Three Beautiful Things 05/15/19: Olivia Hussey and JW Booth, *Playing Shakespeare*, Ben Kingsley and Liev Schreiber

1. I just can't get enough of the podcast Shakespeare Unlimited. Today, I listened to two episodes I enjoyed a lot and that I think would be of general interest. I think of those of us in the 9th grade who went to Spokane to see Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet -- or anyone who joined the world wide love of this movie. Well, the actor who played Juliet, Olivia Hussey, is now sixty-eight years old and has lived a full life beyond the one role that made her so famous. If you'd like to hear some stories about the making of Romeo and Juliet and what is on Olivia Hussey's mind these days, just go here.

In addition, it's fascinating to learn more about the connection between the world of theater and Shakespeare and the life of John Wilkes Booth. Moreover, it's fascinating to learn more about how the complicated family dynamics of the Booth family contributed to John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Booth family story of sibling rivalry and tragedy itself is Shakespearean and you can hear all about it, right here.

2. Later on, I returned to the DVD series Playing Shakespeare and watched John Barton and Royal Shakespeare Company actors from the 1980s explore how to play irony and ambiguity and how to strike a balance between coolness and passion in playing Shakespeare's more emotional speeches and scenes. Not only do I enjoy watching these actors work things out, it's great fun seeing them play scenes and speeches from across the canon, often from plays that, over the years, I haven't paid as much attention to -- plays like King John or Coriolanus or the Henry VI series. It's also fun to see actors like Lisa Harlow, Ben Kingsley, Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, and others as young adults, seeing how they were working things out about thirty-five years ago.

3. Through the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast, I learned about a series entitled, How Shakespeare Changed My Life, available on YouTube, here. Each episode is about fifteen minutes long. This evening Iistened to Ben Kingsley and Liev Schreiber. Both took very different approaches to discussing Shakespeare's impact on them. Both have been deeply affected by the many dimensions of Shakespeare's genius. If you go to the link I posted in this paragraph, just scroll down and you'll find these and many other interviews.