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Tuesday Trivia

Fun Time Open Thread: Wherefore Art Thou Trivia?

One of our regional theaters is gearing up for an outdoor production of The Tempest right now, and it’s got me in a Shakespearean frame of mind. After the cut, let’s see how much you know about the Bard of Avalon.

  1. Name two of his works that feature a play within a play.
  2. Which is considered to be the bloodiest play in the canon?
  3. Which play opens with the infamous “Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble”?
  4. What would you call the answer to #4 if you didn’t want to invoke its curse?
  5. What do King Henry V and Sherlock Holmes have in common?
  6. Which play provides the framework for the television show Sons of Anarchy?
  7. Which twentieth century musical gives a nod to its Shakespearean roots with the song “Brush up your Shakespeare”?
  8. Which character crosses over from Henry IV, parts one and two, into The Merry Wives of Windsor in the Shakespearean version of a spin-off?
  9. This play, when it was originally performed, would have featured a man, pretending to be a woman who is pretending to be a man, sort of like an Elizabethan Victor/Victoria.
  10. For which play did Shakespeare coin the phrase “the beast with two backs”?
  11. And on that note, which play has a scene full of dildo humor?

To me, one of the marks of what a strong poet Shakespeare was is how utterly powerful his words can be in a modern setting. Case in point:

By [E]SaraB

Glass artisan by day, blogger by night (and sometimes vice versa). SaraB has three kids, three pets, one husband and a bizarre sense of humor. Her glass pendants can be found at www.etsy.com/shop/AngryOwlStudio if you're interested in checking it out.

67 replies on “Fun Time Open Thread: Wherefore Art Thou Trivia?”

OOOH! Shakespeare!

  1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet
  2. Titus Mother-Fucking Andronicus!
  3. MacBoth opens with that? Really? It’s been a while since I read it.
  4. The Scottish Play
  5. “The game is afoot!”
  6. Ooh, I don’t watch it, but I imagine it would be King Lear or Hamlet. Probably more likely Hamlet… he’s trying to avenge his father, right?
  7. Kiss Me Kate… love it.
  8. Good old Falstaff
  9. As You Like It. And Twelfth Night.
  10. One of Iago’s jabs from Othello. Son of a bitch.
  11. Oh man… one of the forgotten plays that are the few that I haven’t read? Coriolanus or The Winter’s Tale?

I know jack shit about Shakespeare. I read some of Romeo and Juliet in high school – and then my class begged our teacher to let us watch Romeo+Juliet. WIN. I think I read Midsummer Night’s Dream and I know I read Twelfth Night but I don’t remember anything about it.

…I got my college degree in Science and stayed on that side of the fence…

Anyway, I have been using OKCupid for about 5 months now and I think it’s time to pull the plug. It’s not working for me. I thought this most recent guy I’ve been chatting with could have turned into a date but he hasn’t replied in 5 days. So, next week, I’m shutting it down. I have more free time now to go out. I’m making more friends and they seem to have single friends (they have asked for my preferences in partners at least). And I like to live as if TV were real-life and if Jess from New Girl can be single and rockin it (oh, dear, spoiler alert?) then I can too. We’re roughly the same age. I just need some fun, dope roommates. :)  And black tights.

  1. Hamlet and a Midsummer Night’s Dream
  2. Titus, I think?
  3. Macbeth
  4. “The Scottish Play”
  5. an affinity for plaid hats and pipes?
  6. I have no idea, but I should start watching it!
  7. ?
  8. Falstaff?
  9. Twelfth Night
  10. Othello
  11. I have no idea, but that Shakespeare, man, he was a dirty foul mouthed perv so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more than one.

Ugh. North Carolina. Like John Edwards isn’t bad enough. Or that preacher telling people to ‘hit the gay’ out of effeminate-acting boys. Or a zillion other things. I didn’t expect it to be perfect moving down here, but, I figured, you know, gay marriage was already illegal and people wouldn’t be so invested in bothering to vote. Apparently the last time they went to the effort to amend their constitution was to ban interracial marriage. Just… ugh.

Awesome!  Thanks for this, just had a great time debating the answers with my partner!

The Globe Theatre is doing a thing this year for the Cultural Olympics where Shakespeare’s plays are being put on each in a different language (called Globe to Globe).  There’s a production that looks really neat in Te Reo Maori of Troilus and Cressida.  There’s an in depth look at the translation and staging process here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88kZQWsPazE  (in Maori and subtitled in English). There’s a short video of a practice staging here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XGld-J5rEU.

My brain can’t stop playing with all the things involved in this.  Taking a canon text, translating it to an indigenous language, setting it in an indigenous world and performing it in the rebuilt birthplace of modern English theatre.  There is also something lovely about the intimacy between translator and long-dead writer when the translator is talking about how she has “grown fond of that old Pakeha [European New Zealander]”.

I saw this on Facebook, and it really resonated with me:

The people who voted for that? They’re losing. Today they won, yes. But over the next decade or so, they will lose. And as with civil rights, when this is all over with in our lifetime, all the right-wing bigots fighting to preserve hate will deny ever having done so, and will accuse you of reverse bigotry for acknowledging it.

Cling to your fears, conservatives. I’ll cling to my loved one instead.

Basically, the bigots are losing ground, and now we just have to wait for the older of them (the ones who vote, really) to die off, and then things will change. I’m certain it’ll happen in my lifetime.

Oh, wow. Far too early for Shakespeare – I’m still on my first cup of green tea. Am rather ecstatic that our coughs/colds are at last passing. This is the second one that Juniper Junior has picked up from nursery in the past few weeks and we’ve been finding it more than a little exhausting. Modern settings, though, and Shakespeare – an ace combination indeed. My plan for this afternoon is, in fact, to watch Hamlet while I write.

One will hope that one of these links will work:

I got to see this onstage and the breathtakingness of the entire production is not conveyed well in the video (and I was lucky enough to be there for the one day the Director did a talk back before and I loved everything he interpreted). The opening scene was lit through flashlights reflecting off the highly polished floor into the other actor’s face… it was astounding. And as much as we all love David Tennant, you can’t forget Patrick Stewart in this… sublime.

I did not care for the Ophelia, though. Personal taste.

Does anyone else ever worry that they’ll never actually care for someone? Like the can’t-live-without, care-so-much-it-hurts, out of control kind of feeling?

Reason I’m asking is that I’m a very controlled person, emotionally (learned behavior), and I can’t picture myself ever getting to that point. It kind of makes me sad, like there are some feelings (even if they can turn out to be bad feelings) that I’ll never have.

There must be other people out there who are the same (I know I’m not unique), so experiences, anyone? Thoughts?

Yes.

I’m the same as you described and do often think about this. My last serious relationship I had myself convinced I was in lurve, and that I really did feel deeply about him. But when I was fine a week after he dumped me, I realized I didn’t have much of an emotional attachment to him after all.

I just started seeing someone new. I worry it will be the same.

Whoa- I’ve actually been struggling with that a lot recently. Mixed in with all sorts of emotion over deciding to postpone my wedding this summer. It amazes (okay, and disturbs me a little…) that my SO loves me so  much and is so sure about this. Meanwhile I think things like “If I get married now, there would be rough patches, but I’d be fine. And if I ended it all now and moved on, I’d be fine then, too.” I mean, I know it would hurt to completely end it, but I am not so fiercely in love as he is.

I think (and maybe these are just ways that I’ve been rationalizing my life lately) that I really hate being dependent on other people, and in the same vein I don’t trust people easily. That does not lend itself to making those strong connections. So I’ve been blaming my ridiculous independence/self-suffiency for my lack of emotional attachment. I had a friend ask (after I’d told her that) what would be so wrong with trying to give myself fully to the relationship. My immediate response (in my head) was “Why the hell should I?”. I know the answer to that one is “so I don’t keep throwing away these amazing relationships”, but really I think the reality of my initial question is far more telling.

The small, romantic part of my brain tells me that it’s just because I haven’t found the right person yet. The much more prominent rational and cynical parts of my brain tell me that kind of love doesn’t really happen. “Love” as humans describe it is a complex of pheromone interactions indicating genetic compatibility to produce the most evolutionarily fit offspring. The rest is just details.

I can join in here. I have days when I feel like I never really fell in love with my boyfriend, I just picked a compatible mate based on the fact that we have a lot of common interests and him having an agreeable personality. And he is way more emotionally invested in our relationship than I am. On one hand I really care about him, I want good things for him, and I don’t want to hurt him. On the other hand, if I had to walk away from this relationship right now, I think I would probably be ok. But he wouldn’t, and I feel kind of guilty about that. Blergh.

I have a couple thoughts on this.

The first is that the feeling you describe, the can’t-live-without feeling, while fetisized in our culture, is the temporary one you tend to see in the “honeymoon period” of the first six months or so.

The feelings that tend to actually persist are different. I mean, sure, I think in some way they could describe how I feel about my relationship. I know I would be absolutely devastated were it to end. But the portrayal of relationships, both from mass media and the pressure to conform to it, act as if the feelings you describe are simply how love has to feel, and if you feel it any differently, you obviously love less.

I don’t think that’s true.

You seem to be mostly concerned with the idea of not forming these strong attachments. I’d say this isn’t necessarily a problem. You might simply love differently than what the romantic ideal says love is.

During the earlier time with Mr. Silverwane, I was still dealing with some pretty intense depression. Even though I have very strong emotions, and I can form very strong attachments, I was not happy. I didn’t really feel any of those feelings you describe. What I did notice, though, was how I acted when I was with him. I wanted him near. I am very physical in how I show my affection, so I wanted a lot of cuddling. I remember telling him once that I didn’t really feel happy, but I knew I was happy with him because of that.

It is a very strange thing to say when contrasted with the ideals of romance we’re force-fed. I had a lot of insecurity about the relationship because of things like that. I thought I had to always feel totally in love with him, or else it was not enough.

I realize now, though, that just because I felt it differently didn’t diminish the love.

Now, it is possible that this is tied to a problem of not being able to “open up” with feelings as much. You can keep working on that. But just because you aren’t able to do this right now, or perhaps ever, doesn’t make your love any less.

My last relationship was from the other side of the fence and I can tell you it was both amazing and it was no picnic. Lasted 10 months and I was thoroughly, completely in a love-so-much-it-hurts place. Was it real? I think so. To the extent that I found many, many of the things I’d been looking for in a man for so long, finally. We were so freakin’ compatible and so very much in love. I fell hard.

So hard I chose to ignore the warning signs…the huge red banners that everyone else was warning me about. I knew they were there but the connection felt so good I made a conscious decision to ride it for as long as it would last…because it felt so incredible; that heart connection. And when it ended, like I thought it would, it was rather devastating. More than a year later and it is still not easy.

I will be fine. I will find another man who rings my bell just as well in a slightly different way – without the red banners.

Here’s the surprise – If I had it to do all over again…I would. The depth of that connection was extraordinary. I crave that depth. I want that again. And even if i never find it again…I had it once. That’s the kind of person I am – heart on my sleeve, deep feeling, emotionally oriented.

Can that type of connection last? I don’t know. Mine didn’t.

  1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet
  2. Titus Andronicus!  Julie Taymor’s movie is delightful.
  3. MacBeth
  4. The Scottish Play (I have a lot of theater friends who really do believe this curse)
  5. I think my Sherlock Holmes knowledge is lacking here, clearly, because I don’t know.
  6. I think it’s Hamlet?  I don’t watch the show, but I think I heard this.
  7. Kiss Me Kate!
  8. Falstaff.  Funny as hell.
  9. A number of them really, right?  There’s at least a couple featuring cross-dressing women, and I assume that’s what you’re referring to since the actors were all men.  Twelfth Night and As You Like It are the first that spring to mind, but I know there’s at least one or two more that feature some cross-dressing fun times.
  10. Othello.  It was that nasty Iago who said it.
  11. I…don’t actually know this one.  I’m going to guess one of the lesser-known and lesser-loved comedies/romances (maybe Love’s Labor Lost?  Measure for Measure?  The Winter’s Tale?) because I’m pretty sure the fact that I DON’T know about it narrows the list down a lot.

I know nothing. :D

In other news, I made some really freakin’ delicious cookies today.  I need to freeze some before I eat them all (nom nom nom).  They were made to celebrate my QUEEN of the UNDERWORLD status.

Just joking.  It was pure coincidence, but I’m still excited.  Goodbye CJ Cregg.  Hello Queen. I can die happy now.

I think everyone already answered the questions I can actually answer (not so many…) but I have to vent about stupid voters in my state. We ousted Richard Lugar from the US Senate today because he’s too liberal. Anyone from Indiana, or who has heard of anything Lugar has done, ever, in his entire life, is now in a dead faint.  Lugar is further Right than Reagan, Nixon and Bush the First combined. But no no, that wasn’t good enough. We had to go find someone EVEN FURTHER TO THE RIGHT.

On behalf of my fellow Hoosiers, I’m really sorry America. Hopefully he’ll get ousted in November. If I hadn’t smoked all that pot, *I’d* run against him.

  1. Name two of his works that feature a play within a play. Midsummer Night’s Dream and ??
  2. Which is considered to be the bloodiest play in the canon? Titus Andronicus
  3. Which play opens with the infamous “Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble”? MacBeth
  4. What would you call the answer to #4 if you didn’t want to invoke its curse? Scottish Play
  5. What do King Henry V and Sherlock Holmes have in common? ??
  6. Which play provides the framework for the television show Sons of Anarchy? Hamlet, I’m guessing. All I know about the show I’ve read from student papers!
  7. Which twentieth century musical gives a nod to its Shakespearean roots with the song “Brush up your Shakespeare”? ??
  8. Which character crosses over from Henry IV, parts one and two, into The Merry Wives of Windsor in the Shakespearean version of a spin-off? Falstaff!
  9. This play, when it was originally performed, would have featured a man, pretending to be a woman who is pretending to be a man, sort of like an Elizabethan Victor/Victoria. Twelfth Night! (Side note: My next dachshund will be named Viola!)
  10. For which play did Shakespeare coin the phrase “the beast with two backs”? ??
  11. And on that note, which play has a scene full of dildo humor? I’m guessing Taming of the Shrew.
  1. Name two of his works that feature a play within a play. Hamlet, Midsummer Nights Dream
  2. Which is considered to be the bloodiest play in the canon? Titus Andronicus
  3. Which play opens with the infamous “Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble”? Macbeth
  4. What would you call the answer to #4 if you didn’t want to invoke its curse? The Scottish Play
  5. What do King Henry V and Sherlock Holmes have in common? “The game is afoot!” is from one of Henry V’s monologs
  6. Which play provides the framework for the television show Sons of Anarchy? Hamlet? (I’ve seen exactly two episodes of Sons of Anarchy, so this is a guess)
  7. Which twentieth century musical gives a nod to its Shakespearean roots with the song “Brush up your Shakespeare”? ???
  8. Which character crosses over from Henry IV, parts one and two, into The Merry Wives of Windsor in the Shakespearean version of a spin-off? ???
  9. This play, when it was originally performed, would have featured a man, pretending to be a woman who is pretending to be a man, sort of like an Elizabethan Victor/Victoria. Twelfth Night
  10. For which play did Shakespeare coin the phrase “the beast with two backs”? ???
  11. And on that note, which play has a scene full of dildo humor? ???

I love Henry V. Actually the whole Battle of Agincourt is interesting to me. Fun fact, earlier in the 100 Years War, France stomped the shit out of Soissons, after reclaiming it in a siege, including massacring a bunch of English archers stationed there. The patron saints of Soissons are Crispin and Crispinian. The battle of Agincourt was on St. Crispin’s day.

  1. Hamlet, and Fucked If I Know!
  2. I’m going with Titus Andronicous
  3. Macbeth
  4. I’m going to kick myself when I see this, I know it.
  5. They’re both awesome?
And 9. Twelfth Night
And thus I have shown that while I have read a fair amount of Shakespeare, there’s a hell of a lot I haven’t read! Mostly the comedies. And the histories. But mostly the comedies.

1. Hamlet, Midsummer’s Night Dream

2. Titus Andronicus (I think)

3. Macbeth

4. “the Scottish play”

5. Dr. Watson? I have no idea…never really got into the histories!

6. Wait, what?

7. Kiss Me, Kate

8. Dr. Who!

9. Twelfth Night

10. Lol! Sex jokes! I can’t remember, but it makes me chuckle all the same. :)

11. Let’s say the “Merry Wives of Windsor” because I haven’t got the foggiest clue, and they sound like the type to joke about dildos.

 

PS. Thank you for including that clip from Renaissance Man! My dad bawls when he watches this scene, and he isn’t usually the type to cry in movies. :)

I have to confess, I’ve never seen any of the Doctor Who versions, but I was trying to pull from my wealth of time travelers so as to make sense. I should have gone with Spock or Captain Kirk as they traveled through time in Voyage Home. Going back to Doctor Who, I’ve heard the 10th doctor is a good one. Should I start with him?

Henry V -  4:3  st.crispens   I CRY LIKE A BABY EVERY freaking time.   I’m crying Now.   But I hear it in my dear friend Chris Kayser’s Voice he made me cry every night for 34 performances one summer when I thought I was a callus guy that could get caught up on what was going on onstage at the time.   But that moment got me every-night .   That and the last seen of Death of a salesman get me every time as will.

 

Sara Thank you for a Trivia Night so Close to my heart and Soul

1. Hamlet, Midsummer Night’s Dream
2. Coriolanus? or Richard III?
3. The Scottish Play (YES, I’m superstitious about it!)
4. Hah! Already answered before I saw this question
5. They’re foxy?
6. King Lear?
7. Kiss Me Kate
8. Falstaff
9. Twelfth Night
10. ?
11. Much Ado About Nothing?

BRB, giving back my theatre degree.

I know Winter’s Tale, which I think is a First Folio play (listen, Shakespearean studies was like 14 years ago for me) makes a few dildo references, but I’m not sure if that’s the answer. I only know this because my Shakespeare professor loved to call it “Dildo’s Tale.” He was a little creepy.

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