{"id":11073,"date":"2024-07-24T07:26:20","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T11:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11073"},"modified":"2024-09-12T08:04:44","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T12:04:44","slug":"the-book-of-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11073","title":{"rendered":"The Book of Will"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tomorrow I\u2019ll post short reviews of two movies we recently enjoyed\u2014and you might, too!\u2014but today, for readers who live in the New York-New Jersey area, I\u2019m recommending The Book of Will<\/em> by Lauren Gunderson at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey<\/a>, on stage now through July 28. The story is clever, the acting is superb, and it\u2019s no surprise that it was beautifully directed by Bonnie J. Monte, STNJ\u2019s former Artistic Director who clearly knows exactly what she\u2019s doing. Don\u2019t miss it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story is this: A few years after Shakespeare\u2019s death, members of the King\u2019s Players lament his loss as well as the fact that poorly trained actors are using bastardized scripts to produce inferior versions of their adored plays\u2014Lear, Macbeth, As You Like It<\/em>. They recite the names in a litany of despair. Burbage says, \u201cJust because that little froth can hold a skull he thinks he can play Hamlet? My soul is written into that part, and I\u2019ll play The Prince till I die, and after that? They better use my skull for Yorick so I can spend eternity silently judging all else.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It occurs to one of them\u2014Henry Condell (played by Michael Stewart Allen)\u2014that they know the plays best and they should produce an \u201cauthoritative version.\u201d His friend John Heminges (Anthony Marble) doesn\u2019t underestimate the amount of work this will entail, but by scouring attics and drawers and lodgings of other Shakespeareans, one way or another, through one difficulty after another, they cobble together \u201cThe Book of Will.\u201d That is, the First Folio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They saved for us the Shakespeare we know to this very day. And the audience is rewarded with witty use of familiar text snippets woven throughout the script. They were heroes of the first water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brent Harris plays the very theatrical Richard Burbage and sly printer William Jaggard to perfection, though it\u2019s Jaggard\u2019s son Isaac (Isaac Hickox-Young) who repeatedly rescues the project. Pearce Bunting brings Will\u2019s old enemy Ben Jonson to disreputable life, and three women\u2014Amy Hutchins, Carolyne Leys, and Victoria Mack\u2014soften the men\u2019s sometimes disputatious tendencies, but are no softies themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every theatre-lover today owes them big time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STNJ productions are hosted at Drew University in Madison, N.J. (easily reachable from NYC by train). For tickets, call the box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the Box Office online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow I\u2019ll post short reviews of two movies we recently enjoyed\u2014and you might, too!\u2014but today, for readers who live in the New York-New Jersey area, I\u2019m recommending The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson at the Shakespeare Theatre of New … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"See this terrific play before it closes July 28. You'll be glad you did! Who saved Shakespeare for the ages? His friends and fellow-actors.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,1288,366,104,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-culture","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2SB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11075,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11073\/revisions\/11075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}