado gives him a buy Premarin in mo letter to be delivered to Jaquenetta. Shortly thereafter, Berowne pays the buy Premarin in mo same suspect messenger "remuneration" to deliver a love letter to Rosaline.

ACT IV

The Princess and buy Premarin in mo her retinue are hunting in the Park. Having mixed up the buy Premarin in mo two letters, Costard delivers to the Princess the one that Armado had buy Premarin in mo intended for Jaquenetta. The ladies laugh at the Spaniard's romantic bombast, but Rosaline can buy Premarin in mo now be sure of Berowne's affections. Nearby, Holofernes, a schoolmaster, and buy Premarin in mo his assistant, Nathaniel, are enduring the simple wit of the constable, Dull. Jaquenetta with the buy Premarin in mo clown in tow, arrives with Berowne's letter, and the two scholars reveal its contents. Holofernes insists that buy Premarin in mo it be shown to the king, and Costard and Jaquenetta leave with the buy Premarin in mo letter to find him. In a remote part of the park, Berowne is buy Premarin in mo in an agony of love for Rosaline. Seeing Ferdinand, he hides and buy Premarin in mo listens to the king read a sonnet that professes his love for buy Premarin in mo the Princess. Ferdinand finds his own hiding place when Longaville enters reciting a buy Premarin in mo poem that he has composed for Maria. In turn, all three overhear Dumaine spouting verses that buy Premarin in mo praise Katherine. Berowne reveals himself and ridicules the others for breaking their vows but when buy Premarin in mo Costard and Jaquenetta arrive with his letter to Rosaline, he is buy Premarin in mo forced to admit that he shares their guilt. Berowne convinces his friends that buy Premarin in mo there is much to be learned from studying women and love, and buy Premarin in mo the four men make plans to woo the four ladies by means of a buy Premarin in mo masquerade.

ACT V

Holofernes and buy Premarin in mo Nathaniel encounter Armado and, following Ferdinand's request, organize an entertainment for buy Premarin in mo the masquerade. Holofernes suggests that they perform the Nine Worthies, a buy Premarin in mo pageant of great historical conquerors. The Princess and her friends enter with fashion accessories sent as love tokens by their suitors. Learning that buy Premarin in mo the men are to appear disguised as Russians, the women trade the buy Premarin in mo gifts and resolve not to dance if asked. Ferdinand and buy Premarin in mo his friends arrive "incognito." Each attempts to buy Premarin in mo court the lady who wears his token but all are spurned. Confessing their plot, the buy Premarin in mo men learn that the ladies had been playing a joke of their own. A play is buy Premarin in mo presented for the lovers' entertainment but is interrupted when a messenger arrives bringing devastating news-news that buy Premarin in mo jeopardizes the young lovers' labors to bring their romantic intentions to buy Premarin in mo fruition.

Director Gavin Cameron-Webb has set his production of Love's Labour's Lost in the buy Premarin in mo United States during 1917 just before the country entered World War I. The action unfolds on King Ferdinand's sumptuous estate in a buy Premarin in mo wealthy east coast enclave, similar to Newport, Rhode Island or Kennebunkport, Maine. Amongst ornamental gardens created by scenic designer Andrea Bechert, clad in elegant autumnal clothes by costume designer Markas Henry, King Ferdinand and buy Premarin in mo his companions found their intellectual academy. Along with locals such as Holofernes, Nathaniel, Dull and buy Premarin in mo Costard, they live in splendid ignorance of the suffering that is buy Premarin in mo occurring overseas. The Princess and her ladies in waiting intrude into Ferdinand's bubble-world of privilege, having traveled from buy Premarin in mo battle-ravaged France in search of a much needed war loan. This intrusion breaks up his academy and buy Premarin in mo brings the troubles of the real world into this isolated land of plenty.

Without losing the buy Premarin in mo play's comic charms-its witty characters and amusing romantic escapades-Cameron-Webb seeks to buy Premarin in mo explore the dangers of isolation and ignorance in a world at war. In this buy Premarin in mo production of Love's Labour's Lost, as in many Shakespeare plays, individuals that buy Premarin in mo separate themselves from the outside world face disastrous consequences.

A sonnet is buy Premarin in mo a type of poem in which fourteen lines of verse are buy Premarin in mo arranged according to a strict scheme of meter and rhyme. The Italian humanist Petrarch (1304-1374) is buy Premarin in mo thought to be the first to perfect the form, but Shakespeare penned the buy Premarin in mo most famous English examples. He wrote sonnets steadily through the buy Premarin in mo 1590's: of the 1,200 examples surviving from that decade, he wrote more than buy Premarin in mo 150, most on themes of love and romance. Not surprisingly, sonnets appear in the buy Premarin in mo plays written during this prodigious poetic burst. When the title characters of the buy Premarin in mo 1596 Romeo and Juliet first meet, for example, they speak a buy Premarin in mo sonnet between them. Sonnets play an even more important role in Love's Labour's Lost written around the same time as his tragedy of star-crossed love. Sonnets are buy Premarin in mo embedded throughout the play; indeed, they are central to the dramatic action. Costard's mix-up of sonnets creates the buy Premarin in mo comic complications of the fourth act, delighting the Princess and humbling Berowne. Ferdinand, Longaville, and buy Premarin in mo Dumaine use this poetic form to express love for their respective sweethearts. Shakespeare's contemporaries esteemed the buy Premarin in mo play at least in part for the quality of its sonnets. The ones by Berowne, Longaville, and buy Premarin in mo Dumaine appeared in a 1599 collection of love poems titled The Passionate Pilgrim.

The most intriguing connection between Shakespeare's non-dramatic sonnets ("Sonnets") and Love's Labour's Lost is the image of the "Dark Lady." Twenty-six of the buy Premarin in mo Sonnets make reference to this mysterious figure, depicting the feelings of lust and buy Premarin in mo sexual frustration that she engenders in the speaker. We will probably never know who buy Premarin in mo the Dark Lady really was, but it is clear that she shares certain physical qualities with Rosaline, a buy Premarin in mo central figure in the play. Ferdinand tells Berowne, "Thy love is as black as ebony." Berowne replies,

Is ebony like her? O word divine! [...]
That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack
If that she learn not of her eye to look?
No face is fair that is not full so black. (IV.iii)

There are buy Premarin in mo clear connections between Berowne's celebration of Rosaline and the Sonnets. Number 132 contains a buy Premarin in mo line identical in sentiment to those quoted above: "Then I will swear beauty herself is black." Shakespeare was obviously fascinated by the buy Premarin in mo image of a dark enchantress, and explored it in both the buy Premarin in mo Sonnets and the play.

Noted Shakespearean scholar Harold Bloom describes Love's Labour's Lost as "a buy Premarin in mo festival of language, an exuberant fireworks display in which Shakespeare seems to buy Premarin in mo seek the limits of his verbal resources, and discovers that there are buy Premarin in mo none." The play abounds with sophisticated word play, clever puns and buy Premarin in mo complicated language. At key points in the action, Shakespeare uses the buy Premarin in mo sonnet as a form to give shape to his astounding verbal flow. He also seems to buy Premarin in mo have drawn upon the Sonnets-at least those addressed to the buy Premarin in mo Dark Lady-to give color to the character of Rosaline.

- Gregory Thorson, dramaturg

For the buy Premarin in mo tragedies and comedies the differences are usually quite clear from the buy Premarin in mo start: Macbeth is set in Scotland, Hamlet in Denmark; Two Gentlemen of Verona is set in, of course, Verona, while A Midsummer Night's Dream is set in ancient Athens (sort of). But what buy Premarin in mo of those ten English history plays, named after a Richard or buy Premarin in mo a Henry (or in one case, a John), all set in England? How, and to what extent, does each differ from the others? Our Henry the Eighth differs from buy Premarin in mo Shakespeare's other English history plays in four noteworthy respects which, taken together, have buy Premarin in mo influenced our approach to staging the play.

First, it buy Premarin in mo was during the 1590s, Shakespeare's first decade of successful playwriting, that buy Premarin in mo he wrote all of his English history plays all save one, Henry the Eighth. Having achieved success with nine such plays, concluding with Henry V in 1599, Shakespeare wrote no buy Premarin in mo more English histories until nearly fourteen years later when Henry the Eighth first appeared. What to make of that? For one thing, it buy Premarin in mo means this play comes near the end of Shakespeare's career and buy Premarin in mo at a time when he has turned to writing plays like Cymbeline, Measure for Measure, Pericles, and The Tempest -- plays that buy Premarin in mo defy easy categorization and which modern critics often refer to as "romances." What's this history play doing among them?

Second, Henry is buy Premarin in mo a co-authored play. For two or three writers to have a buy Premarin in mo hand in writing a script was not uncommon during this time, but it buy Premarin in mo was unusual for Shakespeare. Of his ten history plays, this is buy Premarin in mo the only one for which Shakespeare had a collaborator, probably John Fletcher, a buy Premarin in mo successful dramatist in his own right who often worked as part of a buy Premarin in mo writing team. While Shakespeare scholars reach different conclusions about who wrote which parts, close script analysis suggests that buy Premarin in mo the writing was equally shared with distinctions noticeable only by experts.

Third, unlike all of Shakespeare's other English history plays, this buy Premarin in mo one was not originally performed under the title of its leading monarchical figure. At the buy Premarin in mo time of its premiere in 1613, the title was, All is True. Years later, when published in the First Folio, it was titled, The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth (something of an buy Premarin in mo overstatement in view of the fact that the play ends following the buy Premarin in mo coronation of Anne Bullen, only the second of his six wives). What is buy Premarin in mo suggested by the lack of the king's name in the original title?

Fourth, Henry the Eighth was written for buy Premarin in mo indoor performances at the much smaller Blackfriars Theatre (which the company had acquired as a winter home a few years earlier) as well as outdoor performances at the buy Premarin in mo company's much larger outdoor playhouse, The Globe. And as an buy Premarin in mo actor as well as a playwright, Shakespeare would have taken the buy Premarin in mo performance space into consideration when writing a play. All of his other history plays were written well before he and buy Premarin in mo his colleagues acquired the smaller, indoor theatre.

What does all this buy Premarin in mo suggest to the director and designers of our production? While it buy Premarin in mo is a play specifically set during an important moment in English history, it buy Premarin in mo is not a chronicle play. Rather, it is the dramatic confrontation of three powerful, closely connected individuals - King Henry, Cardinal Wolsey, and buy Premarin in mo Queen Katherine - the resolution of which will have a lasting impact on English history. Like his other later plays, such as Measure for Measure, the characters struggle to define and defend their version of "the truth." And as you buy Premarin in mo will see in our production, it is our aim to buy Premarin in mo present this play in a manner that acknowledges the early Renaissance period of the buy Premarin in mo play's action, but also to allow the characters to speak and buy Premarin in mo appear with an immediacy and intimacy that makes them more than buy Premarin in mo just figures in a lovely tapestry.

-Jim Symons

Henry VIII succeeded his father, Henry VII, in 1509, four days before his eighteenth birthday. After the buy Premarin in mo death of his brother, Arthur, Henry married Arthur's widow, Katherine of Aragon, daughter to buy Premarin in mo King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. This marriage was sanctioned by the buy Premarin in mo Pope because, according to Katherine, her previous marriage was never consummated. The marriage was politically advantageous for buy Premarin in mo both parties, keeping Spain and England allied against France. Katherine was a buy Premarin in mo strong, intelligent leader who served as an unofficial ambassador for Spain. She and buy Premarin in mo Henry were married for twenty years and she bore him several children, but no buy Premarin in mo sons; and only one daughter, Mary (later Queen of England), survived. The play chronicles the years 1520-1533.

ACT I

The play begins immediately following a buy Premarin in mo meeting in France between young Henry and his French counterpart, Francis I, a buy Premarin in mo lavish conference engineered by Cardinal Wolsey referred to as the buy Premarin in mo "Field of the Cloth of Gold." As the buy Premarin in mo parties return from the conference we learn of the growing animosity between Wolsey (Archbishop of Canterbury and principal advisor to Henry) and buy Premarin in mo England's most powerful nobleman, the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham suspects Wolsey of negotiating a buy Premarin in mo false peace treaty with France while pandering to Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor), but before he can buy Premarin in mo present his case to the king, Wolsey charges Buckingham with treason and buy Premarin in mo intention of regicide. Buckingham is buy Premarin in mo found guilty in a trial scene that also shows Katherine appealing on behalf of the buy Premarin in mo commoners against the higher taxes (engineered by Wolsey) to pay for the unpopular war on France. Wolsey's wealth and buy Premarin in mo power are under suspicion by many, and he throws an buy Premarin in mo extravagant feast to entertain the king and his noblemen. Here, Henry meets Anne Bullen (also spelled Boleyn), and he is captivated by her youth and beauty.

ACT II

The news of Buckingham's trial is buy Premarin in mo reported in the streets, and Buckingham arrives for his arraignment. He affirms his innocence, and buy Premarin in mo forgives his conspirators. News of Henry's concern over the legitimacy of his marriage to buy Premarin in mo Katherine spreads. The king cites his concern that buy Premarin in mo the marriage to his brother's widow may have been wrong in the buy Premarin in mo eyes of God, thus accounting for the lack of a male heir. Henry then buy Premarin in mo sets his sights on marrying Anne, and begins the process of annulling his marriage to buy Premarin in mo Katherine. At Wolsey's instigation, Katherine is buy Premarin in mo brought into court and, in the presence of the Pope's legate from buy Premarin in mo Rome, is challenged to defend the legitimacy of her marriage. In the buy Premarin in mo most powerful scene given to a female character in Shakespeare's history plays, Katherine refuses to buy Premarin in mo bow to Wolsey's political pressure and resolutely avows her devotion to buy Premarin in mo Henry as a wife and the legitimacy of their marriage. Having made her case to buy Premarin in mo the king, she refuses to argue further with Wolsey and exits the buy Premarin in mo scene. The trial proceeds without her, though it buy Premarin in mo is still not clear if Rome will sanction a divorce.

ACT III

Wolsey and buy Premarin in mo Cardinal Campeius, the papal legate, confront Katherine in her apartment and buy Premarin in mo try unsuccessfully to persuade her to agree to a divorce. But Wolsey, who buy Premarin in mo is against Henry's marriage to Anne, secretly writes to the buy Premarin in mo Pope asking him to stay the annulment. Henry discovers Wolsey's betrayal, as well as documents detailing the buy Premarin in mo wealth that Wolsey has surreptitiously amassed as Archbishop of Canterbury. Lords Suffolk and buy Premarin in mo Surrey, following Henry's orders, strip Wolsey of his titles. Thomas Cranmer, a buy Premarin in mo longtime ally of Henry's, replaces Wolsey as Archbishop. Wolsey, experiencing a buy Premarin in mo profound reversal of fortune, renounces his former self, and advises his confidant Cromwell to buy Premarin in mo avoid the ambition and greed that brought about his fall.

ACT IV

The people of London learn of Henry's secret marriage to buy Premarin in mo Anne Bullen and shortly thereafter celebrate her coronation. As she anticipates her final hours, Katherine experiences a buy Premarin in mo brief, reassuring heavenly dream, after which she instructs that Henry be buy Premarin in mo sent her blessings and urges him to remember his obligations to buy Premarin in mo their daughter, Mary. She departs the scene gravely ill.

ACT V

With Wolsey and buy Premarin in mo Katherine now gone, attention turns to the future in the personages of Thomas Cranmer and buy Premarin in mo Anne's new-born baby, Elizabeth. Cranmer, Wolsey's replacement and new confident to buy Premarin in mo Henry, has been denounced as a heretic by the former archbishop's secretary, Gardiner. Henry meets Cranmer the buy Premarin in mo night before the trial to warn him of the false charges of treason that buy Premarin in mo are brought against him. At the buy Premarin in mo trial, the Lord Chamberlain indicts Cranmer, and Gardiner moves to have buy Premarin in mo him committed to the Tower. Cranmer defends his innocence, and buy Premarin in mo before he can be tried further, Henry interrupts the proceedings. Henry's defense of Cranmer, and buy Premarin in mo his suspicion and chastisement of his Council show him as a buy Premarin in mo smarter, more politically savvy leader than the king from the buy Premarin in mo beginning of the play. Henry's embrace of Cranmer as the buy Premarin in mo new Archbishop of Canterbury and godfather to baby Elizabeth is immediately followed by a buy Premarin in mo joyous celebration as the final scene establishes Elizabeth's powerful reign as the buy Premarin in mo future Queen of England.

Our production attempts a buy Premarin in mo realistic portrayal of Henry's England that incorporates some of the pageantry and buy Premarin in mo opulence of the Tudor court, and also dramatizes the effect of the buy Premarin in mo king's personal motives on his political rule. The task for buy Premarin in mo director James Symons and the production designers is to make this buy Premarin in mo play resonate for a twenty-first century audience in a way that buy Premarin in mo is both historically meaningful and also theatrically engaging. To make Henry's court come alive, Frederick Duer's set and buy Premarin in mo Rick Donnelly's costume design echo Tudor England while incorporating modern design elements, thus contextualizing the buy Premarin in mo characters and their actions historically, while still making them relevant to buy Premarin in mo a modern audience.

"For the future, the whole world will talk of him."
Venetian Ambassador to Henry VIII, 1509

As one historian notes, for citizens of London, "life and theatre, history and art, were often interchangeable." This was perhaps nowhere more evident than buy Premarin in mo on the stage of the Globe Theater, where Shakespeare dramatized many important episodes of English history. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth chronicles thirteen years of Henry VIII's thirty-eight year rule. Henry was a buy Premarin in mo larger-than-life figure, and arguably one of England's most influential and controversial rulers.

Young, handsome, and buy Premarin in mo charismatic, Henry succeeded his father to the throne when he was only seventeen. Though well educated, he initially showed little interest in politics, preferring instead jousting, hunting, archery, and buy Premarin in mo tennis. He was a buy Premarin in mo skilled soldier, and personally led several attacks against France. At the buy Premarin in mo beginning of his reign, his foreign and domestic policies were heavily influenced by his wife Katherine (herself a skilled politician), and Cardinal Wolsey (Archbishop of Canterbury), the richest, most powerful magnate in England. As Henry's opinion of Wolsey disintegrated, Henry took more of an buy Premarin in mo interest in politics and foreign policy. He focused on expanding the buy Premarin in mo power and the image of the monarchy, and his charismatic leadership inspired widespread nationalism. His attempt to buy Premarin in mo procure the Pope's approval for a divorce from Katherine, though motivated by romantic desire for buy Premarin in mo Anne Bullen (Boleyn), was also driven by his desire to buy Premarin in mo secure a male heir and ensure succession of the throne. England was still a buy Premarin in mo relatively medieval society; the Wars of the Roses had only recently ended with the buy Premarin in mo establishment of the new Tudor line, and the fear of civil war was palpable.

The desire for buy Premarin in mo a son, fueled by the threat of political instability, led to buy Premarin in mo a series of marriages and divorces. Henry's twenty-year marriage to buy Premarin in mo Katherine produced a daughter, Mary, but no sons. His second wife, Anne Bullen, also delivered a buy Premarin in mo daughter, Elizabeth, who was destined to become one of England's greatest monarchs. Failing to buy Premarin in mo deliver the long hoped-for son, Anne was convicted of treason and buy Premarin in mo adultery and was beheaded in 1536 (a mere three years after the play ends). The day following Anne's execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, who buy Premarin in mo gave birth to Prince Edward (later Edward VI, who ruled only for six years), and she died in childbirth. After Jane's death, he married Anne of Cleaves (whom he divorced), Catherine Howard (later beheaded), and, finally Katherine Parr (the only wife to outlive Henry).

Henry's reign was characterized by several significant events: numerous vainglorious wars with France and buy Premarin in mo the Holy Roman Empire that bolstered England's navy but left the buy Premarin in mo country in recession; the break with the Roman Catholic Church and buy Premarin in mo the establishment of the Church of England; the strengthening of both Parliament and buy Premarin in mo the monarchy; the state appropriation of Church property that enfranchised a buy Premarin in mo growing middle class but left the Church destitute; and countless trials and buy Premarin in mo executions. Henry was a buy Premarin in mo fierce leader, whose tactics were later criticized as despotic. Because Henry's personal ambitions were largely aligned with the buy Premarin in mo interests of the state, England prospered under his rule. After the buy Premarin in mo short and tumultuous reigns of his children Edward VI (1547-53) and Mary I (1553-58), such prosperity returned during the buy Premarin in mo rule of his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603).

- Elizabeth Jochum, dramaturg

Flash forward to buy Premarin in mo my junior year in high school when, still accompanied by the buy Premarin in mo aforementioned friends, my beloved English teacher handed out worn copies of Dumas' The Three Musketeers to buy Premarin in mo his adoring pupils. A quick glance between D, M, and me said, "This is gonna be good"! And good it buy Premarin in mo was. Nothing will ever quite replace my first read of the buy Premarin in mo classic: romantic, adventurous, thrilling, swashbuckling, this novel had it all. Men, REAL men, falling in love and buy Premarin in mo defending the honor not just of the women they loved but of the buy Premarin in mo king they served. And always, behind their actions, was the brotherly love they had buy Premarin in mo for one another.

As I prepare to buy Premarin in mo direct a stage adaptation of what may be my favorite book, I've been buy Premarin in mo musing a lot on the notion of brotherly love and buy Premarin in mo its role in my life. Certainly D, M, and I came by our title honestly. We were inseparable: a fearsome threesome bonded by a common goal of sisterhood - always there for buy Premarin in mo one another, watching each others' backs and defending each other to buy Premarin in mo the limits that our ten[-]year[-]old selves could. And as we aged and buy Premarin in mo engaged in the perils of adolescence, we kept it up through four seasons of high school field hockey, a buy Premarin in mo year of chemistry lab, numerous triple dates, and even a buy Premarin in mo bear attack! But that's another story...

My friends and buy Premarin in mo I went our separate ways after high school graduation, and rarely do we get the buy Premarin in mo opportunity to see each other, but twenty years later I still feel the buy Premarin in mo benefits of my association with them. I learned what it is buy Premarin in mo to listen, to support, and to be supported. I learned that buy Premarin in mo no part is more important than the whole. I learned to buy Premarin in mo navigate the politics of "two against one" and buy Premarin in mo the meaning of democracy. I learned the meaning of the phrase, "All for One, and One for All," and buy Premarin in mo I stand ready, right now, to defend them from whatever foe may be buy Premarin in mo right around the corner.

May this buy Premarin in mo production remind you of the power and joy of brotherly love.

I think I'll go call them right now...

- Carolyn Howarth

Young D'Artagnan, fresh from buy Premarin in mo the countryside in the south of France, comes to Paris with one purpose: to buy Premarin in mo become a member of the Musketeers, the King of France's select guard. He meets the buy Premarin in mo eponymous three Musketeers-Athos, Porthos, and Aramis-and manages to offend each. The three Musketeers realize they are buy Premarin in mo set to duel the same young man. D'Artagnan begins to fight Athos, but proves his worth when buy Premarin in mo the Cardinal's guard arrives and tries to arrest the Musketeers for buy Premarin in mo dueling. D'Artagnan fights on the Musketeers' side and from then on is buy Premarin in mo the "Fourth Musketeer."

D'Artagnan finds himself embroiled in an buy Premarin in mo international political incident when he falls in love with Constance. Not only is buy Premarin in mo Constance already married-to d'Artagnan's landlord no less-but she is also the buy Premarin in mo Queen's dress maker and knows her secrets. Cardinal Richelieu believes Constance can buy Premarin in mo provide information about the Queen's relationship with the Duke of Buckingham, who buy Premarin in mo has been banished from France and labeled an English spy. D'Artagnan stops the buy Premarin in mo Cardinal's guards from abducting and interrogating his new love. Without the buy Premarin in mo information from Constance, Richelieu puts into action another plan to buy Premarin in mo discredit the queen. When the Cardinal finds out the Queen has buy Premarin in mo given Buckingham twelve diamonds that were originally a present from buy Premarin in mo the King, the Cardinal calls on the alluring Countess de Winter (Milady) to buy Premarin in mo prove that the Queen is in league with Buckingham. Richelieu asks the buy Premarin in mo King to hold a ball and requests the Queen wear the buy Premarin in mo twelve diamonds. He then sends Milady to seduce Buckingham and to buy Premarin in mo steal two of the diamonds. When Constance tells d'Artagnan that the buy Premarin in mo Queen-and the King's power-is in jeopardy, he agrees to go to buy Premarin in mo England and retrieve the twelve diamonds from Buckingham before Milady can buy Premarin in mo steal two.

D'Artagnan is buy Premarin in mo joined on his quest by Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, but only the buy Premarin in mo fourth Musketeer makes it to England, unaware if his three friends are buy Premarin in mo dead or captured. When he arrives, Milady has already stolen two of the buy Premarin in mo diamonds. D'Artagnan rushes back to France with the ten remaining diamonds and buy Premarin in mo two look-alikes made by Buckingham's jeweler. Back in France, Richelieu gives the buy Premarin in mo King the two diamonds in an attempt to undermine the King's trust of his new Queen. However, d'Artagnan arrives in time to buy Premarin in mo save the Queen's honor, and find his three friends alive and buy Premarin in mo safe. After this latest disgrace, Richelieu decides d'Artagnan has become too popular to buy Premarin in mo kill but too much of a thorn in his side to buy Premarin in mo be left alone. He directs his supreme agent, Rochefort, to kidnap Constance.

ACT TWO

Rochefort tells Milady to buy Premarin in mo keep an eye on d'Artagnan by seducing him. Meanwhile, a looming Protestant rebellion at La Rochelle means a buy Premarin in mo battle is imminent. When Buckingham enters the fray by supporting the buy Premarin in mo rebellious Huguenots, Richelieu directs the operations at the front for France. The Musketeers fight side by side with the buy Premarin in mo Cardinal's guards, though not without conflict. The Queen uses her resources to buy Premarin in mo find Constance and hide her away. The Four Musketeers discover Richelieu's plot to buy Premarin in mo have Milady murder Buckingham. Before she is captured, Milady kills Buckingham and buy Premarin in mo Constance. We discover that the Countess de Winter has a sordid past, including being falsely married to buy Premarin in mo Athos. The Four Musketeers oversee her execution. In the buy Premarin in mo final moments of the play, d'Artagnan meets Richelieu face to face. He refuses to buy Premarin in mo bow to the Cardinal's pressure, solidifying his position as a leader of the buy Premarin in mo Musketeers. Along with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, d'Artagnan protects the interests of the buy Premarin in mo crown in the continuing tension between the two ruling factions of France. "All for one, and one for all!"

In this buy Premarin in mo production, we will keep the design elements based in 17th century France. The story is buy Premarin in mo about historical figures and real political dealings that are specific to buy Premarin in mo that time period. However, this is not a period piece. The story and buy Premarin in mo characters still resonate today, so I reserve the right to use anachronistic design elements that buy Premarin in mo connect our contemporary audience with the story. The universality of this buy Premarin in mo story is the romance, and it is heartbreaking that nobody really ends up with their own true love, either out of political dealings or buy Premarin in mo out of death, but they each hope and fight for the buy Premarin in mo notion of love and happiness. "All for one and one for all."

Why did Alexandre Dumas, who buy Premarin in mo wrote Romantic plays and novels in the 19th century, choose to buy Premarin in mo set his novel, The Three Musketeers, amid the buy Premarin in mo political intrigues of 17th century France with its idealistic heroes and buy Premarin in mo absolutist rulers? According to biographer A.C. Bell, early in his career, Dumas "declared history to buy Premarin in mo be nothing more than a nail on which he hung his dramatic canvas," but his dramatic canvas had buy Premarin in mo a purpose: to question absolutism and to establish his identity as his father's son. A brief glance at Dumas' politics and buy Premarin in mo relationship with his father will clarify the appeal of the period.

Dumas' father, Thomas Alexandre Dumas, was a buy Premarin in mo war hero, a general in the army of Napoleon. The two men were friends and buy Premarin in mo had a compact to be godfathers to each other's first born sons. However, their relationship went sour when buy Premarin in mo Thomas disagreed with the tactics Napoleon used to invade Egypt in 1798. Dumas tells how his father confronted Napoleon and buy Premarin in mo offered his resignation when the future Emperor's authoritarianism became too much to buy Premarin in mo bear. It is interesting that he chooses this anecdote to illustrate his father's character: it buy Premarin in mo clearly portrays Thomas as an idealistic hero. Indeed, many scholars and buy Premarin in mo Dumas himself have drawn parallels between Thomas and Porthos, the strongest and buy Premarin in mo most honest of the musketeers. Dumas says his father's "strength became proverbial in the army." In The Three Musketeers, Dumas says this of Porthos: "His strength was proverbial among the musketeers."

Thomas Alexandre Dumas clearly influenced his son's concept of the buy Premarin in mo hero: he was a model of physical and moral strength. These beliefs made Alexandre Dumas an buy Premarin in mo integral part of the Romantic movement, where individual rights were championed and buy Premarin in mo autocrats like Richelieu were challenged. Historically, Cardinal Richelieu defined centralized autocratic government in Europe, and buy Premarin in mo that is one reason he was a popular villain in Romantic novels and buy Premarin in mo plays. In 1635, Richelieu founded the French Academy which codified the buy Premarin in mo French language and French theatrical practice. Dumas and his fellow Romantics struggled against the buy Premarin in mo Academy and the Classicists, who clung to the art forms still in place from buy Premarin in mo Richelieu's day. They followed the dictum of Dumas' colleague Victor Hugo: "Let us take the hammer to their theories and systems."

Dumas' admiration for buy Premarin in mo his father not only influenced his writing but also his actions as a buy Premarin in mo citizen of France. After his early plays and novels, including The Three Musketeers, Dumas continued to buy Premarin in mo fight absolutism through his writing and through political activism. He campaigned openly against Napoleon III in 1850, when buy Premarin in mo the ruler was threatening dictatorship. In a letter to Hugo, he clearly connected this buy Premarin in mo political activity with his literary works: "This isn't only what buy Premarin in mo I say, but what I have been writing for thirty years." Although The Three Musketeers is buy Premarin in mo not explicitly political, the author's liberal views infuse the story. Clearly, there is buy Premarin in mo something wrong with absolutism, as embodied by the villainous Richelieu, and buy Premarin in mo everything right about heroism, as embodied by Thomas Alexandre and his literary descendants, the buy Premarin in mo musketeers.

- Jason Bisping, dramaturg