A stick-figure Shakespeare comic by Mya Lixian Gosling
I very rarely cry during plays, but this is the type of scene that has the highest chance of making me sniffle.
Pericles is a very weird play. Whether it "works" or not seems to be highly dependent on the production and whatever concept is being deployed to try and make sense of its rambling and bizarre plot. But that reunion scene is perfection, no matter what you do to it.
It’s Shakespeare’s (possible) birthday! To celebrate, let’s take these 30 Days of Shakespeare back to his hometown.
Not long after I started drawing Good Tickle Brian, Lisa Peter, then working with the education department at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, contacted me and asked to commission some illustrations for SBT educational handouts. This was the first big piece of external validation I received from the Shakespeare world, and the first time I thought "wow... maybe this stupid little comic I'm drawing has some value beyond just amusing myself". Today you can find my stick figures all over various SBT teaching resources. Being able to visit Stratford in 2019 and have Lisa and her colleague, the amazing Cait Fannin-Peel, show me around was a dream come true. I still remember every bit of it vividly.
There are many sacred places of pilgrimage in the Shakespeare world, and this 30 Days of Shakespeare pick is one of the best.
You can read all about my adventures at the Folger in 2016 in this series of comics. I have a special place in my heart for the Folger, since it was there that I had my first speaking event as Good Tickle Brain, organized by my future pocket dramaturg and collaborator Kate Pitt. It felt so special to be invited into this sanctum sanctorum of Shakespearean artifacts with open arms. Plus... did I mention.... I GOT TO BOOP A FOLIO??
Show me the bear.
I've seen three live productions of The Winter's Tale, two of which had a bear and a very low-budget one of which had Antigonus become the bear (think werewolf, but with bear). I've checked six filmed productions, only one of which had a bear. The others all cheated their way out of having an actual bear on stage. I will not stand for this butchering of Shakespeare's text.
This is it. This is my goofy little favorite Dream.
This is the 1968 Peter Hall/RSC production and it is a glorious mess. Technically it's a shambles: the audio and video quality are fairly atrocious. However, the performances are golden. Helen Mirren and Diana Rigg are probably my all-time favorite Hermia and Helena, and there is no scenery because Ian Holm has eaten it.
One of the most common complaints about the histories is that everyone has the same name and it’s hard to keep them all straight. Well you know what? It’s true! Everyone DOES have the same name and it IS hard to keep them all straight, and I AM HERE FOR IT.
The first time I heard this exchange I nearly lost my mind. It is such a hilarious encapsulation of the confusion and chaos of the Wars of the Roses. Now, after years of reading history books and seeing as many performances of the histories as possible, I can tell you exactly who all those Edwards and Richards and Henrys are, and how exactly they are all related to each other. I love them all.
They say you should never learn how the metaphorical sausage is made, but I do! I do want to learn how the sausage is made.
Sher's diaries are a great read, even if you don't love all of his performances (I was not blown away by his Falstaff or his Lear, to be perfectly honest). He was such a calculating, deliberate, and technically-minded actor, and it's fascinating to follow how he builds a character, line by line, and sometimes eyebrow by eyebrow. His diaries and his insights into himself and his craft are a gift to all self-respecting Shakespeare geeks.
A slightly obscure 30 Days of Shakespeare pick today, because for some reason Cymbeline is not performed particularly frequently. If you haven’t seen it, you’ll just have to take my word that this is one of the funniest lines in all of Shakespeare.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen Cymbeline live twice, and both times this line brought down the house. I can’t get enough of it.
