Three-Panel Plays, part 5

I continue our lightning-fast journey through the history plays in today's installment of Three-Panel Plays!

That's Justice Shallow and Mistress Quickly, partying with Falstaff in the first panel. "Falstaff parties" is a recurring motif in these plays.

The trouble with drawing stick-figure archers is that you have to be very clear which sticks are the arms, as opposed to the arrow sticks and the bowstring sticks. If you get them mixed up, nobody will know what is going on. Ah, the subtleties of my "craft"...

Next up, we delve into the Henry VI plays! Yes, it's Wars of the Roses time! 

See all Three-Panel Plays here!

Three-Panel Plays, part 4

I take my scissors to the most famous Shakespeare play of all in this installment of Three-Panel Plays!

I mean, that's basically it, right? Did I leave out anything important?

NOTE: I have received several concerned e-mails from eagle-eyed readers about this panel, and yes, "revenge" is a verb as well as a noun. As Shakespeare himself wrote: "If thou didst ever thy dear father love, revenge his foul and most unnatural murder."

However, that does not excuse my writing "Halmet" instead of "Hamlet" in one of the panels. Thanks to Mary FT for catching that!

The sequel to Richard II. I am itching to complete the octalogy of history plays, but it's going to take me a while. There are just so many of them. 

See all Three-Panel Plays here!

Three-Panel Plays, part 3

It's time for some more "editing with extreme prejudice" in the third installment of my Three-Panel Plays series! 

Oh no, it's Coriolanus again. I'm pretty sure we're all very familiar with Coriolanus now, thank you very much. 

20140207-S-Cymbeline3Panels.jpg

Cymbeline is such a busy play that I had to chop out 90% of it to make it fit in three panels. I'm now itching to do a full-length guide to Cymbeline, because it's an adorable play that deserves more than three panels and I love it. 

Stop by on Monday to see how I handle Hamlet and Henry IV, part 1 ! 

See all Three-Panel Plays here!

Three-Panel Plays, part 2

The second installment of my Three-Panel-Play series mercilessly abbreviates two comedies.

As You Like It is deceptively hard to capture in only three panels. I apologize for my ludicrous hatchet job. I also apologize for leaving Sylvius and Phebe out of the last panel: there was only space for three happy couples, and even then they had to squish together.

Really, I could probably boil down all the Shakespearean comedies to "_______ and hijinks ensue". That covers most of them, don't you think?

Coming up on Friday: Coriolanus (again!) and Cymbeline. I'm already having palpitations about how I'm going to manage to distill Cymbeline into three panels...

See all Three-Panel Plays here!

Three-Panel Plays, part 1

In the four months that I've been working on this website, I have managed to complete two comprehensive, scene-by-scene guides to Shakespeare plays (Richard II and Coriolanus). At this rate, it is going to take me several years to finish the entire canon. For those of you who are too impatient to wait that long, I present to you the first installment of my much-more-abbreviated Three-Panel Play series. 

We will be doing this alphabetically. 

All's Well That Ends Well is generally categorized as a "problem play", mostly because nobody can quite figure out how to handle the ending. Technically it's a comedy because HA HA.

OH NO, SPOILERS! Oh, come on. Everyone knows how Antony and Cleopatra ends. 

I'll be back on Wednesday with As You Like It and A Comedy of Errors. 

See all Three-Panel Plays here!

Coriolanus: One Page Summary

Coriolanus

Dramatis Personae | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Death & Marriage | One Page Summary

Before we leave Coriolanus behind, here's a quick one-page summary of the entire play, for those of you who haven't been paying attention:

And that's a wrap for Coriolanus! Fear not - I am sure he will reappear in various other cartoons. 

Having run the marathon that was Coriolanus in an attempt to get through the entire play in time for the National Theatre live broadcast, I will now be returning to my more sedate Monday-Wednesday-Friday update schedule. Content will still be mostly Shakespeare-related, with the occasional non-Shakespeare one thrown in for variety's sake. 

As for the next Shakespeare play to get the full Tickle Brain treatment? Well, one of my friends just finished his run as Edgar in a local production of King Lear... and the National Theatre's current production of King Lear will be broadcast live in May... and I will be going to see the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's production of King Lear in August... so I think the universe is trying to tell me something.

Gong Xi Fa Cai! 

Coriolanus

Dramatis Personae | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Death & Marriage | One Page Summary

Coriolanus: Death and Marriage Totals

Coriolanus

Dramatis Personae | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Death & Marriage

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a Shakespeare play ends with a lot of dead people, it's a tragedy, and if it ends with a lot of marriages, it's comedy. Let's see how Coriolanus measures up:

For a play that starts out so bloody, it's kind of surprising what a low death toll there actually is in the end. Aufidius doesn't massacre Volumnia and throw Young Martius from the walls of Rome, Virgilia doesn't eat hot coals, Menenius doesn't impale himself on a sword. It's relatively demure. In fact, the only other tragedy I can think of with such a low body count is Timon of Athens. 

Tune in again tomorrow, where I will be presenting a one-page summary of the entire play. 

Coriolanus

Dramatis Personae | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Death & Marriage

Coriolanus, part 17

Coriolanus

Dramatis Personae | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Death & Marriage

LAST TIME ON CORIOLANUS: Coriolanus's attack on Rome is forestalled when his mother Volumnia successfully intercedes with him on behalf of Rome. Coriolanus agrees to make peace with Rome and orders the Volscian army to retreat back to Corioles.

"There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger" is one of those great lines that just sums up everything. 

Note that the people have completed their cycle of fickleness. First they didn't like Coriolanus. Then they banished Coriolanus. Then they were all "Oooh, we didn't really mean to banish him". And now they're ready to lynch one of their own representatives for banishing him. 

Coriolanus has been staged as both pro-democracy and pro-fascist, and both interpretations (and a host of other interpretations along the political spectrum) are valid and can work. However, if you look purely at the text, the people do come off looking like idiots.

Another candidate for "shortest scene in Shakespeare". What's interesting here is Volumnia's reaction to receiving the accolades of Rome. She isn't given any lines in this scene, so we don't know how she reacts. Is she happy about saving Rome and getting the glory that she has previously only received vicariously through her son? Is she sad because she knows her son is probably doomed? Is she angry at the fickleness of the population? All of the above?

A couple points:

  1. "Kill kill kill kill kill him!" is a direct quote. Shakespeare sure has a way with words, no?

  2. In the text, Aufidius is not one of the people who actually kills Coriolanus; the conspirators do all the dirty work. However, in just about every performance I have seen, Aufidius most certainly gets his hands dirty.

And that's the end of Coriolanus! I hope you've enjoyed it. I have a couple more short pieces that I will post tomorrow and on Friday, totalling up the number of deaths and summing up the entire play in one page.

Remember, check your local cinemas to see if they will be showing the National Theater Live broadcast of the Donmar Warehouse production of Coriolanus. It doesn't get performed very often, so this is your best bet to see it "on stage", as it were. If you can't see it, you can always rent/buy the 1983 BBC TV production, starring Alan Howard (not a great production, although the acting is good), or the modern-dress 2011 film adaptation, starring Ralph Fiennes (which works brilliantly in the updated setting and is my top pick). 

Coriolanus

Dramatis Personae | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Death & Marriage