Thomas Ouphe

Speculations of Faustian bargains are not without foundation.  This is a much better play. Between Love's Labour's Lost and Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare becomes a different author.  Stories have been written about sinister supernatural pacts to grant preternatural writing talent.  Conspiracy theories have drafted in Marlow, or Spenser or Queen Elizabeth to help him out.  But, I suspect he just listened to criticism and reflected on how to improve. The best writing in Love's Labour's Lost is only as good as any given line from the first four acts of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Here we have a play worthy of Shakespeare's reputation.   Funny, well-phrased, populated with distinct and interesting characters and well-paced. At least until the last act, which I'll moan about later. Best of all, Shakespeare doesn't make a single antisemitic remark beginning to end. No sexy sheep stuff either. Instead, he fixates on how ugly he thinks Egyptians and Et...

Imagine this four times over but with letters instead of conversations and Elizabethan hygiene standards. I was quite excited to read Love's Labour's Lost, it starts really well.  The king and his three mates all swear off women for three years to pursue academic interests and higher purposes.  Oh, and the king makes it law that everyone else has to do the same for ease of plot development.  It's all going well until a princess / potential queen shows up with her exactly three friends. There's a lot of potential here, and we see an immediate step up in terms of the quality of writing.  You know those nut jobs who think all Shakespeare's plays were written by different people? Well, I almost thought they had a point for a minute.  Almost every phrase the king utters is profound and well-composed.  This can't be written by the same bloke that wrote Two Gentlemen of Verona, I erroneously posited. Then we get Costard (a clown).  Costard has already broken ...