When I was six or seven, my parents took me to Twelfth Night and As You Like It at a local outdoor Shakespeare festival. I was entranced. I saw in the program that the company was also doing Romeo & Juliet, and I wanted to see that too. My mom warned me it was sad, but I still wanted to go, and I loved it. Ever since, outdoor summer Shakespeare performances have been one of the delights of summer for me. I recently saw a truly fabulous Romeo & Juliet at the California Shakespeare Theater. It left me in tears, and it was the raw, real grief of the parents that I found so heartrending.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Shakespeare is a big influence on my writing. Charles and Mel quote Shakespeare at each other as a sort of private code. And just as a I pick composers for each book, I pick one or two Shakespeare plays that to me relate to that books themes and story arc. For Secrets of a Lady it was Measure for Measure and Troilus & Cressida, for Beneath a Silent Moon it was Hamlet.
I talked a bit more about the inspiration of Shakespeare in this video clip:
Do you like books with Shakespearean references? Writers, do you like to put Shakespearean or other literary references on your work? What other Shakespeare plays do you think would make good inspiration for Charles and Mélanie stories? Who else finds Shakespeare festivals one of the joys of summer?
This week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is a letter from Charles to David describing a real meeting at the Congress of Vienna in which Talleyrand neatly turned the tables on the victorious powers.
June 28, 2009 at 8:16 pm
What a great post, Tracey! I’m also very, very inspired by Shakespeare. My first play was “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, closely followed by “As You Like It.” I’ve been hooked ever since.
June 28, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Thanks, Amanda! I actually should have named “Midsummer Night’s Dream” as another inspiration for “Beneath a Silent Moon”–the whole lovers-changing-partners-on-a-midsummer-night-bit. In fact, I kept looking or a quote a quote from “Midsummer” or “Hamlet” for the title but couldn’t find one that worked. Both have quite a few quotes that mention the moon though, particularly “Midsummer.”
July 4, 2009 at 4:24 am
Live theater of any kind is a treat for my family. Not always but occasionally, we get down to San Diego and see one of their open-air Shakespeare productions, which are performed in the summer. I’ve seen Much Ado About Nothing, which had a post-Civil War setting, a lovely island-fantasy staging of Twelfth Night, a flawed but interesting King Lear with Hal Holbrook, an unusual Winter’s Tale with a neurotic, insecure Leontes (an off-beat but effective take on the role), and a turn-of-the-century All’s Well that Ends Well that managed to convince me that a happy ending was not completely out of reach even for Bertram and Helena. This summer the SD Old Globe is doing Twelfth Night, Henry VIII, and Cyrano de Bergerac(in lieu of a third Shakespeare play)–we might go down to see one of them, but I’m not sure which. I’ve also seen Love’s Labors Lost, courtesy of the UC Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival. So far, a trip to Ashland hasn’t been in the family budget, but maybe someday.
Since I enjoy Shakespeare, I tend to be attracted to other works influenced by his, though I might seize more eagerly upon something inspired by Much Ado, Midsummer Night’s Dream, or one of the lesser-known plays rather than another take on Romeo & Juliet. There’s this fascinating series of historical mysteries by Alan Gordon that postulates that Shakespeare’s fools were really medieval spies operating out of a secret Fools Guild. “Feste” is the hero of the series, and in the first book “Thirteenth Night,” he must return to Illyria years after the events of “Twelfth Night” to solve a murder. Good stuff.
July 4, 2009 at 7:04 am
The Old Globe is wonderful, Stephanie. San Diego has some fabulous theater. And the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival is great too. The productions you’ve seen sound fascinating. Ashland did Cyrano a couple of years ago in their outdoor theater. It was a lot of fun. They’re doing Henry VIII this year. It’ll be only the second time I’ve seen in on stage.
I’ve heard about the Alan Gordon books–they sound wonderful. Must seek them out.